UGRD > THRART
Theatre Arts Courses
THRART 100 Introduction to Theatre +
Description:
This course introduces the collaborative art of theatre from the varied perspectives of playwright, director, designer, technician, actor, critic, and informed audience. More Info
Offered in:THRART 105 Theatre Practicum 1 +
Description:
This course is first in a series of four required courses in the practical study of production, performance, or theatre management. These elements will be studies through hands on work on UMass Boston Theatre productions by the student with theatre professionals (UMass Faculty and Guest Artists) and other students. The laboratory for study is the theatre and its support areas at UMass Boston. A student should think of this course as an applied laboratory in production theatre. More Info
Offered in:THRART 108G Plays from Page to Stage +
Description:
Playwrights create works that get produced. How? By whom? Participants study how directors develop concepts; how collaboration with designers, actors, and technicians bears fruit; and how productions are promoted. The course also examines the rehearsal process, and looks behind the scenes to where sets and costumes get built, lights are hung, and tech rehearsals begin and build to opening night. More Info
Offered in:THRART 109 Multicultural American Drama +
Description:
In this course, we will explore various notions of ''identity'' by reading plays and examining how American playwrights assert their sense of race, class, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. More Info
Offered in:THRART 115 Makeup Artistry +
Description:
This course explores the professional approach to designing and applying makeup for theatre, fashion, and allied fields -- such as trauma makeup for ER response training. The course teaches both theory and practice. By working on themselves and on each other, students will actively apply the fundamental principles of character makeup, ageing techniques, and special effects, using bruise wheels, liquid latex, molding putty and stage blood. Students will also explore the principles of makeup styling for fashion spreads and TV broadcast. More Info
Offered in:THRART 122 Costume Construction +
Description:
Students will study fundamental techniques in the area of costume construction. The course topics covered will include but are not limited to: sewing machine use, maintenance, industrial serger use, and hand sewing techniques. The primary focus of the class is building necessary skills to construct basic garments and understanding the relationship between the designer sketch and the finished project. More Info
Offered in:THRART 123 Theatre Crafts I +
Description:
An introduction to an exploration of stage facilities and skills, emphasizing skill development in the uses and choices of tools, materials, and procedures necessary for scenic and property execution. More Info
Offered in:THRART 124 Theatre Crafts II: Stage Management +
Description:
This course teaches essential skills in stage management, sound, and props related to live entertainment production. Students learn how to coordinate rehearsals and run of shows and how to interact with directors, performers, musicians, designers, and technical staff in order to produce a successful event. Students will study the organizational techniques, communication methods, budget management, and industry standards essential to a career in the Performing Arts and beyond. More Info
Offered in:THRART 125 Introduction to Theatrical Design +
Description:
This course will introduce students to the design elements used in theatre to present a play visually. Students will learn how to use visual design to create the world of the play and communicate the story to the audience. Students will additionally learn how to explain their designs to other theatre artists, the director, and other designers for implementation onstage. More Info
Offered in:THRART 136 Introduction to Acting +
Description:
This is an introductory course in the fundamentals of acting for non-theatre arts majors. Students explore storytelling through imagination, character, and a basic approach to text through action. Through exercises, improvisations and scene study, students establish a working vocabulary and acquire the basic skills of the acting process. More Info
Offered in:THRART 140 Introduction to Stage Combat +
Description:
Introduces students to the art of unarmed stage combat techniques for theatre. Students learn how to safely execute unarmed combat such as falls, rolls, punches, kicks, and other partnering techniques necessary when telling a story of violence. Emphasis is on keeping performers safe, increasing their awareness of bodies in space and articulation of the process through class exercises, choreographed scenes, and observation of others. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 200 Enlivening Cultural and Gender Identities Through Dress +
Description:
This course will study context-specific dress codes from around the globe and the USA. It will be divided into four parts: Guilds and Heritage, Festive Spirit and Human Geography. Reenactment and Living History, and Costume Play and Culture. Students explore how the mobility of people, ideas, and practices, across a variety of borders, reflect the choice of dress as an indicator of contemporary social experience within a global cultural environment. This course provides a space for students to experience and embrace diversity by drawing upon Boston community members who represent a breadth of global populations. This class is a hands-on, interactive course designed with the support of the Mellon Foundation. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 201 Theatre History: Origins-1660 +
Description:
