To: The Members of UEPC

Re: Proposal requesting Permanent Course Status

for Perfa 152 / Making Theatre: One-Act Plays

Brief context: The specific form and content of the course we here propose was developed across three iterations, in Springs 2013-15, under an existing course, Perfa 160 ( Special Topics in Performing Arts). For reasons explained below (13) we are asking the UPEC to consider Spring 2015 as the first experimental offering of this new course, One Act Theatre Festival. Following that experimental offering, we now seek permanent course status for this course. The process of development is fully explained below, in item 13.

1. School of Liberal Arts, Performing Arts Department, Perfa 152, Making Theatre: One Act Plays

2. Justification for the course:

The success of the Performing Arts scholarship initiative, now in its sixth year, has brought an influx of highly motivated, ambitious and talented theatre students to the College. These scholarship students come to Saint Mary’s with the expectation that they will have frequent opportunities to perform, and also to explore different facets of the artform, from playwriting and directing to design and stage management. Our two mainstage productions, one each semester, have proved inadequate to meeting the need for production opportunities for our highly interested and qualified student cohort.

The One Act Theatre Festival, piloted in 2013-15, has allowed us to better address the following needs of Theatre Program majors and minors:

  • By adding a third evening-length performance event to our season, more acting roles are available, and performers not cast in the mainstage show in a given semester have additional chances to act.
  • The Festival also expands opportunities for students in Design and Technical Theatre. The relatively small scale of the Festival productions provides an ideal vehicle for mentoring individual students as production managers, stage managers, dramaturgs, lighting designers etc. Freshmen and sophomores benefit especially, as they are allowed to take on more responsibilities and creative challenges than the mainstage productions typically allow the underclassmen.
  • By showcasing student-written and student-directed works, Making Theatre: One-Act Plays allows for extended creative practice in both playwriting and directing. The addition of a production practicum in both topics enhances our existing curricular offerings in playwriting and directing.

In addition, the Making Theater: One Act Plays provides an inclusive and non-competitive theatre experience, akin to the Jan Term Children’s Show. In practical terms, this means that through the One Act course, we are able to welcome beginners and to involve non-majors from across the college. Interested students must audition or interview, and they receive assignments appropriate to their level of training and experience; but in three years we have never turned away a single student who wished to participate.

3. Objectives for PERFA 152

a) Indicate expected student outcomes:

  • Through analysis, research and discussion, develop insights into this semester’s selection of one-act plays; and a deeper understanding of the specific challenges of short-form theatre.
  • Cultivate a unique perspective on the process through which we bring a play from printed script to fully embodied production, by both observing and participating in that process;
  • Gain practical experience in one or more of the theatre crafts – acting, directing, playwrighting, dramaturgy, designing – with all the skills and modes of awareness they involve. [For example, acting involves active imagination, physical and vocal expressiveness, ensemble awareness and partner.]
  • Apply your understanding of the plot, themes and relevant context as a director, actor or designer, so that your own artistic choices serve the meaning of the play and our vision for the production.
  • Deepen your skills as a member of an ensemble: skills of cooperation, communication, and creative problem solving as they apply to the collaborative work of realizing a playscript in performance.

b) Describe how the objectives listed above relate to Department, School, or College goals.

This course aligns with the following Theatre Program’s discipline-specific learning objectives:

  • Understand the theatre production process from its inception/initial organization through its final performance and post-mortem. Develop a comprehensive understanding of the various roles, elements and interrelated processes of creation, interpretation, performance, and production.
  • Demonstrate the ability to develop both text-based and non-text based performances.
  • Develop the artist’s instrument through work on the self - active imagination; ensemble awareness and partnering; collaboration and communication.
  • Understand the elements and terminology that define the various art forms within theatre, including technical theatre and design. Differentiate the components involved in each area of theatre, and apply basic theatrical and technical vocabulary.
  • Use discipline-specific writing strategies appropriate to the writer’s purpose and audience. [Examples: personal reflection; observation and description; critical analysis; evaluation; generating performance texts]
  • Identify, locate and evaluate discipline-specific scholarly sources. Demonstrate competency in selecting, summarizing, synthesizing and ordering research findings.

PERFA 152 also aligns with the following Performing Arts departmental objectives:

• Demonstrate the capacity for sustained and focused rehearsal efforts and for working collaboratively with different directors and performers.

• Perform the works of great choreographers, composers, and playwrights, as well as original /contemporary works of living artists.

• Adapt performance skills both in rehearsal and performance to the technical demands of specific masterworks of various styles and eras, as well as to original/contemporary works.

