Catherine Sheehy, Chair
Kimberly Jannarone, Associate Chair
The Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program encompasses multiple areas of theater and performance, offering intensive training to prepare students in three areas: to work in theaters as dramaturgs, artistic producers, literary managers, and in related positions; to work in theater publishing as critics and editors as well as in other capacities; to teach theater as practitioners, critics, and scholars.
At the core of the training is a curriculum of seminars and practica that emphasize historical knowledge, conscientious writing, collaboration, and innovative artistic and academic research. These may be supplemented by courses taught elsewhere in the University if approved by students’ advisers. The aim is to impart a comprehensive knowledge of theater and dramatic literature—a knowledge necessary to the dramaturg, the writer and editor, and the teacher. Regarding the latter, while it cannot be guaranteed, every effort is made to give qualified students teaching experience within the University.
Of particular importance in the program of study are the criticism workshops, which are taught by various members of the faculty and which students must take in each of six terms. These courses are designed to improve skills in thinking and writing and are an essential component in the faculty’s evaluation of students’ progress from term to term.
Historically, David Geffen School of Drama has been a pioneer in this country in introducing and establishing the dramaturg as an essential presence in the creation of theater and as a key member of a theater’s staff. Under the supervision of the resident dramaturg of Yale Repertory Theatre, students are assigned to work on many varied productions, including those of new scripts by School playwrights, workshops and full productions by School directors, and professional presentations of classical and contemporary works at Yale Repertory Theatre. Among the areas in which students participate are text preparation and oversight; translation and adaptation; preproduction and rehearsal work on issues of design, direction, and performance; contextual research; program notes and study guide preparation; the conducting of audience discussions; participation in programs in educational outreach; and related work in conjunction with the marketing and media departments. Students also assist in Yale Repertory Theatre’s literary office with script evaluation and communication with writers and agents. Thus, students are trained in topics in institutional dramaturgy, including the formulation of artistic policy and its communication and implementation, and as production dramaturgs, operating within the rehearsal process.
In recognition of the fact that dramaturgs may not only assume the leadership of theaters under such titles as artistic director and producer but may also found theaters themselves, the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program has established a collaboration with the Theater Management program to create an optional course of study drawing from the strengths of both disciplines. By creating this interchange, the School seeks to remain at the forefront in fostering the discovery and exploration of new organizational models so that the art of theater will continue to flourish. More information on this partnership is available from the program.
In addition to their training in production dramaturgy and literary management, students have opportunities to develop as writers, editors, and translators through their work on the professional staff of Theater magazine, published three times annually by David Geffen School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre and Duke University Press.
Theater has been publishing new writing by and about contemporary theater artists since 1968. The magazine’s perspectives are different from those of any other American publication: at once practical, creative, and scholarly. Issues include critical essays; new plays, translations, and adaptations; forums about policy, politics, and productions; interviews with writers, directors, and other artists; creative dossiers and polemics; and book and performance reviews. The publication maintains an electronic archive, a website, and social media pages, and it curates symposia and live events on campus and beyond.
Requirements for the M.F.A. and D.F.A. degrees are discussed more fully in the following pages.
Statement of Program Values
We value curiosity, effective communication, joyful art-making, and respect for self and others. Embracing an interdisciplinary, expansive definition of dramaturgy that combines traditional analysis and critique with care, questioning, generosity, and kindness, we support dynamic collaborations within the program and across the School. We envision a transformational learning environment and professional practice based in an ethics of liberation, honoring the diverse perspectives and abilities in our communities. Committing ourselves not only to the concepts but also to the active practice of antiracism, decoloniality, inclusion, and belonging, we strive to nurture these qualities and skills in our students as they create the future of our field.
Quality Standards
In the 2023–2024 academic year, students may request a scaled grading option for any course by September 16, 2023 in the fall term and by January 27, 2024, for the spring term, but the default grading option for all courses will be Pass/Fail, with the exception of Criticism Workshop and the Comprehensive Examinations. The minimum quality requirement for the M.F.A. degree in Dramaturgy is a grade average of High Pass in all graded courses counting toward the degree. Students who receive an Incomplete in any course will be given a notice of academic concern. Any student who receives more than one Incomplete will be placed on academic warning. Students placed on academic warning may not participate in any capacity in the Yale Cabaret. All required course assignments must be completed in order to receive a grade and credit for any course.
