Department website: http://krieger.jhu.edu/theatre-arts
JHU Theatre offers a conservatory-style approach to the study of acting, directing, playwriting, and theatre history, along with the fundamentals of technical direction, play production, play analysis, and theatre management.
Courses are taught by theatre professionals with practical experience in the best professional and regional theatres. Coursework is complimented by regular performance opportunities in the John Astin Theatre in Merrick Barn. Our mainstage productions each fall and spring are professionally directed and designed. Each season also includes experimental performances and readings, as well as student-created performances as part of The Playshop series.
For those students who seek a career in the theatre, the minor in Theatre Arts and Studies offers an introductory acting sequence, advanced classes in acting, courses in design and technical theatre, directing workshops, courses in theatre history and theory, playwriting, and independent study opportunities. Our conservatory-style approach, with its personal attention and focus on practical training, as well as numerous opportunities for high-level performance, will provide rigorous preparation for a professional career.
For those students who love theatre but are not focused on a career, JHU Theatre is an ideal component of the liberal arts. Coursework builds broad perspectives on performance and literary traditions, and it deepens an appreciation for the arts, whether theatrical, literary, musical, or visual. Play-making in Merrick Barn, whether as an actor or as part of the production team, advances skills in communication and collaboration, and brings creativity to other endeavors. Students pursuing careers in medicine, engineering, law, science, and many other areas, have been challenged and enriched by their time with JHU Theatre.
For current course information and registration go to https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/
Courses
Investigations into some of the many histories in the development of the drama, from Greek origins to today's global theatre. An introduction to interpretive concepts, as well as to practical elements of playmaking. This course is a good way to explore and appreciate the art of theatre, and is required for the minor.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
An exploration of foundational exercises and techniques in the art of acting. Practice in voice, movement, listening, and improvisation. Students will read plays and develop interpretive and storytelling skills, building toward scene work. This class is for both new and experienced actors, and offers preparation for advanced acting and performance classes.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
As in Acting I, the principal classroom activities will consist of scene work, exercises, lectures, and discussion. Some rehearsal will also take place during school hours. It is expected that substantial out-of-class time be spent on rehearsals and exercises. Recommended Course Background: AS.225.101
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
It has been said that 90% of what an actor does onstage is dependent on being effortlessly heard and understood by their audiences. This course is designed to establish the tools for the actor to begin to create this foundation. Using a combination of both the benchmark texts by Edith Skinner and Kristin Linklater, along with in-class exercises and monologues, we will begin the process of exploring both vocal power through breathing and breath control, and the fundamental tools of clarity in the speaking of a dramatic text onstage.
Prerequisite(s): AS.225.101
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Effective performance in musical theatre demands a committed analysis of the musical and dramatic values of the song and the libretto from which it springs, in order to develop a fresh, organic interpretation. This course will provide you with the training to both analyze and interpret musical theatre scenes and songs and to make the most of them in performance.Instructor Permission Only.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
An exploration of the complex relationship between the text of a play and its full realization as a production. We will go to see several plays in the Baltimore and DC area. Based on these, we will develop case studies, first examining the play as text and its historical and theoretical contexts, and then experiencing it as performance. Writing Intensive. This course can fulfill the Theatre Minor requirement for an Introductory Theatre Course.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
Learn about contemporary theater through contemporary plays; learn about contemporary plays through contemporary theater. We will read amazing, current plays about life today by some of today's most vibrant playwrights. For each play class will start with a table-read, followed by a discussion that simulates how actors and directors work together. The goal is to approximate the first week of a rehearsal process. In this way the class teaches a theater artist's approach to reading, analyzing and understanding dramatic text.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Students will survey theatrical design through various projects. We will develop moments based on sound, costume, space, and light, focusing on how these elements help to tell a story. Students will develop artistic statements and arguments that justify their creative choices, while practicing constructive criticism in an environment that encourages exploration and play.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
An introduction to the performing arts, including an overview of theatre history, acting styles and the interaction of art and society. A personal view from inside.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Special attention is given to the development of spontaneity and emotional freedom using the principles of Workshops I and II. Hands on work with John Astin’s “The Process” and the second Silverberg workbook are employed, along with the Uta Hagen text. Boleslavsky and Michael Chekhov are introduced. The Clurman, Meisner, Stanislavsky and Strasberg approaches are included. Substantial out of class time is required. Recommended Course Background: Two acting courses.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
A survey of the history of the Black Performer and Performance. In exploring the art of storytelling from ancient African civilizations, students will critically engage and discuss the origins, aesthetics, characteristics, and practices of Black performers, and their often-unacknowledged contributions and influence upon mainstream performance throughout the history of the world.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Students will work with a selection of Shakespeare's plays --- AS YOU LIKE IT, KING JOHN, and A WINTER’S TALE--- in exploring specific ways in which the power of the lines can be translated dynamically and immediately into vocal and physical performance. This course can be repeated for credit, because it covers different topics. (Some background in the acting sequence is encouraged).