Theatre is endemic to the human condition. Every culture, throughout recorded history, has created forms of performance to satisfy the mimetic instinct. Naturally, the types of performance we find in various places and times demonstrate very different structures and functions, answering the particular needs of the cultures that created them. This course will survey the development of theatre from origins to 1660. In addition to reading plays, we will consider such issues as the physical form of the stage, various approaches to acting, the changing constitution of audiences, and costume history, all with a mind to exploring the socio-historical forces that influenced the development of the theatre. More Info
Offered in:THRART 202 Theatre History: 1660-Present +
Description:
Theatre is endemic to the human condition. Every culture, throughout recorded history, has created forms of performance to satisfy the mimetic instinct. Naturally, the types of performance we find in various places and times demonstrate very different structures and functions, answering the particular needs of the cultures that created them. This course will survey the development of theatre from 1660 to the present. In addition to reading plays, we will consider such issues as the physical form of the stage, various approaches to acting, the changing constitution of audiences, and costume history, all with a mind to exploring the socio-historical forces that influenced the development of the theatre. More Info
Offered in:THRART 205 Theatre Practicum 2 +
Description:
This course is second in a series of four required courses in the practical study of production, performance, or theatre management. These elements will be studies through hands on work on UMass Boston Theatre productions by the student with theatre professionals (UMass Faculty and Guest Artists) and other students. The laboratory for study is the theatre and its support areas at UMass Boston. A student should think of this course as an applied laboratory in production theatre. This second course allows the student to assume a more responsible role within the theatre production team and gain further understanding of the craft. More Info
Offered in:THRART 236 Acting 1 +
Description:
Designed for Theatre Arts majors and minors only. Students explore the craft of acting through imagination, character study and a basic approach to text through action. Basic technical methods in voice, movement and script analysis are introduced. Through ensemble and scene work, improvisation and monologues, students establish a working vocabulary, acquire performance and audition skills and begin to develop a personal artistic process. More Info
Offered in:THRART 251 Playwriting I +
Description:
Writing for the theatre, including examinations of model one-act and three-act plays by major contemporary writers; selected readings on the craft of playwriting; and the completion of an original play begun in class. More Info
Offered in:THRART 260L Improvisation and the Art of Comedy +
Description:
Improvisation and the Art of Comedy is a theatre arts and cinema studies course that allows students to explore, study and perform popular forms of Improvisation and Comedy in theatre and film. The class provides the physical performance training and academic study necessary to pursue the craft of creating comedy in theatre and film performances and improvisational comedy. Students will find this class helps them in basic life skills and professional skills spanning a wide variety of fields. More Info
Offered in:THRART 265L Acting for the Camera +
Description:
An exploration and evaluation of techniques of television production, with particular emphasis on common industry practices. More Info
Offered in:THRART 275L Introduction to Screen and Television Writing +
Description:
An introduction to the art and the technical aspects of writing scripts for film and television. Involves analyses of screenplays, study of screen writers past and present, the relationship between director and writer, aesthetics of film writing. Project: the completion of a full-length screenplay from first treatment (synopsis) through first and second drafts and final script. More Info
Offered in:THRART 300L Scenic Design for Theatre and Entertainment +
Description:
This course will introduce students to the art and craft of scenic design for the theatre and the greater entertainment industry. As scenic designers we have not only a visual impact on the stage; we also shape the movement of the stage. As scenic designers we tell the story of the play through visual elements: structure, paint, set dressing, furniture, texture, form. Effective designers must be able to communicate their ideas to the other members of the artistic team and other artisans. This can only be done through visual means such as: scale models, drafting renderings, and research. Students will gain the basic skills in this course to be able to build on what they have learned and continue to experiment with scenic design. This course requires students not only to produce these visual elements by hand but also to critically read and research a play and choose a concept that can be used to guide their design. Projects will be presented in class so students also learn presentation skills. More Info
Offered in:THRART 301 Contemporary American Drama +
Description:
This course explores American drama from the end of World War II to the present. We will read plays and consider how these works framed the times and places that produced them. Accordingly, we will work as literary critics and theatre historians, but also as cultural anthropologists who use drams as the medium they examine in order to understand a particular culture in the midst of rapid change. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 303 Musical Theatre +
Description:
An introduction to styles, kinds, and techniques of performance in musical theatre, from early mime through commedia dell'arte, opera and operetta, and modern musical comedy. Vocal and movement training, scene work and musical numbers developed, as well as semester projects of musical performances. More Info
