Theater and Performance Studies < University of Chicago Catalog

Department Website: http://taps.uchicago.edu

Program of Study

Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) seeks to animate the intersection of theory and practice in the arts. The program is comparative in multiple ways, requiring its students to acquire facility in the practice of two media (e.g., theater, film, video, dance, music, creative writing) while gaining fluency in the critical analysis of those media. To this end, students receive training in both performance practice and analysis, acquiring the fundamental tools for artistic creation while developing a nuanced and sophisticated vocabulary with which to analyze creativity. In this way, the program aims to contest the ready separation of academic theory and artistic practice or, for that matter, theorists and practitioners.

The program is designed to be flexible (to afford students as much latitude as possible in pursuing their particular interests) and exacting (to guarantee the development of comparative practical skills and rigorous analytic capacities). Students should work closely with the Director of Undergraduate Studies and with the preceptor assigned to the program in order to shape an individual course of study that reflects the student's interests while fulfilling the program's interdisciplinary and comparative requirements. The student's faculty adviser on the BA project (see below) will provide additional direction during the senior year.

Students in other fields of study may also complete a minor in TAPS. Information follows the description of the major.

Program Requirements

Students in the TAPS program must meet the following requirements:

Six courses in theory and analysis, encompassing the history, theory, aesthetics, and analysis of theatrical and/or performance practice. These courses in the theory and analysis rubric may be selected from the TAPS course offerings listed below or from related course offerings in the College. Ideally, at least four of these courses will be taken from members of the faculty or resource faculty in TAPS. Course selection is subject to the approval of the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Six courses in artistic practice. Of these, no more than four will include the student's primary medium; at least two will include a qualitatively different medium. Many of these courses will be found in the practical course offerings of TAPS listed below, as well as the course offerings in the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, the Committee on Creative Writing, the Department of Visual Arts, and the Department of Music, among others. Students may need to supplement these course offerings with individually designed "reading" courses. Here, too, the student undertakes course selection in consultation with, and subject to the approval of, the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
One course (TAPS 29800 Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium) devoted to the preparation of the BA project to be taken in the student's fourth year.

BA Project

As the culmination of an undergraduate program combining aesthetic theory and practice, BA projects in Theater and Performance Studies will encompass both performance of an original work (e.g., staged reading, site-specific installation, solo performance, choreography) and analysis (e.g., BA paper).

The first step in the BA process takes the form of a critical paper which serves as the foundation for the final BA paper. Students complete a documentation of the performance including a theoretical component. The length of the critical paper varies (i.e., dance may be fewer pages than a full length play).

BA project proposals are developed by the student in consultation with the Director of Undergraduate Studies, subject to the approval of the Chair of Theater and Performance Studies, and supervised by a faculty member. Selecting a BA project adviser from the core and resource faculty in TAPS is encouraged but not required.

A preceptor (typically a lecturer with professional experience) assigned to the program will serve as a supplementary adviser for all BA projects, working with students on the mechanics of writing and providing tutorial assistance.

The problems addressed and encountered in the BA project will be further explored in the TAPS 29800 Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium taken during the student's fourth year. TAPS 29800 extends over two quarters; students receive one course credit and one grade. Deadlines for the BA project, assuming spring graduation date, are as follows: a completed draft of the creative project by the end of Winter Quarter; the final draft by Friday of fifth week in Spring Quarter for honors consideration and by Friday of eighth week in Spring Quarter for graduation.

The Chair of TAPS and the Director of Undergraduate Studies will jointly coordinate the evaluation of BA projects as a final degree requirement, in consultation with the faculty adviser and preceptor assigned to each case, and will report recommendations to the Associate Dean and Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division as to any recommendation concerning honors.

Summary of Requirements

Six theory and analysis courses		600
Six artistic practice courses		600
TAPS 29800	Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium	100
Total Units		1300

Application

Students wishing to enter the program should consult with the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Spring Quarter of their first year or as soon as possible thereafter. Students apply to the program by the beginning of Spring Quarter of their second year or, in extraordinary circumstances, no later than the end of Autumn Quarter of their third year. Participation in the program must be approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies before declaring the major. TAPS majors will be added to the TAPS listhost.

Grading

All courses in the major must be taken for a quality grade.

Honors

Eligibility for honors requires an overall cumulative GPA of 3.25 or higher, a GPA of 3.5 or higher in the courses taken for the Theater and Performance Studies major, and a BA project that is judged by the first and second readers to display exceptional intellectual and creative merit.