Prerequisite(s): AS.225.101
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
A hands-on approach to the technical and theoretical elements of production. Meets in the Merrick Barn Scene Shop. Permission Required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Topics will vary by term. Please see the specific term and section for current topics.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
An introduction to Technical Direction including pre-production and production with an overview of materials, tools, rigging and safety, together with design and its implementation.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Classes and scenes tailored to the needs of the actors. Some rehearsal will take place during school hours. It is expected that substantial out-of-class time be spent on rehearsals and exercises.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
This is a writing intensive class exploring the current wealth of women playwrights, including Pulitzer Prize winners: Wendy Wasserstein, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, and Jackie Sibblies Drury (2019 Prize for FAIRVIEW). We will discuss Script Analysis and read (and see) plays by numerous writers including Claire Barron, Kia Corthron, Theresa Rebeck, Sarah Ruhl, Danai Gurira, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, and Hansol Jung. This class will include a mid-term and a Final Paper.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
Performance class will present Cindy Cooper’s RUNNING ON GLASS, which features the stories of a diverse group of women in sports history including Wilma Rudolf, an African-American Olympic runner who overcame childhood polio, Babe Didrikson, one of best all-around athletes of any gender, and Peanut Johnson, a professional pitcher in the all-male Negro Leagues. The play has 8 female characters; all genders are encouraged to audition. Students interested in stage management or technical theatre are encouraged to enroll. Rehearses during regularly scheduled class times, with one or two May presentations. Participation in the class can coincide with participation in other spring productions. Auditions in early November.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Student actors, directors, and playwrights will explore their respective crafts with emphasis on process and individual artistic growth. Participants in the class will also collaborate on the creation of new material for the stage. Recommended Course Background: one course in Acting, Directing, or Playwriting.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
The Performance Class will feature students doing rehearsed readings (open to the public) of four plays during the term. Plays will include DANCE NATION by Clare Barron, EXTREMITIES by William Mastrosimone, and two others TBA. Each student will participate in the process, and perform in one or two of the plays. Open to All. "Some" Acting experience or an Acting class preferable.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
The fundamentals of stage design, with an emphasis on process, including script analysis, research, conceptualization, and implementation, from the first reading of the play to opening night, along with an overview of theatre architecture from the Greeks to the current day and into our imagined future.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
For aspiring playwrights, dramaturgs, and literary translators, this course is a workshop opportunity in learning to adapt both dramatic and non-dramatic works into fresh versions for the stage. Students with ability in foreign languages and literatures are encouraged to explore translation of drama as well as adaptation of foreign language fiction in English. Fiction, classical dramas, folk and fairy tales, independent interviews, or versions of plays from foreign languages are covered.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
An introduction to Shakespeare, in which every play we read we will also see performed. Close textual work and a focus on historical context will be accompanied by visits to local theatres, recordings of live performances, and Shakespeare films.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
This upper-level seminar is designed for students with some background in theatre or in dramatic literature, with aspirations to do further work in the art form. Students will gain an understanding of the theory and practice of working with dramatic texts in preparation for a theatre production. This will involve reading and discussing influential theorists who explore dramatic structures and styles and theatre practices. Additionally, there will be a practical component. Students will select and work on a couple of scripts, once classic and once contemporary, and create a "model book" for whichever becomes the student's primary project, including the script, notes, research, and visual samples for a hypothetical production: or possibly a real one.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Existentialism, a powerful movement in modern drama and theatre, has had a profound influence on contemporary political thought, ethics, and psychology, and has transformed our very notion of how to stage a play. Selected readings and lectures on the philosophy of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre -- and discussion of works for the stage by Sartre, Ionesco, Genet, Beckett, Albee, Pinter, and the late plays of Caryl Churchill. Opportunities for projects on central European Absurdism in works by Dürrenmatt, Havel, Witkiewicz, and Mrozek. Students may also choose to examine post-colonialism in the work of Frantz Fannon and second-wave feminism in essays by Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre's long-time collaborator.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
A seminar and workshop in playwriting with Dr. Joe Martin, playwright and dramaturge. Student writers, developing their plays, will learn how to open up to the creative process, “brainstorm,” refine their work, and shape it toward an act of artistic communication. Writer’s techniques, such as attending to plot or “story,” delineation of character, creating effective “dialog,” even overcoming “writer’s block,” will be addressed. This course is designed to be complementary to – not a replacement for – playwriting classes in the Writing Seminars.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
Classes and scenes tailored to the needs of the actors. Some rehearsal will take place during school hours. It is expected that substantial out-of-class time be spent on rehearsals and exercises.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Laughter is what brings audiences into the theatre -- and sends them home again having heard whatever else they found when they got there, too. From a lot of Greeks in masks a couple of millennia ago, through Moliere and Shakespearean clowns, to Keaton and Chaplin and Ball and Burnett and right on up to a solid majority of all entertainment staged and filmed today, the folks in the seats come in, for all kinds of reasons, ready for a laugh. Getting up on a stage and going "out there" --learning how to play fast and sharp with verbal, physical, and satirical comedy -- is the key to telling almost any story in a way that "goes over", "gets across", and brings 'em back for more. Members of this performance class will explore, every week, up on our feet, how to find the funny, and get it from the page to the stage.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
