Acting III

Catalog description

This course will focus on the research and development of skills necessary to perform the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. THEA 822A Acting III (3) THEA 822A is designed to take the skills acquired in the movement, voice and acting studios in the first year of the graduate actor training program and apply them to the lush words, passionate images, and intense emotion required by the elevated texts of playwrights such as Shakespeare. The process requires the reduction of modern vocal and physical parasites and their replacement by a higher standard of speech and a classically open, expressive body. Truthful behavior in action is still the goal - the challenge is to embrace Shakespeare's truths.In the weeks devoted to scene study, the actors must learn to be comfortable with classical works, to confront any predisposition about style, and see that their vocal and physical instruments need to be strengthened in order to fully play classical characters.Because THEA 822A is a laboratory performance course, one in which students must be sharing what they are learning or performing on a daily basis, on-going assessment takes place through faculty feedback in working sessions, through faculty and peer critique of work presented, through an oral evaluation at mid-semester in conference with the graduate acting faculty, and through an extensive written evaluation and formal conference with the head of the School and the head of the acting program at semester's end. Other faculty will observe midterm and end of semester presentations to offer insights. Students thus receive assessment on many occasions in the course of the semester.