Minor Program in Theater and Performance Studies

Students who elect the minor program must meet with the Director of Undergraduate Studies before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor. Students must obtain written approval for the minor program from the undergraduate adviser and submit it to their College adviser by the deadline on the form obtained from the undergraduate adviser.

The TAPS minor requires a total of six courses plus a public performance of original work (e.g., staged reading, site specific installation, solo performance piece, choreography). At least two of the required courses must be advanced-level TAPS courses (i.e., 20000-level or higher). The remaining required courses must bear a clear and coherent relationship specifically related to the intended creative work component of the TAPS minor. At least one of these courses must encompass critical theory and analysis.

In addition, each student must register for TAPS 29800 Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium to develop his or her critical analysis and resulting creative work. The focus of this course will be on a public performance of the student's TAPS minor project, as described above, to be presented by the fifth week of the quarter in which the student intends to graduate. Each student must also submit a statement of critical methods (a critical analysis accompaniment to the public performance). This statement will be a supplement to the creative work, not a paper equal to it as is required for the major. The participation demanded for the minor will not be as extensive as for the major, and will be calibrated accordingly over the two-quarter period.

Courses in the minor (1) may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for a quality grade, and more than half of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers.

Summary of Requirements for the Minor Program

Two 20000-level or higher TAPS courses		200
One critical theory course with specific relevance to the TAPS BA project (e.g., History and Theory of Drama, Visual Theory, Film Theory)		100
Two arts electives (e.g., ARTV, CMST, MUSI, TAPS)		200
TAPS 29800	Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium	100
A public performance of the creative component by fifth week of the graduating quarter
Statement of critical methods (a critical analysis accompaniment to the public performance)
Total Units		600

Approved Courses from Outside TAPS

Students may use most courses offered by Cinema and Media Studies, Creative Writing, Music, and Visual Arts to count toward the TAPS major. Students are encouraged to consult with the TAPS administrator or the Director of Undergraduate Studies for clarification as needed. Courses from outside those departments may also be appropriate, but students must receive prior consent from the TAPS administrator.

Courses

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment and Transformation. 100 Units.

Students examine the performance and the aesthetics of two dramatic works in contrasting styles but with unifying themes. The goal of this course is to develop an appreciation and understanding of a variety of techniques and of the processes by which they are theatrically realized. Rather than focus on the dramatic text itself, we concentrate on the piece in performance, including the impact of cultural context on interpretation. To achieve this, students are required to act, direct, and design during the course.

Instructor(s): D. New, P. Pascoe, S.Bockley, M. Gawyrk, S. Murray Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. At least three sections are offered per quarter, with class limited to twenty students. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals. 100 Units.

This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study.

Instructor(s): D. New, P. Pascoe, C. Sullivan, H.Kays Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory; prior theater or acting training not required. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

TAPS 10300 through 10699. Text and Performance. Experience in dramatic analysis or performance not required. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. Each of these courses meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Workshops in dramatic technique and attendance at performances at Chicago theaters, in addition to class time, are required.

TAPS 10300	Text and Performance	100
TAPS 10500	Staging Terror	100
TAPS 10600	Staging Desire	100

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 100 Units.

Many contemporary plays purposely eschew traditional forms of realistic staging, yet most contemporary theater makers are only trained to execute traditional, realistic scenes. This course is a reading of several plays and essays to learn to look at a play with an adaptable, creative mind. We develop tools that draw from contemporary theorists and non-realistic theorists of the past. The goal is to provide students with a wide theatrical vocabulary with which to approach these contemporary plays with ideas that they may not have witnessed before.

Instructor(s): H. Coleman, D. Levin, L. Kruger, P. Pascoe, S.Bockley Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. Experience in dramatic analysis or performance not required. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

TAPS 10500. Staging Terror. 100 Units.

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. This course explores the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include Grand Guignol, Shakespeare, Gothic novels, and horror films.

Instructor(s): H. Coleman Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at the first class is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

TAPS 10600. Staging Desire. 100 Units.

Experience in dramatic analysis or performance not required. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

Instructor(s): H. Coleman Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. Course offered in alternate years. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design. 100 Units.

Course explores the application of the visual and aural arts to the varied forms of design for the stage (i.e., scenic, lighting, costume, sound). We pay particular attention to the development of a cogent and well-reasoned analysis of text and an articulate use of the elements of design through a set of guided practical projects.