Offered in:THRART 305 Theatre Practicum 3 +
Description:
This course is third in a series of four required courses in the practical study of production, performance, or theatre management. These elements will be studies through hands on work on UMass Boston Theatre productions by the student with theatre professionals (UMass Faculty and Guest Artists) and other students. The laboratory for study is the theatre and its support areas at UMass Boston. A student should think of this course as an applied laboratory in production theatre. This third course allows a student to focus on a particular element of theatre with assignments at a high level such as crew leader, designer or stage manager, and it may require a declared concentration and course study. The Theatre Production Advisory (TAPA) will vet all leadership positions. More Info
Offered in:THRART 316 The Elizabethan Stage +
Description:
Study of Elizabethan stage techniques as revealed in plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson and Webster. More Info
Offered in:THRART 318 Modern European Drama +
Description:
A study of late-nineteenth, early-twentieth-century theatre in Europe that marked the beginning of naturalistic, realistic, and symbolic drama, and created a revolution in directorial, scenic, and performance techniques. Plays are presented as scripts to be produced. Students create production books integrating all facets of theatrical expression. More Info
Offered in:THRART 320 Shakespearean Acting +
Description:
Specialized study of Shakespearean plays based on historical awareness of acting styles and techniques employed since the sixteenth century. Students create a broad range of characters in a variety of scenes from Shakespeare. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 324 Movement for the Actor +
Description:
An introduction to the styles and techniques of movement for the stage, including characterization movement and movement used to develop stage presence. More Info
Offered in:THRART 336 Acting 2 +
Description:
This course focuses on intermediate acting training that builds upon Acting 1. Students practice extensive scene study, script analysis, character development and ensemble acting. Students will learn concepts of modern acting theories and apply them to scenework, honing partnering skills and rehearsal techniques. Students continue to practice performance and audition skills and to develop a personal artistic process. More Info
Offered in:THRART 337 Directing I +
THRART 338 Voice for the Actor +
Description:
Designed to improve vocal clarity and tonal quality of the actor's vocal instrument. Emphasis will be placed on such voice and diction problems as improper enunciation and extreme dialects. Improving vocal production will be accomplished by utilizing drills, exercises, the International Phonetic alphabet, audio and videotaped recordings. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 355 Lighting Design +
THRART 361 Introduction to Costume Design +
Description:
A theoretical approach to the practice of designing costumes for the theatre; from proper research compilation to creative sketch presentation. The course introduces the relevance of cultural representation, and the use of design elements such as color, scale, silhouette, fabric choices, etc., as they apply to character and story-telling on stage More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 405 Theatre Practicum 4 +
Description:
This course is final course in a series of four required courses in the practical study of production, performance, or theatre management. These elements will be studies through hands on work on UMass Boston Theatre productions by the student with theatre professionals (UMass Faculty and Guest Artists) and other students. The laboratory for study is the theatre and its support areas at UMass Boston. A student should think of this course as an applied laboratory in production theatre. Sutdents should use this course as a capstone or portfolio project as they will be given an assignment in their area of theatre. This assignment is to be the culmination of a student's studies in a particular area of theatre over his/her college career. The Theatre Production Advisory (TAPA) will vet all leadership positions. More Info
Offered in:THRART 410 Topics in Dramatic Literature +
Description:
This is a seminar course that provides close study of topics varying from semester to semester. Subject matter can cover an individual or group of playwrights, dramatic forms or styles, historic periods, or theatrical movements. A research paper (minimum 10 pages) and a class presentation are required. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 435 Theatre Arts Internship +
Description:
Designed to enable theatre arts majors to earn 3-6 credits for a semester's internship in communication arts or in commercial or other working theatres outside the university. More Info
Offered in:THRART 436 Advanced Acting +
Description:
Advanced work on selected projects with special attention to the individual actor's needs. Scene work, script breakdown, and development of a character. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
THRART 478 Independent Study +
Description:
Open only to a limited number of students in any one semester. Research, study and participation in theatre projects outside the classroom involving consultation with a faculty advisor. A written prospectus is required. More Info
Offered in:THRART 479 Independent Study +
Description:
Open only to a limited number of students in any one semester. Research, study and participation in theatre projects outside the classroom involving consultation with a faculty advisor. A written prospectus is required. More Info
Offered in:THRART 481 Selected Topics +