Professors Andrucki, Chair, and Kuritz; Associate Professor Nero; Assistant Professors Seeling and Kelley-Romano; Ms. Plavin, Mr. Pope.L, Ms. Vecsey, Mr. Brito, Ms. Weber, Mr. Reidy, and Ms. Hicks

Theater

The major in theater combines the study of dramatic literature from the Greeks to the present with work in acting, directing, dance, and design. Students thus acquire skills in production and performance while learning the history and literature of one of the world's major forms of artistic expression. Majors are prepared for graduate work in the humanities or for further professional training in theater. The theater major is also a valuable asset for a wide variety of careers—such as business, law, or teaching—requiring collaborative effort, public poise, imagination, and a broad background in the liberal arts.

In addition to its academic work, the department annually produces more than a dozen plays, dance concerts, and other performance events in its three theatres. These require the participation of large numbers of students, both majors and nonmajors. The department invites all members of the community to join in the creation of these events.

Majors in theater and rhetoric who are interested in secondary school teaching should consult the Department of Education about requirements for teacher certification.

Cross-listed Courses. Note that unless otherwise specified, when a department/program references a course or unit in the department/program, it includes courses and units cross-listed with the department/program.

Major Requirements. The theater major is required to complete the following:

1) a) All of the following:
        THEA 101. An Introduction to Drama.
        THEA 130. Introduction to Design.
        THEA 200. The Classical Stage.
        THEA 261. Beginning Acting.

    b) One course required from among:
        THEA 231. Scene Design.
        THEA 232. Lighting Design: The Aesthetics of Light.
        THEA 233. Costume Design.

    c) One course required from among:
        DANC 251. Dance Composition.

        THEA 227. Seventies and Eighties Avant-Garde Theater and Performance Art.
        THEA 370. Directing.

    d) Two additional courses in theater.

2) One course or unit in the Department of Art and one course or unit in the Department of Music, one of which must be in the history of the field.

3) A comprehensive examination in the senior year, except for those majors invited by the department to enroll in Theater 457 or 458.

Theater majors must also earn five production credits by the end of the senior year. Students considering a major should consult with the department chair early in their careers for information on fulfilling this requirement. In addition, the theater major must enroll in one semester of dance or in a physical education activity course approved by the Department of Theater and Rhetoric.

Pass/Fail Grading Option. There are no restrictions on the use of the pass/fail option within the major.

Secondary Concentration in Theater. The secondary concentration in theater consists of six courses or units and 2.5 production credits. Students interested in pursing a secondary concentration should consult with the department chair about specific course requirements.

Pass/Fail Grading Option. There are no restrictions on the use of the pass/fail option with the secondary concentration in theater.

General Education. Any one theater Short Term unit may serve as an option for the fifth humanities course.

Courses

THEA 101. An Introduction to Drama. A study of the elements of drama and performance focusing on selected periods in theater history: fifth-century Athens, England in the Renaissance, France in the seventeenth century, Russia and Scandinavia in the nineteenth century, and postmodern America. Readings may include works by Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Molière, Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht, Fornes, and S.-L. Parks. Topics for discussion include styles of acting and performance, the varieties of theater space, the principles of scene design, the function of the director, and the relationships between stage and society. Attendance at films and performances supplements work in class. Normally offered every year. M. Andrucki.

THEA 102. An Introduction to Film. A survey of film style and technique, including an overview of film history from the silent era to the present. Enrollment limited to 70. Offered with varying frequency. M. Andrucki.

THEA 110. Women in Film. This course investigates the depiction of women in film from the silent era to the present. Using feminist film criticism as a lens, it examines the impact of these film images on our society. The history of women filmmakers is also surveyed, highlighting the major contributors in the field. Enrollment limited to 50. Offered with varying frequency. E. Seeling.

THEA 130. Introduction to Design. An approach to the principles and elements of design, offering instruction in drawing, simple drafting, sculpture, painting, and costume and mask construction. Accompanying research in world styles of visual expression informs the exploration of line, mass, shape, time, space, light, and color. Research topics may include African festival, Islamic design, Asian dance-drama, European carnival, and Russian fairground theater. The goal of the course is to "tease out" a fresh expression using the simplest of elements. No previous artistic or theatrical training is required. Enrollment limited to 14. Normally offered every year. E. Seeling.