Instructor(s): M. Gawryk, J. Wardell Terms Offered: Autumn, Spring
Note(s): Lab fee is required. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.

TAPS 15000. Beginning Playwrighting. 100 Units.

This course is a writing workshop introducing students to the art of play-writing. The workshop introduces a range of strategies for writing dramatic text, with a special focus on the playwright as collaborator, use of source materials and found text, and the writer’s relationship to practices of staging and styles of performance. Students read several contemporary and classic plays from a range of styles to develop a play-writing vocabulary that includes the concepts of character, dramatic action, voice and mise-en-scene. Students write three complete scenes in contrasting styles over the course of the quarter and engage in active discussion of the writing presented by their colleagues during each workshop session. Writers are required to complete weekly exercises and post responses to the reading list on a class website.

Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting. 100 Units.

This course introduces the basic elements of a literate screenplay, including format, exposition, characterization, dialog, voice-over, adaptation, and the vagaries of the three-act structure. Weekly meetings include a brief lecture period, screenings of scenes from selected films, extended discussion, and assorted readings of class assignments. Because this is primarily a writing class, students write a four- to five-page weekly assignment related to the script topic of the week.

Instructor(s): J. Petrakis Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter

TAPS 18600. Introduction to Puppetry. 100 Units.

This course explores the basic history and theory of puppetry as a performance art (both Eastern and Western traditions). Lectures are included, but our focus is on construction and performance techniques of basic puppet forms (e.g., hand, shadow, rod, bunraku styles).

Instructor(s): J. Wardell Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 20100. Twentieth-Century American Drama. 100 Units.

Beginning with O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night through the American avant-garde to the most recent production on Broadway, this course focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant impact with regard to dramatic form in context to specific decade as well as cumulatively through the twentieth century. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards production possibilities, both historically and hypothetically.

Instructor(s): H. Coleman Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop. 100 Units.

This advanced acting course will prep you for the professional industry. The classes are based on the Meisner Technique and the Black Box Acting Studio Method. You will work on technique, auditions, and learn to consistently bring your full self to the table.

Instructor(s): A. Francis Terms Offered: Winter, Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 22100. Solo Performance. 100 Units.

This goal of this course is to develop solo work and investigate the unique performer-to-audience dynamic of solo performance and its particular challenges and power. This experience offers insight into the collaborative process and develops the ability to evaluate work from an interior and an exterior perspective, through independent as well as group work. Inspired by Oulipian constraint-based exercises, students generate new works through in-class and take-home assignments. Sources include journals, personal research, improvisation, the use of multi-media, and viewpoints. The course culminates in a performance of solo works for UT Day.

Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. Prior solo work not required.

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing. 100 Units.

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts using three different approaches to play analysis (Aristotle, Stanislavski, Ball) students begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The culmination is a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the entire course.

Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 23100. Advanced Directing. 100 Units.

This course introduces students to fundamental skills of directing for the stage, from first contact with the script to final performance. After a preliminary examination of directing theory, the course provides practical experience in script analysis, composition work, blocking, and the rehearsal process. Students are expected to prepare a minimum of three assigned scenes ranging in style (e.g., Williams, Brecht, Shakespeare) with actors outside of class for critique, with final scenes performed publicly during tenth week.

Instructor(s): Staff Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): TAPS 23000
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 23500. Aerial and Circus with Actors Gymnasium. 100 Units.

Students gain an introduction to aerial and circus arts, developing a basic skill set while increasing their strength and flexibility. Skills covered in class may include: trapeze, silks, lyra, unicycling, juggling, tightrope, tumbling, and acro. While no acrobatic experience is necessary to enroll in this class, it is recommended that participants be in good physical health. Students should wear comfortable clothes to class, being aware that they will be, at times, upside down.

Instructor(s): Actor's Gymnasium Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 23600. Improv and Sketch. 100. Units.

This class will explore the many different schools of thought in the Chicago improv comedy community, including but not limited to The Second City, iO, and The Annoyance. Organic discovery and plot will be highlighted within scenework as well as the group dynamic, with comedy as the result. Come ready to play and play hard.

Instructor(s): S. Messing Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 23700. Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage. 100 Units.

This course employs collaboration among the students to help each individual writer create natural dialogue for the stage. Students will utilize improvisation to write a contemporary scene focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication. Through these improvisations, the students create a framework for their narrative with a special focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explore the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write two complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates.