• Exhibit performance skills from the foundational to professional level while effectively negotiating the anxiety/excitement of live performance.

4. Assessment:

All enrolled students realize a ‘role’ – broadly defined - as part of an ensemble which is working collectively to bring a script from the page to a performance. Following the assessment practices already used in our other departmental performance practicums, the individual achievement of each student, as part of the summative performance before a live audience, carries significant weight (40% for .25 students; 30% for 1.0 student). (A director is assessed on the effectiveness of the staging, for example, while an actor is assessed on the credibility and appropriateness of their character choices.)

Students are also assessed on their achievements during the investigative process of rehearsals, as well as on the professionalism they demonstrate throughout the course (worth 50% for .25 students; and 30% for 1.0 students). This assessment involves direct observation by the supervising faculty member; and weekly rehearsal summaries written by the student directors and stage managers. In addition, all students are required to write a 2-3 page summative self-reflection on the course experience (worth 10%).

An additional academic component for full-credit students accounts for the remaining 30% of their grades: in addition to the rehearsal-based work of mounting one or more one-act plays, students enrolled for a full credit meet weekly as a group with the supervising faculty member, outside of rehearsal hours, for a seminar style discussion of assigned readings. In this context, the full credit students are also required to research and present an oral report on a topic relevant to their particular area of inquiry.

The pass/fail grading option is allowed for non-majors only.

5. Student population: Based on three years of piloting this course on an experimental basis, we believe Perfa 152 will enroll primarily with Theatre Program majors and minors. If the course is designated for Artistic Understanding, [we are concurrently seeking approval for that], we think it will also attract students from other departments seeking to fulfill either the combined Artistic Analysis and Creative Practice requirements (1.0 option) or the Creative Practice requirement (.25 option).

6. Relationship to present College curriculum: This course parallels and complements two existing production-based courses in Theatre (Perfa 132 and Perfa 142, through which both majors and non-majors work on the mainstage productions.) Since this course supports work on a different production, it is not in direct competition with either existing course. In the last three years we have successfully coordinated rehearsals and performance dates so that students could participate in both the mainstage production and the one-acts.

No modification to (or deletion of) existing courses would result from offering this course. A possible positive impact for the English Department is that those majors and minors in their program with interest in playwriting and/or dramaturgy would have a course option for seeing their work realized in performance. We don’t anticipate any negative impacts for any other department or program of the College.

7. Resource needs: Rehearsal space and stage time are always at a premium in our department – whether for faculty or student-generated projects. But Performing Arts has already “road tested” the logistical impacts of adding a one-act festival to our season. As a department we continue to work collaboratively to make up for the lack of a dedicated acting classroom/rehearsal room on the campus. [For example, in Spring 2016, the One-Acts will be staged in a campus parking lot.] Beyond appropriate evening rehearsal spaces, we anticipate no special requirements for this course.

8. Library Resources: A library review has been conducted by Subject Librarian Josh Rose. See attached.

9. Course credit and grading options
Adopting the model of our existing Performing Arts production courses (Perfa 132, Play in Production; Perfa 142, Theatre Production Practicum; and Perfa 194, Dance Production) this course will be offered with 1.0, and .25 sections available. The .25 section should be designated as "academic" because it will focus on a specific body of knowledge/method of study and have a specific connection to the College's curriculum in an academic department or program. It also meets the following criteria:

a) The course will be taught by a faculty member of the Performing Arts Theatre Program.

b) The course will require that the resulting "performance-based" projects are subject to evaluation by the instructor.

c) The partial credit options meet the minimum of 32.5 hours (for .25 credit) of combined classroom time and out-of-class assignment time. Specifically,

  • Students enrolled for .25 have one-two rehearsals per week, averaging two-three hours of combined rehearsal time and out of class preparation weekly. This totals 20-30 hours spread over a ten week period. In the final six days of the process – which involve technical and dress rehearsals, performances, and strike - all participants put in three-four hours per night, for an additional 25 hours. Thus partial credit students exceed the minimum workload required for a partial credit academic course. [We note that several mechanisms cap the total number of hours required: no project may rehearse more than twice a week, or for longer than two hours at a time. No rehearsals are held during the first two weeks of the semester (while the shows are being cast), during spring break or during the week the mainstage production performs.]
  • Students enrolled for 1.0 In addition to the rehearsal-based work of mounting one or more one-act plays, students enrolled for a full credit have additional academic requirements. Outside of rehearsal hours, these students meet weekly as a group with the supervising faculty member, for a seminar style discussion of assigned readings. In this context, the full credit students are also required to research and present an oral report on a topic relevant to their particular area of inquiry.

