E(x)-Making

TH343A Collabs (Schebetta)
TH343D: Collabs (Klein)

TUES/THURS 3:30-5:30pm

*Note: register for one of the two classes – they are two sections meeting at the same time

E(x)-Making: We will EXplore, EXamine, EXpand our practice of making. Our obstacles become tools, our tools become the medium.

We’re expanding the idea of Collabs class for a digital world and for multi-disciplinary work, including writers, designers, dramaturgs as well as actors and directors. What does it mean to make a performance in this particular historical moment and with the technological tools that we have at our disposal? How can we use digital platforms as a way to tell theatrical stories? What can this new way of working reveal about our own humanity, about how we connect and can be present with each other? How can we make a performance that has the same electric feeling as a live show but transfer that idea of presence to the digital stage?

Through intense online collaboration, we will challenge you to make three different original performance projects that respond to the moment through creative prompts. You will strengthen your base of skills but also broaden your horizons as you are asked to rotate into creative roles outside of your own expertise. Actors will have the chance to write, direct or design and designers will have the chance to perform or direct. The class projects will have scheduled public premieres and/or online presentations so we can share the work with the greater community.

Instructor permission is required and we recommend that students take at least two of these fundamental theater courses (TH104, TH204, TH140, TH240, TH129, TH130)

Turn and Face the Strange:
Creating a Changed Theater Company

TH306 Theater Management (Kessler)
TH343D 002 Collabs (DiResta)

*Note: register for one of the two classes – they are two sections meeting at the same time

This course aims to engage students in responding to the current crisis. We will meet as producers, directors, technicians, designers, writers, dramaturgs, and performers to conceptualize, plan and execute the JKB’s response to the current scenario. We will operate under the premise that Spring 2021 will be a semester devoted to student driven work that seeks to put students at the helm of every facet of production. Therefore, this class will serve as the company to produce the spring season in collaboration with faculty.

In this class we will consider: 

• What does the word company mean? At the JKB? In theaters in the United States? Globally? 
• What are the origin stories, missions, processes and spirits of representative landmark theater companies and how can we use them as reference points as we envision our own company?  
• How are companies responding in this particular moment to the challenges and questions thus posed in 2020, ranging from the response to COVID-19 to answering calls for anti-racist programming?
  

Over the course of the semester, students will: 

• Create a code of conduct for the Spring 2021 festival of student work. 
• Study current national trends in producing and season planning and consider the ways in which those trends can be applied at the JKB. 
• Work with faculty to program and plan a Spring 2021 season of student work that fulfills department goals, including lab shows, senior projects, readings, independent studies, etc. 
• Create contingency plans that address the different ways in which reopening might (and might not) happen in 2021, including creating online theater. 
• Unroll, market and brand the Spring 2021 season to the JKB community, the Skidmore community, and the Saratoga community.  

Instructor permission is required, as well as one of the following pre-reqs:  Intro to Directing, Theater Management (and/or having held a full time position on the Management team), and Dramaturgy