Instructor(s): E. Linder Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 23800. Playwriting: Writing Utilizing Improvisation. 100 Units.

This course incorporates the spontaneity and freedom allowed by improvisation into the writing process. In addition to focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication, the class will also learn to write for individual performers and ensembles. Through these improvisations, the students focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explores the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates.

Instructor(s): E. Linder Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory

TAPS 23900. Playwriting: Sketch to Play. 100 Units.

This course follows a story from outline to sketch to short play. Using improvisation with their fellow classmates, writers will create sketches that will be the foundation for a short play. These improvisations will help each writer learn more about the characters they are writing, helping a stock character in a sketch grow to a fully dimensional character for their short play. Classes will include roundtable discussions and active improvisation with their classmates. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete sketches and one short play that will receive a reading by their classmates.

Instructor(s): E. Linder Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class is mandatory.

TAPS 24000. Director/Designer Collaboration. 100 Units.

The concept phase of the shared creative process in theater requires clarity of vision and impulse to dream while negotiating the realities of budget and space. With students in the roles of director and designer, this class tackles the pre-production period from initial concept meetings to design presentations for rehearsal. Students develop vocabulary that fully expresses the director's vision and simultaneously provides creative room for the designer.

Instructor(s): H. Coleman, J. Wardell, M. Gawryk Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 24500. Chicago Theater: Budgets and Buildings. 100 Units.

This course examines the current state of Chicago theater, focusing on the relationships between facilities, budgets, and missions. Field trips required to venues including Side Project, Timeline, Raven, Steppenwolf, Theater Building, and Greenhouse.

Instructor(s): H. Coleman Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 25200. Neo-Futurists Performance Workshop. 100 Units.

This course is a hands-on introduction to Neo-Futurism: a method of transforming your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences into creative, task-oriented, audience-participatory, non-illusory, unique theatrical events. Students are encouraged to find their own voice as fully rounded theater artists by writing, directing, and performing their own short performances using their own lives as source material. By pursuing the goal of absolute truth on stage, we focus on an alternative to narrative Realism by embracing such elements as deconstruction, found-text, collage, abstraction, sythesis, and chaos. Classes consist of original group exercises as well as presentations of weekly performance assignments.

Instructor(s): G. Allen Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 25500. Advanced Screenwriting. 100 Units.

This course requires students to complete the first draft of a feature-length screenplay (at least ninety pages in length), based on an original idea brought to the first or second class. No adaptations or partially completed scripts are allowed. Weekly class sessions include reading of script pages and critique by classmates and instructor.

Instructor(s): J. Petrakis Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): TAPS 15500, and consent of instructor based on fifteen-page writing sample in screenplay format.
Note(s): Class limited to eight students.
Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 27103

TAPS 26000. Modern Dance. 100 Units.

The revolutionary ideas behind modern dance created perceptual shifts in how dance performance and the body itself were viewed. In this course, students learn physical skills specific to modern dance technique through the perspective of the artists who originated these ideas. Students physically embody the history of modern dance, perceiving how technique and the body became an agent of both aesthetic and cultural transformation. Major artists include Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, and the Judson Church artists, as well as such contemporary artists as Twyla Tharp and Mark Morris.

Instructor(s): J. Rhoads Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 26100. Dance Composition. 100 Units.

When does movement become text? How do bodies combine with time, space, and energy to communicate ideas? In this workshop-formatted course, we explore these questions as we study and create dance. Students develop improvisational skills by exploring the dance principles of space, time, dynamics, and the process of abstraction. Through physical exercises, discussions, and readings, students learn how to initiate and develop movement ideas. Major dance works from many styles (e.g., ballet, modern, avant-garde) are viewed and analyzed, as students develop an understanding of choreographic forms. Students also develop a proficiency in the areas of observation and constructive criticism. The course culminates with a choreographic project.

Instructor(s): J. Rhoads Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 27100. Scene Painting. 100 Units.

This course is designed to introduce students to the theatrical art of scenic painting for the stage and film. A scenic artist is the hand of the theatrical designer, translating the small scale of the designer’s rendering into full size theatrical environments. In this course, students will explore the unique tools and techniques used by scenic artists to create scenery. The end result of this class will be a basic mastery of painting “faux” surfaces and an understanding of how a scenic artist transforms the designer’s ideas into realized pieces of theatrical art.

