Fall 2024 THPERF Courses

THPERF326: Performing the Voice

Our voice is akin to our signature, our fingerprint and our own unique personality. It is unique and it is your own. We don’t really think much about it, we breathe, we speak, we might even sing a little, but we don’t necessarily give it much thought, or think about working on it or exercising it. Yet it can be the ‘one thing’ we get very nervous about putting it ‘out there’. Whether we are actors in training or professional actors, or a business professional our voice is our number one tool. In this class we are focussing on our voice; housed in the body and fuelled by the breath, it allows us to communicate with boldness, beauty, emotion and clarity to bring text to life and move us with the written word.

THPERF 343: Stage Management

This course offers an introduction to stage management for live performance. We discuss techniques and skills that help managers to organize production and effectively support the artistic and creative process. These skills include: communication, organization, supervision, time management, problem solving, leadership, and delegation. Techniques will be studied and practiced through lectures, workshops, guest speakers, and off-site trips. The main goal of the course is to develop an understanding of what stage managers do and how vital they are to the successful productions.

THPERF 371: Performance History

Explore a dazzling array of performance practices, from ancient Greek tragedy, to 17th C. Brazilian combat games, to K-Pop. Surveying these and other case studies, students will engage with the theatrical past as a site of cultural analysis, critical reflection, and creative inspiration. We will interpret scripts, sketches, newspaper reviews and other traces of past performance, and we will ask how both theatre makers and historians have decided whose stories to tell, and why. No theatre experience necessary; Join Us!

THPERF301: Performance Creation

Archives have shaped the contemporary art and performance scene. This course prepares students to create performance projects using archival materials from museums, family albums, wardrobes, home libraries, and more. Students will identify source material and explore how archives are central to performance addressing urgent social and political issues. By the end of semester, groups will stage a micro-performance. This course develops performance creation strategies by which students gain a critical perspective on co-relations between archival research and performance making.

For questions or enrolment assistance, please email Katie Honek