THEA 132. Stagecraft. This course provides an introduction to the technical skills and techniques used to stage theater productions. Students are introduced to theater terminology, stage lighting equipment, scenery and property construction, scene painting, sound engineering, and theater management. Crew work on department productions is required. Enrollment limited to 14. Normally offered every other year. Staff.

THEA 200. The Classical Stage. According to the mad Frenchman Artaud, classical drama was the original "theater of cruelty." This course studies the aristocratic violence and punitive laughter of about a dozen tragedies and comedies from Aeschylus to Racine. Correlated readings in the theater history and dramatic theory of classical Greece and Rome, Elizabethan England, and seventeenth-century France establish the social and intellectual context for the most challenging and disturbing body of drama in the Western tradition. Required of all majors. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every other year. M. Andrucki.

THEA 210. The Revolutionary Stage. From 1700 to 1900, Europe was transformed by the revolutionary currents of radical politics, industrialization, and Romantic individualism. This course studies the impact of these forces on the central dramatic ideas of character and action in plays by (among others) Beaumarchais, Goethe, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, and Shaw. Correlated readings in theater history and dramatic theory establish the cultural and intellectual context for these playwrights. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every other year. P. Kuritz.

THEA 220. The Modern Stage. A visionary modern theorist of the stage wrote from his asylum cell, "We are not free and the sky can still fall on our heads. And the theater has been created to teach us that first of all." By examining the mirrors and masks of Pirandello and Genet, the incendiary rallying cries of Kaiser and Brecht, the erotic and violent silence of Pinter and Handke, and the surreal iconoclasms of Apollinaire and Shepard, this course surveys the ways the contemporary theater seeks to elucidate the baffling condition of humanity. Correlated readings in theater history and dramatic theory explore the cultural contexts of these works. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every other year. M. Andrucki.

CM/TH 224. Ancient Theater: Myths, Masks, and Puppets. Students participate in a research and design project focused on a classical or medieval play. The course examines myths and masks in classical and medieval theater and ritual. Students then revise and abridge the script of a classical or medieval play, designing and manufacturing puppets and masks in preparation for a production of the play during the Short Term. Students in this course may, but are not required to, register for the Short Term unit. Enrollment limited to 28. Not open to students who have received credit for Theater 224 or Classical and Medieval Studies 224. Offered with varying frequency. E. Seeling, L. Maurizio.

AA/TH 225. The Grain of the Black Image. A study of the African American figure as represented in images from theater, movies, and television. Using the metaphor of "the grain" reduced by Roland Barthes and Regis Durand to "the articulation of the body...not that of language," this course explores issues of progress, freedom, and improvement, as well as content versus discontent. Students read critical literature and the major classic plays by Hansberry, Baraka, Elder, and others, and view recent movies and television shows. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for Theater 225. Normally offered every year. W. Pope.L.

AA/TH 226. Minority Images in Hollywood Film. African American scholar Carolyn F. Gerald has remarked, "Image means self-concept and whoever is in control of our image has the power to shape our reality." This course investigates the ideological, social, and theoretical issues important in the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in American film from the Depression to the civil rights movement. It examines the genres, stereotypes, and gender formations associated with film images of Native Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for Theater 226. Normally offered every year. W. Pope.L.

THEA 227. Seventies and Eighties Avant-Garde Theater and Performance Art. This course is a hands-on poetic exploration of the binary territories of "language as object" and "subject as language" as they have been articulated in the work of contemporary performance-theater artists from Robert Wilson, Richard Foreman, and Fluxus to Holly Hughes, Karen Finley, and Jim Neu. Some background in performance is recommended. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every year. W. Pope.L.

THEA 228. Puppet Theater Workshop Production I. This course provides students an opportunity to participate in the development and production of a new play for puppet theater. Modified Bunraku, rod, and shadow puppets, as well as object animation, may be used in conjunction with live actors as dictated by the script. Participants help develop the script and learn puppet history, design, construction, and manipulation. The course culminates in workshop presentations of the play, with students performing and managing the technical needs of the production. Acting experience is strongly recommended. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 14. Offered with varying frequency. E. Seeling.