Instructor(s): J. Wardell Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance for first class meeting is mandatory. This course is offered in alternate years.

TAPS 27550. Costume Design and Technology for the Stage. 100 Units.

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of theatrical rendering and sketching, as well as the implementation of the design and basic sewing techniques. Students will learn to adopt a vocabulary using the elements and principles of design, understand and experience the process intrinsic to producing costumes for the theater, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production.

Instructor(s): N. Rohrer Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Attendance at the first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 27800. Story through Music and Sound. 100 Units.

This course will explore ways in which music and sound can be used to tell and support a story in the theater. We will examine how in the simplest moment to the more layered and complex, music and sound are used to create time, place, or emotional context. We will analyze the connections of plot, dialogue, music, and sound in the theater. We will also be learning the basics of Pro Tools and sound system design enabling us to create our own audio productions interacting with live performance.

Instructor(s): R. Bodeen, M. Milburn Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 27900. Shopcraft: Methods and Materials. 100 Units.

Designed as a complementary course to the DOVA sculpture sequence, Shopcraft explores the tools and techniques available to students in the wood shop. Topics covered include shop safety; the properties of woods; the planning and material selection process for sculpture, furniture, and other woodworking applications; the care and use of hand tools; and interpreting and creating scale drawings and conceptual plans. A series of small projects designed to challenge and expand students' design, drafting, and woodworking skills are assigned. In addition, students are invited to incorporate projects from sculpture classes or their individual studio practice into the course.

Instructor(s): D. Wolf Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24550,ARTV 34550

TAPS 28000. Scenic Design. 100 Units.

This course is an exploration of various forms and processes of designing sets for theatrical performance. We pay particular attention to a cohesive reading of a text, contextual and historical exploration, and visual and thematic research, as well as the documentation needed to complete a show (e.g., model, drafting, paint elevations). We also explore, nominally, the history of stage design and look at major trends in modern stage design.

Instructor(s): J. Wardell Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): TAPS 10700 or consent of instructor required; previous experience in stage design or visual art recommended.
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage. 100 Units.

This course places equal emphasis on the theory and practice of modern stage lighting. Students learn the mechanical properties of lighting equipment; how to create, read, and execute a lighting plot; the functions of lighting in a theatrical context; color and design theory; and how to read a text as a lighting designer.

Instructor(s): M. Gawryk Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 28200. Onstage Presence. 100 Units.

The relationship to ones partners is the single most predictably generative asset we have on stage. How can we use this reliable relationship to create work that is truthful and grounded in the real, so that we can forge experience with audiences rather than asking them to "suspend disbelief." In this class we will explore action and liveness in theater performance and creation. At the very core of the theatrical act is the live interaction between the actor and her/his partners. We will look at improvisation, action art, and 500 Clown technique as ways of finding ourselves present on stage. There will be writing (creative and papers) and reading (you know...books), but this class is mostly a time to acquire knowledge with the body. We will be stretching physically and emotionally each class period. Journaling will be required, as will clothes that allow for free movement with no flashiness or logos. (Burlap sack not required). Performance experience not required. If you're not interested in performance though, why are still reading this? 500 Clown is a Clown-theater company founded in 1999. The core members of which have developed a way of teaching performance which produces visceral and accessible theater. Adrian Danzig is the founding Artistic Director of 500 Clown.

Instructor(s): A. Danzig Terms Offered: Winter

TAPS 28400. History and Theory of Drama I. 100 Units.

The course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, classical Sanskrit theater, medieval religious drama, Japanese Noh drama, Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Molière, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Sir Philip Sidney, Corneille, and others. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the course. The goal of these scenes is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. (D)

Instructor(s): D. Bevington Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Preference given to students with third- or fourth-year standing.
Note(s): May be taken in sequence with ENGL 13900/31100 or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 13800,CLAS 31200,CLCV 21200,CMLT 20500,CMLT 30500,ENGL 31000

TAPS 28401. History and Theory of Drama II. 100 Units.

This course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in Western drama from the eighteenth century into the twentieth (i.e., Sheridan, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Wilde, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard, Churchill, Kushner). Attention is also paid to theorists of the drama (e.g., Stanislavsky, Artaud, Grotowski). Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the course. The goal of these scenes is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended. (D)

Instructor(s): D. Bevington Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Third- or fourth-year standing
Note(s): May be taken in sequence with ENGL 13800/31000 or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 13900,CMLT 20600,CMLT 30600,ENGL 31100

TAPS 28414. Writing for Performance. 100 Units.