By cultivating a sense of play and active engagement, students will learn how to create theatre without a script. We will overthrow the tyranny of the text and the suffocation of the director's vision to find equal footing in creation, and focus on the sweet spot where content and form come together to make a work that highlights the art of theatre. A perfect complement to standard acting classes, students will use the principles of Tectonic Theatre Company's Moment Work to devise an original piece for public performance. Aspiring actors, directors, technical designers, and playwrights are welcome. Some theatre experience required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Projects and Methods (FA6)
Designed to impart a deepened appreciation and understanding of today's theatre by surveying the major playwrights, historical movements, and theatre practices of the 20th century. The course also seeks to help students understand theatre's relationship to the societal and political power structure of each era and to introduce students to great dynamic literature in its intended form, which is performance.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Writing Intensive
An exploration of the imagination and the senses using basic techniques of improvisation: exercises, conflict resolution, ensemble building, and theatre games. Texts: Spolin, Johnstone, LaBan and Feldencreis. Open to all students.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Permission only.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration, Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Academic credit for in-depth contributions to a JHU Theatre production. Actors, designers, members of the creative team in a Mainstage or Playshop production may choose to register for Practicum credit. Student will develop an independent syllabus in collaboration with Practicum instructor. Students may register for 1, 2, or 3 credits.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3), Projects and Methods (FA6)
Cross Listed Courses
Center for Africana Studies
What about performance offers a unique opportunity to learn from and with communities? How might dramatic performance be used to share information while learning from an audience? This course examines the work and research of young artists from Liberia, West Africa who used street theatre to teach best practices for prevention during the Ebola crisis and considers how their use of dialogical performance contributed to critical knowledge which iteratively informed interventions throughout their awareness campaign. This community engaged course connects public health education efforts in Africa to community health education in Baltimore through the Blackstorytelling tradition with local expert Janice the Griot. Course co-educator and artist Janice the Griot Green will share her firsthand experiences and guide the class through the principles of Blackstorytelling for community change. Students will design public performance projects around local-global community-basedconcerns using the tools they have learned. In partnership with the Great National Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore, students will develop performance-based public health messaging drawing on their collection to support community outreach curricular materials development. This performance work will be created collaboratively in workshops during class and in team meetings. Public health researchers who are looking for innovative ways to share their data will gain insights into this experimental ethnographic method and practitioners who want to offer their communities ways to connect best practices to lived experience will develop new pedagogical tools. This is a Community Engagement course in partnership with the Center for Social Concern.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1)
This seminar will explore some of the pivotal historical and contemporary connections between the US and Liberia since the first Black American settlers arrived in West Africa with the American Colonization Society in 1822. This course asks: What are implications of these stories of migration and reception for how we make sense of global anti-Blackness in the contemporary moment? How does performance provoke new questions about shared histories of those impacted by colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade? Why is a more in-depth understanding of 19th century Black political thought and the precolonial West African indigenous category necessary for developing theory on the political economy of race today? Through the lens of performance studies, students will analyze the documents in the American Colonization Society archive, to reimagine these early encounters as informed by historical documentation including folklore and pan-Africanist theory. Through exploring a range of historical and contemporary materials that center the problematic “indigenous/settler” binary, students will engage in a dramaturgical process which presents powerful possibilities for unlearning historical misrepresentations. In particular, students will develop theater-based projects that interrogate the spatio-temporal connections between the stories of both, free Blacks and those who were enslaved in Maryland and manumitted to go to Liberia, and the contemporary politics of Liberia-US migration.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
First Year Seminars
This First-Year Seminar is designed around what is on stage in Baltimore and DC this fall. We will attend several plays, both professional productions and student productions at JHU. We will pay attention to the interpretation of plays on the page, and to the ways that scripts materialize as performances on the stage. We will place these performances in the context of larger theatre histories, studying great plays from the age of Shakespeare to contemporary American theatre. No acting experience is required – just the desire to explore the theatre of today. A great way to find out about the lively theatre scene on campus, and a great way to get to know your new city.
Modern Languages and Literatures
This course proposes to enhance students’ verbal (pronunciation, intonation, syntax, vocabulary) and nonverbal skills (body language, vocal projection, spatial awareness) by performing excerpts from French and Francophone plays ranging from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. A closer analysis of these excerpts will lead us to consider how theater uses the physicality and immediacy of human experience to create a more universal form of connectivity with the world.Recommended course background: AS.210.301.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
Public Health Studies
Effective communication is imperative in reaching time-sensitive goals in reducing the effects of climate change. Using the framework of persuasive communication and behavior change theory, the course will provide a practice-based opportunity for students to apply their knowledge to develop their own climate communication campaigns. Students will gain familiarity with issues in historical approaches of climate approaches, understand audiences navigating climate misinformation, and social and behavioral theories of change, with an emphasis on arts-based approaches to climate communication. Through lectures, seminars, screenings, and workshops, the course will culminate with an applied assignment of students’ original creative climate communication pieces. This is a Gordis Teaching Fellowship course and instructor approval is required. All students interested are encouraged to request approval; those with a public health background will be strongly considered for approval.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)