Acting and Devising Stories in Performance: The Next Step

Catalog description

This next level acting course turns traditional, realistic scene study on its head. We begin with the essentials: digging into the skills for building precise, emotionally connected, intelligently crafted, character-specific, and theatrically articulate performance inside a realistic context. We then use those skills as a springboard to invent new ways of building a compelling narrative through forms of multi-media and devised storytelling. In this course students explore and expand their understanding of “what is character?” And, who’s telling the story and why and how are they telling it? This course is a laboratory for constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing narrative – a place to turn the story on its head to see what new story we can make. Students will engage in studio exercises to build clear skills in acting technique and stage composition and practice with various forms of crafting theatrical stories. In addition, students are expected to analyze, rehearse, and perform one short, realistic two-person scene, create a solo devised piece, and participate in ensemble-devised, multi-media performance pieces for a final showing at the conclusion of the semester. Students are also required to complete a detailed character/script analysis to support their exploration of the journey from realistic theatre to expanded forms of theatrical/performative storytelling. This is a next level performance class; students must have successfully completed Acting I, Performance Practice or have equivalent experience in performance coursework to register for the class.