THEA 231. Scene Design. A study of the dynamic use of stage space, from Renaissance masters to twentieth-century modernists, offering instruction in scale drawing, drafting, scene painting, model making, and set construction. Students may use scheduled departmental productions as laboratories in their progress from play analysis and research to the realization of the design. This course focuses on the use of visual imagery to articulate textual idea, and is recommended for students with an interest in any area of drama and performance. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): Theater 101 or 130. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 14. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every other year. E. Seeling.

THEA 232. Lighting Design: The Aesthetics of Light. This course provides an introduction to the unique aesthetic and technical decisions a lighting designer must make. Students examine the modern lighting aesthetic by studying popular culture and learning to translate these images to the stage. Students also are required to serve on a lighting crew for one of the department's productions and design part of the spring dance concert. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): one of the following: Theater 101, 130, or 132. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 14. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every other year. Staff.

THEA 233. Costume Design. An approach to costume design offering instruction in drawing the figure, color rendering, script and character analysis, and the various skills of costume construction from pattern making to tailoring. Work in fabric printing, mask making, and makeup is available to students with a special interest in these areas. Research in period styles informs the exploration of the design elements of line, shape, and color. The goals of the course are skill in the craft and the flair of creation. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): Theater 101 or 130. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 14. Normally offered every other year. E. Seeling.

THEA 240. Playwriting. After reviewing the fundamentals of dramatic structure and characterization, students write one full-length or two one-act plays. Recommended background: two courses in theater or in dramatic literature. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every year. W. Pope.L.

SP/TH 241. Spanish Theater of the Golden Age. This course focuses on the study of Spanish classical drama of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Reading and critical analysis of selected dramatic works by Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca, Miguel de Cervantes, Ana Caro, María de Zayas, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, among others, offer an insight into the totality of the dramatic spectacle of Spanish society during its imperial century. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): Spanish 215 or 216. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 20. Not open to students who have received credit for Spanish 241 or Theater 241. Normally offered every other year. B. Fra-Molinero.

THEA 242. Screenwriting. This course presents the fundamentals of screenwriting: plot, act structure, character development, conflict, dialogue, and format. Lectures, writing exercises, and analyses of contemporary films, such as Happiness, American Beauty, and Sleepless in Seattle, are used to provide the student with the tools to create a short screenplay. Prerequisite(s): Theater 240. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 12. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every year. W. Pope.L.

THEA 261. Beginning Acting. This course introduces the student to the physiological processes involved in creative acting. The student studies the Stanislavski approach to the analysis of realistic and naturalistic drama. Exercises leading to relaxation, concentration, and imagination are included in an improvisational context. Studies in motivation, sense perception, and emotion-memory recall lead the student to beginning work on scene performance. Not open to senior majors in theater. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 16. Normally offered every semester. P. Kuritz.

THEA 262. Acting for the Classical Repertory. Students extend their basic acting technique to explore the classical dramas of the world's stages. The unique language of the dramas-verse-is explored as both an avenue to character study and to vocal and physical representation. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): Theater 261. Open to first-year students. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every other year. Staff.

THEA 263. Voice and Speech. Students examine the nature and working of the human voice. Students explore ways to develop the voice's potential for expressive communication with exercises and the analysis of breathing, vocal relaxation, pitch, resonance, articulation, audibility, dialect, and text performance. Recommended background: one course in acting or performance or public speaking. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 20. Normally offered every year. K. Vecsey.

TH/WS 264. Voice and Gender. This course focuses on the gender-related differences in voice from the beginning of language acquisition through learning and development of a human voice. A variety of interdisciplinary perspectives is examined according to the different determinants of voice production—physiological, psychological, social interactional, and cultural. Students explore how race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and age affect vocal expression. Students also analyze "famous" and "attractive" human voices and discuss what makes them so. Recommended background: Theater 263 and/or Women and Gender Studies 100. Open to first-year students. Not open to students who have received credit for Theater 264 or Women and Gender Studies 264. Normally offered every other year. K. Vecsey.

THEA 360. Independent Study. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester. Normally offered every semester. Staff.

THEA 363. Playing Comedy. Students extend their basic acting technique to explore the peculiar nature of comic performance on stage. Concepts of normalcy, incongruity, ignorance, power, and situation are applied to comic traits, invention, and diction. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): Theater 261. Open to first-year students. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every other year. P. Kuritz.