This course is an exploration of select texts for performance written by performance artists primarily but not entirely operating within the context of art. Via historical context and literary technique, students read, discuss, and analyze texts by various authors spanning the history of performance art: Hugo Ball, John Cage, Richard Foreman, Carolee Schneeman, Joseph Beuys, Karen Finley, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, John Leguizamo, and create and perform their own writing. Field trips and attendance at first class are required.

Instructor(s): W. Pope.L Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24301,ARTV 34301

TAPS 28417. Munich-Chicago Performance Laboratory: Jephta's Daughter. 100 Units.

In July 2015, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich will present the world premiere of a piece tentatively titled Jephta's Daughter, to be directed by Saar Magal (choreographer and director, Tel Aviv) and conceived by Magal in collaboration with University of Chicago professor David Levin. Magal and Levin will offer a laboratory course in which to prepare the piece. As presently conceived, the piece will combine theater, dance, oratorio, film, contemporary composition, and a variety of contemporary performance idioms to adapt and interrogate the story of Jephta's daughter (in the Book of Judges, from which the story is adapted, she remains nameless). We are hoping to attract students keen to explore a broad cross-section of materials through seminar-style discussion and experimentation on stage. (We will work through biblical criticism, films like Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (2013) or Ulrich Seidl's Paradise: Love-Faith-Hope, operas like Mozart's Idomeneo, oratorios like Handel's Jephta and Carissimi's Jephta, and a range of critical theory, including Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred and Derek Hughes's Culture and Sacrifice). Stage work will encompass improvisational, physical, and text-based work. Students with an interest in any of the following are especially welcome: adaptation, theater practice, performance theory, dramaturgy, design, and/or editing.

Instructor(s): David Levin, Saar Magal Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduate students require consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 28914,GRMN 38914,JWSC 28914,MUSI 28914,MUSI 38914,RLIT 38914,RLST 28914

TAPS 28429. Improvisational Dramaturgy. 100 Units.

Team-taught by Catherine Sullivan and visiting composers Sean Griffin and George Lewis, Improvisational Dramaturgy explores interdisciplinary and improvisational strategies for performance. Course work will be integrated with the development of a staging of an operatic composition by Lewis. Tentatively titled "Afterword," the piece explores the ecology of Lewis's 2008 award-winning book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The A.A.C.M. and American Experimental Music. Issues of public assembly, spatial language, music as social text, documentation, collaboration, and the dynamics of improvisation will be explored in theory, history, and practice. The class will work as an ensemble, contributing original material and working with various groups both on and off campus. Students working in all disciplines are welcome. This course is sponsored by a Mellon Fellowship for Arts Practice and Scholarship at the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry.

Instructor(s): C. Sullivan, S. Griffin, G. Lewis Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23833,ARTV 33833,CRES 23833,CRES 38333,MUSI 26114,MUSI 38214

TAPS 28438. Before and After Beckett: Theater and Theory. 100 Units.

Beckett is conventionally typed as the playwright of minimalist scenes of unremitting bleakness but his experiments with theatre and film echo the irreverent play of popular culture (vaudeville on stage and screen, e.g., Chaplin and Keaton) as well as the artistic avant garde (Jarry). This course will juxtapose these early 20th century models with Beckett’s plays on stage and screen and those of his contemporaries (Ionesco, Genet, Duras). Contemporary texts include Vinaver, Minyana, in French, Pinter, Churchill, Kane in English. Theorists include Barthes, Badiou, Bert States, and others. Comparative Literature students will have the opportunity to read French originals. (D, G, H)

Instructor(s): L. Kruger Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): PQ: HUM and TAPS course; this course is for juniors and seniors only; not open to first-year College students
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 24408,CMLT 24408

TAPS 28442. Thinking Tragedy: Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie. 100 Units.

The Focus of this seminar exploring (German) theories of tragedy will be Friedrich Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. In order to understand better this work’s iconoclasm we will first survey some of the more seminal theorizations of the tragic genre starting with Aristotle but concentrating on the contributions of German idealist philosophers and thinkers such as Schiller, Hegel, and Schelling, before we then turn to a close critical reading of Nietzsche’s text. Readings and discussions in English.

Instructor(s): C. Wild Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 25202,GRMN 28714

TAPS 28443. Multiples in Wood and Metal. 100 Units.

