THE 3061 Introduction to London Theatre
This course is a theatre audience course and consists of theatre-going, the discussion of plays, their theoretical background, historical context, and criticism. The course aims to teach students the basic vocabulary of critical terms for thinking about plays in performance, enabling them to examine the function of all the explicitly theatrical elements of staging: scenery, acting, costume, lighting, music and sound, in addition to analysing the basic intellectual arguments of the play or performance. It also examines some of the basic economics of production in London. Throughout the course, we will have guest artists from the shows we have seen come and speak to us about their work and careers. In addition, we will make backstage visits to the National Theatre and the Globe.
TPP 4113 Acting III: Shakespeare
Many of Shakespeare’s plays were inspired by the London he lived in, its buildings, its people and its class system. This course is a chance to perform Shakespeare in context. The course will begin with ensemble work, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and rhythm. Students will then develop practical strategies for working on Shakespeare’s text, using the clues he put in for his actors, actively analysing the physical dynamic and muscle of the language and how it supports sense and development of character. We will work on small group scenes and duologues, exploring the narrative drive of the scenes, as well as their staging in the original conditions of the Playhouses. As we research the History plays we will retrace Shakespeare’s footsteps and visit The Tower of London, bringing scenes from the plays back to their real-life setting.
TPP 4403 Devised Theatre
This course is a practical course in theatre making. Students will devise and perform their own work. By the end of the course, we aim to have a handful of considered theatre pieces - rewritten and rehearsed - between 10 and 30 minutes long to present to the class. During the semester we will conduct our work from the perspective of theatre-makers as opposed to simply that of performers. Through exercises, improvisations, and finally rehearsals, we will uncover new and exciting dramatic material, but our emphasis is decidedly on the process. We will revisit the fundamentals of storytelling on stage using a few basic tools - situation, space, action - and will begin to build a shared set of references and a shared language. The second half of the course is given entirely to the development of our own work. We will work individually and focus on memory as a source material and improvisation as a means to develop it.
TPP 4531 Stage Combat
Stage Combat is a necessary part of an actors training. Armed and unarmed fighting are an integral part of most modern and classic plays. Modern films require actors to perform fights that are repeatable and safe so each take can be planned, while theatrical combat must be performed safely and effectively eight times per week in front of a paying audience. This course focuses on creating the illusion of violence for Stage and Screen. A basic Introduction is given to Rapier and Dagger, Single Sword and Unarmed Combat. Students will be trained in these weapons systems, and then taught a piece of choreography that involves all three disciplines; choosing with their partner, a piece of published text to insert into the choreographed fight. They will rehearse this fight as a scene and finally perform it in front of a BADC (British Academy of Dramatic Combat) examiner in order to gain their certificate.
TPP 3510 Movement: Physical Theatre.
This course begins by asking what makes a performer watchable. It focuses and develops the key concepts of presence, the dynamics of play and mask work. The aim throughout is to enable students to find a greater presence when playing, through communication between participants, and an understanding of the levels of dramatic tension. Later in the semester, we will explore mask work and in particular the half mask. These types of masks are a wonderful vehicle for actor training because of what they demand of the wearer. To make a half mask work you need to find a good character voice. It demands that the wearer finds a sense of their own physicality and it demands that they have fun and play with imagination and intensity. Wearers can experience a wonderful sense of freedom and playfulness in a mask that can help them in all areas of their practical work.
TPP 4600 Fundamentals of Playwriting
This class is a practical exploration of the craft of writing for the stage. It emphasizes form and the mastery of form in order to empower the writer to turn imagination into a unique and satisfying work to present to an audience. Students are required to write their own short dramas and to learn the discipline of rewriting. The first half of the course is dedicated to defining, discussing and exploring the playwright’s tools - an understanding of space, the actor, the story and the unique properties of live performance. We will examine in detail the principles of dramatic storytelling: structure, the management of time and space, character, subtext, scene construction, etc. We will also look briefly at where ideas come from and the ways writers learn to develop them, at different kinds of writer, at what writers call research, and finding a voice. The second half of the class is a writing workshop. Students will have their scenes read aloud in class, and participate in the feedback process by which a writer grows to better understand their own work and that of others.
TPP 4404 Scene Study
This is a practical acting course. It focuses on understanding and working on a dramatic text from the actor’s perspective. We will explore traditional and contemporary approaches to text-based acting. It includes class sessions on how to use the body and the space to tell the story, how to work with objectives and actions, how to read the scene for structure, how to scan the play for facts that help actors build the world of the character, how to work with imagery, how to handle props, how to prepare at home. There will also be sessions focusing on how to learn lines (some ways work better than others but all ways generally require a lot of work!), how to become more comfortable with risk taking, and crucially, how we learn about ourselves in the process and how we work with others - the inner blocks and resistances we come up against in the rehearsal room.
THE 4935 Diverse Voices
Diverse Voices will explore three distinct but interconnected and emotive subject matters: racism, sexuality, and gender. Students will explore oppression and internalised oppression, diverse gender identity types, sexual feelings, thoughts, attractions and behaviours towards others through the creation of original performance pieces, based loosely on exploration of related themes from plays: Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, Top Girls by Caryl Churchill and Angels in America by Tony Kushner. Students will spend the remaining sessions focusing on small group scenes and duologues. These scenes will be presented as final performance pieces over the duration of three sessions towards the end of the six-week course. Students will keep a journal throughout the course and within both individual tutorials and in regular group discussion sharing, summing up their learning experiences in retrospect.
TPP 4935 Acting Styles: High Comedy
High Comedy refers to comic dramas which satirize the manners and affectations of polite society. These dramas feature witty dialogue, biting humour and intricate plots. In England some of the best examples come from the period of the Restoration of Charles II but later examples include the works of Shaw, Wilde and Coward. We will explore the main elements of the form, including irony, paradox, satire and the concept of psychic mask where characters use language as a way to hide feelings. Technical exercises using the consonants and vowels in the plays we study are vital in a form where language is used as a weapon and in a more heightened way than nowadays. We will pay particular attention to the long thought in Restoration dialogue, in which the thought is carried through to end of line, and which requires excellent breath control. We will consider Truth in Comedy and how the concept of high stakes is integral to the humour of the form. The exploration and practical exercise of this singular form, combined with its inherent flamboyance of language, widens the imagination and capacity of the actor, illuminating works as divergent as the plays of Ibsen and Pinter.
TPP 4712 Voice
The course is designed to teach the fundamentals of the voice and the spoken word for performance. It teaches the craft of connecting the body breath and voice without restrictive habits or tension. Students will gain in-depth knowledge of how the voice works, learning and working through exercises to establish a reliable vocal technique.
It will address what it is to be fully present using Patsy Rodenburg’s three circles of concentration and to understand that this energy is at the core to embodying our own presence and power. They will learn to engage with language with an ever increasing readiness to speak, owning the words and connecting the breath to the thought and the thought to the word simultaneously.
The student will work on various poetic and dramatic texts during the course. The texts will be chosen by the tutor.