THEA 364. Advanced Voice and Speech. A study of vocal and physical techniques for the exploration of theatrical texts. Specialized topics for the vocal professional inculde: characterization as it relates to voice and speech, cold readings, assessing and preparing for the vocal demands of a role; working with the vocal coach. Recommended for studings intending to focus on acting or performance art in the senior thesis. Written permission of the instructor is required. Enrollment is limited to 12. Normally offered every other year. K. Vecsey. New course beginning Winter 2004.

THEA 365. Special Topics. Offered occasionally in selected subjects. Staff.

THEA 370. Directing. An introduction to the art of directing, with an emphasis on creative and aesthetic problems and their solutions. Included is an examination of the director's relationship to the text, the design staff, and the actor. The approach is both theoretical and practical, involving readings, rehearsal observation, and the directing of scenes and short plays. Prerequisite(s) or Corequisite(s): Theater 261. Open to first-year students. Written permission of the instructor is required. Normally offered every year. P. Kuritz.

THEA 457, 458. Senior Thesis. By departmental invitation only. Students undertake a substantial academic or artistic project. Students register for Theater 457 in the fall semester and for Theater 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both Theater 457 and 458. Normally offered every year. Staff.

Short Term Units

THEA s10. Bates Theater Abroad. Bates students produce a play in a theater outside the United States. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. Staff.

THEA s11. Theater in London. A study of contemporary theater production in London. For four weeks students attend a variety of plays and performance events from the classical to the avant-garde. Concurrently, students read a number of important modern critical texts on the nature and purpose of the stage, including works by Brecht, Beckett, Artaud, and Peter Brook. During the last week, students return to Bates and write a critical essay about eight of the plays attended in London, applying the ideas encountered in theoretical readings to the performances seen on stage. Recommended background: one course in theater or dramatic literature. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. M. Andrucki.

CM/TH s20. Theater Production and the Ancient Stage. Experienced theater students work under faculty supervision and in leadership positions with other students in the production of a classical or medieval play. Written permission of the instructor is required. Not open to students who have received credit for Classical and Medieval Studies s20 or Theater s20. Offered with varying frequency. E. Seeling, L. Maurizio. In Short Term 2003 "Written permission of the instructor" is not required.

THEA s21. Oral Interpretation. In this unit, students learn the artistic process of studying literature through performance and sharing that study with an audience. Students analyze the language of prose fiction, drama, poetry, and minor literary forms; develop rehearsal strategies for performance; and perform the words for an audience. The unit culminates in a work of chamber or readers theater. Enrollment limited to 20. Offered with varying frequency. P. Kuritz.

THEA s22. Contemporary Performance Poetry. An investigation of poetry as a performance medium. Included is a historical overview comparing the European traditions of Dadaism, Futurism, and their proponents in America to the Afro-American tradition exemplified by Shange, Baraka, and present-day hip-hop rappers. The approach is theoretical and practical, utilizing readings, discussion, film, recordings, and texts created and performed by students. Enrollment limited to 15. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. W. Pope.L.

THEA s26. Theater Production Workshop I. Working under faculty supervision and with visiting professional artists, student actors, directors, designers, and technicians undertake the tasks necessary to produce a play. Readings and discussions explore various ways of understanding and producing a text. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. P. Kuritz.

THEA s30. Theater Production Workshop II. Experienced students, working under faculty supervision and occasionally with visiting professional artists, produce a play under strict time, financial, and material constraints. Readings and discussions explore various ways of understanding and producing a play. Prerequisite(s): Theater s26. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. P. Kuritz.

THEA s32. Theater Production Workshop III. The most experienced theater students work under faculty supervision and in leadership positions with other students in the production of a play. Readings and discussions challenge students' notions about acting, directing, and design for the theater. Prerequisite(s): Theater s26 and s30. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. P. Kuritz.

THEA s36. Work-Study Internship in Theater. Qualified students participate in the artistic and educational programs of professional theater companies. Each intern is supervised by a staff member. By specific arrangement and departmental approval only. Recommended background: two courses in acting, directing, design, or playwriting; participation in departmental productions. Open to first-year students. Written permission of the instructor is required. Offered with varying frequency. Staff.

THEA s50. Independent Study. Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term. Normally offered every year. Staff.

Dance

Rhetoric