Graduate Courses 2022-2023
DRAMA 601 A1: Methods and Tools of Research
Instructor: Dr. Piet Defraeye
Schedule: Friday 1:00-3:50 PM
Location: Timms Seminar Room (TCA 203)
An examination of a variety of mostly critical resources available to theatre artists and researchers, the course discusses strategies and practices helpful in the finding, valuation, organization, documentation, and presentation of research material. We will also discuss and practice the role of theory in the study and practice of theatre, and hone our critical writing skills. Students will develop their thesis proposal during this course and get acquainted with grant applications. (The course is taught in conjunction with DRAMA 401 – Honors.)
DRAMA 609 A2: Contemporary Approaches to Dramatic & Theatrical Theories
Instructor: Dr. Piet Defraeye
Schedule: Monday 1:00-3:50 PM
Location: Timms Seminar Room (TCA 203)
Focusing on major points of contact between modern and contemporary critical theory and theatre and performance studies, this course charts major critical approaches to theatre and performance, including structuralism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminism, deconstruction, post-modernism, post-colonialism, gender, queer and trans theories, new-media theory, ideological and cultural materialism, ethnic, diaspora, post-colonial and critical race theories, etc. The range of critical and cultural perspectives will be applied not only to the analysis of theatrical texts, but also to performance texts, devised theatre, site-specific, immersive, intermedia performance, and the post dramatic. (This course is taught in conjunction with DRAMA 406 - Honors).
DRAMA 617 C3: Dramaturgy II: Production Dramaturgy
Instructor: Dr. Stefano Muneroni
Schedule: Wednesday 1:00 – 3:50 PM
Location: Timms Seminar Room (TCA 203)
FALL & WINTER (**This is a full year course - every second week for both terms) In this seminar, students will engage both the history, theory, and practice of dramaturgy, and they will explore how literary management and dramaturgy exist at the crossroads of dramatic texts, performance analysis, theatre history, reception theory, and history of ideas. They will become familiar with ‘new play dramaturgy,’ but most of the term will be devoted to the study and practice of ‘production dramaturgy.’ Each student will work on a production happening either at the University of Alberta or in the Edmonton’s professional theatre scene. Their dramaturgical duties will include collecting and engaging with critical research, conversing with the creative team, identifying and reaching target audiences, leading public events such as talkbacks, writing program notes, and more. As part of their class assignments, students will write short reflection papers throughout the term, lead one in-class presentation, and hand in as their final project the dramaturgical packet compiled for their assigned production.
DRAMA 624 A1: Models of Dramatic Structure
Instructor: Prof. David Kennedy
Schedule: Tuesday 1:00-3:50 PM
Location: Timms Seminar Room (TCA 203)
Every play has a structure, the specific arrangement of the constituent parts into a unified whole, and learning to view play texts through a structural lens remains one of the essential techniques for grasping their meanings and understanding how they work in performance. Through the study of significant plays and important critical and theoretical documents, this seminar covers various Western models of dramatic structure and the ways in which dramatic works can be analyzed structurally. It will include close examination of a number of prevalent dramatic structures in Western theatre from classical Greece to the modern era, and the historical, political, and cultural conditions in which they evolved. Students will contend with these structural models and representative plays not only in their original contexts, but also as a means of discovering how to make the work come alive in contemporary production.DRAMA 617 C3: Dramaturgy II: Production Dramaturgy
Instructor: Dr. Stefano Muneroni
Schedule: Wednesday 1:00 – 3:50 PM
Location: Timms Seminar Room (TCA 203)
FALL & WINTER (**This is a full year course - every second week for both terms) In this seminar, students will engage both the history, theory, and practice of dramaturgy, and they will explore how literary management and dramaturgy exist at the crossroads of dramatic texts, performance analysis, theatre history, reception theory, and history of ideas. They will become familiar with ‘new play dramaturgy,’ but most of the term will be devoted to the study and practice of ‘production dramaturgy.’ Each student will work on a production happening either at the University of Alberta or in the Edmonton’s professional theatre scene. Their dramaturgical duties will include collecting and engaging with critical research, conversing with the creative team, identifying and reaching target audiences, leading public events such as talkbacks, writing program notes, and more. As part of their class assignments, students will write short reflection papers throughout the term, lead one in-class presentation, and hand in as their final project the dramaturgical packet compiled for their assigned production.
DRAMA 505/DRAMA 623 B1: Drag: History, Politics, and Performance
Instructor: Dr. Jean O’Hara
Schedule: Tuesdays 2:00 - 4:50 PM
Location: Room TBA
This course will explore the history of drag performance across a variety of sociocultural and political settings. We will examine the uses of drag through multiple mediums: from Kabuki theater to RuPaul's Drag Race. This course will interweave queer Indigenous studies, gender theory, queer theory, and trans theory to examine and interrogate gender, gender roles, and gender performance. The course participants will develop their own drag persona, queering gender or queering desire as a form of embodied research/inquiry into these various theories.
T DES 675 B1: The History of Dress and Decor II
Instructor: Prof. Robert Shannon
Schedule: Monday & Friday 10:00-11:50 AM
Location: Room TBA
Given the interdisciplinary scope of this course, graduate students from other departments are strongly encouraged to register.
This intensive course is a survey of style as displayed in dress, architecture, and decorative art from the Renaissance to the present day. The course provides an overview of the historic cultures which have exerted prominent and sustained influence over the styles of design in the West. Using extensive primary source documentation, the course will examine the progression and elaboration of major styles, within the framework of the social and political forces which shaped them. The course is highly visual and will deepen the understanding of the pervasive power of style and image, while also equipping students with the appropriate terminology to critically discuss and analyze dress, architecture and interior design.
DRAMA 622 B1: Contemporary Performance and the Body on Stage
Instructors: Prof. Lin Snelling & Dr. Piet Defraeye
Schedule: Friday 12:00-2:50 PM
Location: Timms Seminar Room (TCA 203)
This graduate seminar course looks at the various layers of meaning experienced as we dance and discuss; and how moving allows experiential knowledge into performance and production dramaturgy. The body offers an intuitive/intelligent framework that invites a physical perspective into the embodiment of our thought processes. How does the intelligence of the body integrate with the architectures of theatrical spaces and create collisions and confluence points? We work with critical theory and contemporary dramaturgy and a physical application of these principals. In the spirit of exploration, relationship, and involvement, and the interweaving of the physical and intellectual we hope to benefit and stimulate creative thinking and moving; the final goal of the seminar is to gain a different, renewed perspective on one’s own creative process and methodologies.