Undergraduate Drama Lab I

Catalog description

This first year production course is the first part of a year-long course (with Drama Lab II) that is taken simultaneously with Craft. In this course, writers will wrestle with the practical and theoretical elements of seeing their work living and breathing in the hands and minds and bodies of others. Drama Lab I will focus on learning the basic skill sets of a writer's primary collaborators: actors and directors. Students will learn how both actors and directors look at a script and interpret words on a page, while acquiring the vocabulary to communicate successfully with each. Students in this class will take turns as writers, co-writers, directors and actors for each other’s pieces, with peer-to-peer feedback led by the professor. New work will be developed by pushing the boundaries of what is possible for stage and screen. As this is a collaborative class, we will discuss consent, empowering the writer, the director and the actor in the room, learning how to have a voice in all of these roles, and understanding how having a voice in the room makes students better artists. Collaborating with other artists encourages growth, builds relationships, and often builds new confidence in writing students. We will find inspiration through music and art, to create worlds that the writer may not have imagined were in their wheelhouse. This class is not only for collaboration, but also for creation and experimentation of craft.