This class aims to problematize both computerized and manual approaches to reproduction in wood and metal. Through discussion and project development, we will find productive space to employ hybrid processes, while maintaining critical inquiry into the meaning and conceptual avenues they create. We will focus on the following prototyping equipment: CNC, Laser Cutter, and 3-D printer. Additionally, welding and woodworking are major components to this class. It is not required that you have previous experience working with either of these materials, just fortitude and enthusiasm to learn about them.

Instructor(s): H. Givler Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24552,ARTV 34552

TAPS 28444. Visual Language: On Images. 100 Units.

Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, illusion, analogy, metaphor, time and memory, nature and culture, abstraction, the role of the author, and universal systems can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Note(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, and 10300 may be taken in sequence or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Previous experience in media-based studio courses not accepted as a substitute for this course.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 10100

TAPS 28445. Visual Language: On Objects. 100 Units.

Through studio work and critical discussions on 3D form, this course is intended to reveal the conventions of sculpture while investigating its modes of production. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, platonic form, analogy, metaphor, verisimilitude, abstraction, nature and culture, and the body politic can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

TAPS 28448. Introduction to Sculpture. 100 Units.

This course introduces the technical fundamentals of sculptural practice. Using basic introductions to welding, basic woodworking and metal fabrication students will undertake assignments designed to deploy these new skills conceptually in their projects. Lectures and reading introduce the technical focus of the class in various historical, social and economic contexts. Discussions and gallery visits help engender an understanding of sculpture within a larger societal and historical context.�

Instructor(s): G. Oppenheimer Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22200,ARTV 32000

TAPS 28452. Media Ecology: Embodiment and Software. 100 Units.

Media ecology examines how the structure and content of our media environments—online and offline, in words, images, sounds, and textures—affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; or alternatively, media ecology investigates the massive and dynamic interrelation of processes and objects, beings and things, patterns and matter. At stake are issues about agency—human or material—and about determinism—how does society or culture interact with or shape its technologies, or vice versa? This course investigates theories of media ecology by exploring systems of meanings that humans embody (cultural, social, ecological) in conjunction with the emerging field of software studies about the cultural, political, social, and aesthetic impacts of software (e.g., code, interaction, interface). In our actual and virtual environments, how do we understand performing our multiple human embodiments in relation to other bodies (organism or machine) in pursuit of social or political goals?

Instructor(s): M. Browning Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HUMA 25202,HIPS 25203,LLSO 27801,CMST 25204

TAPS 28454. History of Chinese Theater. 100 Units.

This course covers the history of Chinese theater from its emergence as a full-fledged art form in the 10th to 11th centuries (the Northern Song) up through its incorporation into modern urban life and nationalist discourse in the first decades of the 20th century (the Republican period). In addition to reading selections from masterpieces of Chinese dramatic literature such as Orphan of Zhao, Romance of the Western Chamber, and The Peony Pavilion, we will pay particular attention to the different types of venues, occasions, and performance practices associated with different genres of opera at different moments in time. A central theme will be the changing status of the entertainer and the cultural meanings assigned to acting. All texts to be read in English translation.

Instructor(s): J. Zeitlin Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): An additional graduate session may be offered weekly or biweekly if there is sufficient demand.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 19909

TAPS 28472. Iphigenia: Text, Dramaturgy, and Performance. 100 Units.

What is the relation between script and performance, between academia and theater production, and between the Classics and the present? The course is an investigation of these questions, using Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis and Court Theatre’s concomitant production of it as a case study. It has three foci: First, we will look at the complex history of transmission and reception of Euripides’ text, from antiquity through modern to postmodern adaptations (including Racine, Gluck, Svich, and Teevan). Second, we will explore the development of the role of dramaturg from when it was first coined by Lessing in 1767 to present-day literary managers. Third, we will follow closely the Court production, observing rehearsals and engaging in conversation with Charles Newell (director) and Nicholas Rudall (translator). Through all this we will ask ourselves, what is the role of the scholar of Classics for contemporary culture and society? Why and how are the Classics still relevant for us?

Instructor(s): A. Akavia Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLCV 27514

28500-29600. Advanced Topics in Theater. PQ: Advanced experience in theater and consent of instructor. These courses are designed for students wishing to pursue advanced study in a specific field of theater/performance. Intensive study and reading is expected. Attendance at performances and labs required. Interested students should contact the TAPS office.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting. 100 Units.