An introduction to fundamental approaches to both interpreting and making plays. This course will cover a selection of theatre histories, studying important works in their social contexts and as performances, from ancient Greece to the present day. Attention to appreciating theatre as one of the most diverse and influential of the liberal arts. And attention to theatre on the JHU campus.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Stoll, Abraham D
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Vincent, Michael P
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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).

• Days/Times: M 6:00PM - 8:30PM
• Instructor: Glossman, James
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 5/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

A practical look at the lives of three pivotal figures from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this course will explore the history of British and North American actor training through the work of: 1) Ira Aldridge (the first African American actor to play Othello in London), 2) Edward Kynaston (one of the last actors to play female roles in London), and 3) Nell Gwynn (one of the first actresses permitted to play female roles in London) through twenty first century plays written by Lolita Chakrabarti, Jeffrey Hatcher, and Jessica Swale respectively.

• Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
• Instructor: McClendon, Forrest
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 3:00PM - 4:15PM
• Instructor: Denithorne, Margaret
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: M 3:00PM - 5:30PM
• Instructor: Martin, Joe
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/10
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Stoll, Abraham D
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 9/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: W 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Martin, Joe
• Room: Gilman 77
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 8/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 4:30PM - 5:45PM
• Instructor: Denithorne, Margaret
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Waitlist Only
• Seats Available: 0/16
• PosTag(s): n/a

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-based concerns 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.

• Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Blanks Jones, Jasmine; Greene, Janice
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 6/12
• PosTag(s): CSC-CE, MSCH-HUM

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Stoll, Abraham D
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Stoll, Abraham D
• Room: Gilman 413
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/14
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Gruenhut, Johanna
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 3/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: TTh 9:00AM - 10:15AM
• Instructor: Rome, Susan
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 10/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: T 6:00PM - 8:30PM
• Instructor: Denithorne, Margaret
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 8/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times:
• Instructor: Gruenhut, Johanna
• Room:  
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

A hands-on approach to the technical and theoretical elements of production. Meets in the Merrick Barn Scene Shop. Permission Required.

• Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
• Instructor: Roche, William C
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 8/8
• PosTag(s): n/a

Inspired by the 100th birthday of James Arthur Baldwin – and his deep friendship with Lorraine Hansberry – this new course will explore diverse stories through the lens of modern queer playwrights. This seminar and advanced acting studio will celebrate the power of storytelling by illuminating unique perspectives and intersectionality from across the evolving landscape of contemporary queer dramatic literature, examining complex characters who defy the norm in universal stories.

• Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: McClendon, Forrest
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 11/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

In this weekly studio class, you will be able to explore bold choices in character development while acquiring a variety of techniques in approaching/analyzing theatrical texts (1895 - present). You will be given opportunities to be cast “against type” and guided through different methods of creating character, from Stanislavski to Viewpoints and beyond.

• Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
• Instructor: Rome, Susan
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
• Instructor: Roche, William C
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 12/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: Th 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Martin, Joe
• Room: Krieger Laverty
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 4/8
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: M 6:00PM - 8:30PM
• Instructor: Glossman, James
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Open
• Seats Available: 2/12
• PosTag(s): n/a

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.

• Days/Times: W 4:30PM - 7:00PM
• Instructor: Vincent, Michael P
• Room: Krieger 103
• Status: Approval Required
• Seats Available: 10/12
• PosTag(s): n/a