Explore how young theater directors benefit from mentoring in this video from Treasures of New York: The Drama League. Each year a cohort of fellows are selected to receive professional training as part of The Drama League’s Directors Project. Students hear advice from experienced theater professionals and are encouraged to think about the kind of preparation required for a career in the theater.

The following recipes, or games, are intended to be used as reference and study for the college course: Improvisation. This format has been set up to help with ease of quick learning and immediate application. Bon Appétit!

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Identify Improvisational genres. Perform numerous and varying Improv games. Plan and Execute an Improv show. Evaluate performance. Examine and analyze aspects of the human experience and quickly construct an expression of that experience.

Drama combines the literary arts of storytelling and poetry with the world of live performance. As a form of ritual as well as entertainment, drama has served to unite communities and challenge social norms, to vitalize and disturb its audiences. In order to understand this rich art form more fully, we will study and discuss a sampling of plays that exemplify different kinds of dramatic structure; class members will also participate in, attend, and review dramatic performances.

Lecture notes, internet links and vocabulary lists for a core curriculum Introduction to Theatre college level course.

ePub version of text The life and death of King Iohn by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

ePub version of text The Tragedie of King Lear by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

Curriculum unit of three lessons explores Williams's use of expressionism to more fully comprehend the theatrical devices and themes in The Glass Menagerie. In Lesson 1, students identify and explicate Williams' expressionist techniques.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "Henry V" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

This class explores the artistry of Lighting Design. Students gain an overall technical working knowledge of the tools of the trade, and learn how, and where to apply them to a final design. However essential technical expertise is, the class stresses the artistic, conceptual, collaborative side of the craft. The class format is a “hands on” approach, with a good portion of class time spent in a theatre.

This class does intensive close study and analysis of historically significant media “texts” that have been considered landmarks or have sustained extensive critical and scholarly discussion. Such texts may include oral epic, story cycles, plays, novels, films, opera, television drama and digital works. The course emphasizes close reading from a variety of contextual and aesthetic perspectives. The syllabus varies each year, and may be organized around works that have launched new modes and genres, works that reflect upon their own media practices, or on stories that migrate from one medium to another. At least one of the assigned texts is collaboratively taught, and visiting lectures and discussions are a regular feature of the subject.

This activity from the Commonwealth Theatre Center in Louisville, Kentucky uses drama to explore what emotions we like to share with the world and what emotions we tend to keep to ourselves, and why. Students explore the six core emotions and learn that they are all valid but we can work on how we deal with them.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "The Merchant of Venice" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

ePub version of text The Merry Wiues of Windsor by William Shakepeare, 1564-1616.

This web app is a complete critical edition of MND, which can be viewed as plain text or in a mode with glosses appropriate to students just getting familiar with the play. It has a second mode for more advanced students with textual notes and explorations of mythology and classical allusions. A final mode for performers/experiential learners displays the text showing typographical indications of scansion and rhetoric. The app also includes an interactive mode for memorization drills. The text from all modes is fully printable.

The text is accompanied by a full set of features, including:
a full cast list and doubling chart,
a textual history,
a performance history,
an essay on performance challenges and opportunities,
a guide to practical scansion principles,
a resources guide connecting readers to facsimiles and study aides,
and a special section covering all the music and dance cues in the show with suggestions and examples.

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

This course analyzes major modern plays featuring works by Shaw, Pirandello, Beckett, Brecht, Williams, Soyinka, Hwang, Churchill, Wilson, Frayn, Stoppard, Deveare Smith, and Kushner. The class particularly considers performance, sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, and the role of theater in the world of modern multimedia.