We've got two courses this summer that are unique to our time. Drama 200 explores the literature of plagues. Drama 254, intro to acting skills, is going to have a camera work focus. It's rare we have an opportunity to offer acting for the camera classes, and we wanted to let students know this is available.
DRAMA 200: Literature of the Plague
This class uses the occasion of the pandemic to re-visit the great plagues of the past by sampling the literature they inspired. From the setting of Oedipus, the 430 BCE plague described by Thucydides, through excerpts of the Decameron of Boccaccio, to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, to Samuel Pepys' diary and Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Great Plague in London, to Edgar Allen Poe's Masque of the Red Death, to the first AIDS plays of the 1980s, and theorizing the plague with Artaud's Theatre and the Plague, we explore the artistic legacy of pestilence.
DRAMA 254: Introduction to Acting Skills
Introduces specific skills to the beginning actor and non-actor. This online acting course will focus on some introductory on-camera technique as a means to cover the basic skills an actor needs to create compelling characters. The close-up, two-character scene work, and improvisation will be at the core of the practice. No previous experience required