The format of the course is primarily studio-based, with the supervising faculty member observing rehearsals on a rotating basis, and meeting weekly with the student directors as a group. All students are involved in the culminating public performances. Full-credit students have an additional academic component, described above.

Although Perfa 152 has no prerequisites, it meets the criterion of an upper division course, in that:

  • As a practicum course, students are exercising skills and techniques beyond an introductory level. (In an introductory course like Perceiving or Acting I, students might prepare a three-minute exercise or a five-minute excerpt from a play.) By contrast, the one-act format requires student actors, writers, directors and designers, to address a higher order of formal concerns:
  • the full arc dramatic events in a complete script
  • the progression of a character across a complete play
  • the realization of a public performance across a production process.
  • The structure of the course requires of all students not only high levels of affective and psychomotor achievement (ie emotional and physical intelligence), but psychological maturity, self-direction and significant personal accountability. Students are required to work collaboratively with fellow students, across the semester, in order to handle the complex artistic, interpersonal and logistical challenges that arise in the rehearsal process. Further, these challenges are not ‘uniform’ across all projects – each production team encounters, defines, and addresses a set of demands that are distinctive to that script.

10. There are no prerequisites or co-requisites

11. Course description for College catalog:

PERFA 152: Making Theatre – One Act Plays

This course creates opportunities to act, direct, dramaturg, design and/or serve as stage crew in an evening-length program of short works by up-and-coming playwrights. Students receive individual mentoring and production support, while working as part of a creative ensemble to bring an original script from the page to public performance. Both full and quarter credit options are available; for full-credit students, a weekly seminar roundtable (with assigned readings, discussion, and research) deepens the studio-based investigations of rehearsal. The course culminates in an annual festival of one-act plays, performed for a campus audience. Prospective playwrights and directors should contact the Theatre Program Director by Dec. 1st, to arrange an interview. Students interested in acting will audition during the first week of spring semester.

12. Course content: A syllabus adapted from Perfa 160 [offered in Spring 2015 with a dedicated .25 section Perfa 132-04] is attached, along with the schedule of readings for Perfa 160. The activities of the course are clearly described in the syllabus.

13. Review of experimental offering:

Perfa 160 is a permanent Special Topics course in Performing Arts. The course rotates regularly between the three disciplines (music, dance and theatre) in Performing Arts, and has thus been offered with various contents over the years.

In Spring 2013 the Theatre Program offered the course for the first time as One-Act Play Festival. At the time, we considered the course simply another iteration of the department’s“special topics” course. In the process, however, we realized from the robust student response, the caliber of the scripts generated, and the overall success of the event that this particular course filled a number of programmatic needs. We began to explore the possibility of adding an annual festival of student-written, directed and performed short plays to our programming.

In Spring 2104, while the faculty member who initiated the course was on sabbatical, the One Act Festival went forward in a different form, based on available resources. That year it was a non-course-based activity, with no separate academic component; student participation was on a voluntary basis, and was supervised by a staff member compensated by a stipend.

We learned two things from the experience. First, student interest in this programming remained strong. And second, there are sound pedagogical, programmatic and institutional reasons for the one-act production experience to be housed in a course, as our other production practicums are. As a department, we’ve come to this position over many years of trial and error: when students are enrolled in a credit-bearing course, they approach and engage with the production process differently as a result; their level of investment and sense of accountability are typically higher; and their reflective learning is deepened when they are asked to think about process, goals, and growth achieved.

In Spring 2015 I took what I learned as the instructor in 2013, and what we’d learned as a program in 2014, and reshaped the course, which we again offered under Perfa 160 (with a .25 option made available by adding a section to Perfa 132, Play in Production.)

Key Areas of Development: The key change in Spring 2105 was that I strengthened the course’s academic component. For the full credit students, I added more assigned readings, and created a new research/oral report assignment tailored to their particular needs and interests. Last spring this weekly symposium was incredibly rewarding to teach; participants benefited from the synergy between focused reading and discussion, (Among the issues we considered were the historical development of the director, and gender and power dynamics in rehearsal.) and reflection on how those issues played out in actual rehearsals. The diversity of student interests in the roundtable created a rich dialogue across the constituent theatrical arts. The major student feedback from the roundtable was “more readings!” The students loved the direct application of the readings and discussion to their hands-on work in rehearsal.