Plan of Study: Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Required Sequence (for all classes except the Class of 2024)
Year one
| Course | Subject |
|---|---|
| DRAM 3(04)a/b | Toward Anti-Racist Theater Practice in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism |
| DRAM 6a/b | Survey of Theater and Drama |
| DRAM 36a/b | Passion Projects |
| DRAM 50a | The Theatrical Event |
| DRAM 53a | Authentic Collaboration |
| DRAM 96a | Models of Dramaturgy: The New Play Process |
| DRAM 96b | Models of Dramaturgy: The Fixed Text |
| DRAM 106a | Editing and Publishing Workshop |
| DRAM 166a/b | Criticism Workshop |
| DRAM 306b | Theory Suite: Dramatic Structure† |
| DRAM 316a | Theory Suite: Critical Race Theory† |
| DRAM 346a/b | Literary Office Practicum |
| DRAM 396a/b | Dramaturgy Practicum |
| DRAM 476a/b | Hot Topics |
| At least three elective courses after consultation with adviser† | |
| At least one production dramaturgy assignment | |
Year two
| Course | Subject |
|---|---|
| DRAM 3(04)a/b | Toward Anti-Racist Theater Practice in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism |
| DRAM 166a/b | Criticism Workshop |
| DRAM 246a | Translation* |
| DRAM 326b | Theory Suite: Dramatic & Performance Theory† |
| DRAM 346a/b | Literary Office Practicum |
| DRAM 396a/b | Dramaturgy Practicum |
| DRAM 466b | Research Methodologies |
| DRAM 476a/b | Hot Topics |
| DRAM 616b | Adaptation |
| At least three elective courses after consultation with adviser† | |
| At least one production dramaturgy assignment | |
Year three
| Course | Subject |
|---|---|
| DRAM 3(04)a/b | Toward Anti-Racist Theater Practice in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism |
| DRAM 166a/b | Criticism Workshop |
| DRAM 336a/b | Comprehensive Examinations |
| DRAM 346a/b | Literary Office Practicum |
| DRAM 396a/b | Dramaturgy Practicum |
| DRAM 476a/b | Hot Topics |
| At least four elective courses after consultation with adviser | |
| At least one production dramaturgy assignment | |
*DRAM 246a,Translation, is not offered every year. When it is offered, all dramaturgs who have not taken the course are enrolled in it.
†In any year in which students must take one or two seminars in the Theory Suite (DRAM 306, DRAM 316, DRAM 326), the number of electives is reduced by one.
Class of 2024
Required Sequence
Year four (2023–2024)
| Course | Subject |
|---|---|
| DRAM 3(04)a/b | Toward Anti-Racist Theater Practice in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism |
| DRAM 46a | Special Research Project |
| DRAM 346a/b | Literary Office Practicum |
| DRAM 396a/b | Dramaturgy Practicum |
| DRAM 476a/b | Hot Topics |
| At least one production dramaturgy assignment | |
Additional Requirements for the Degree
Anti-Racist Theater Practice Requirement
Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students are required to enroll in DRAM 3(04)a/b, Toward an Anti-Racist Theater Practice in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, in order to fulfill the School’s anti-racist theater practice requirement. Combined with the prerequisite workshop, Everyday Justice: Anti-Racism as Daily Practice, this course offers vital strategies for the lifelong development of individual and communal anti-racist practice.
Theater History Requirement
Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students are required to enroll in DRAM 6a/b, Survey of Theater and Drama, in order to fulfill the School’s theater history requirement. This course is considered a crucial foundation for all of the program’s students.
Dramaturgical Assignments
Each student serves as a dramaturg on one or more productions per year either at Yale Repertory Theatre or the School. During the fall term of their first eligible year, students are not typically assigned to production work. In the second term, these students may be assigned to a play by a playwriting student at the School and may also work on other plays under the supervision of the resident dramaturg. In their subsequent years, students may undertake a project at Yale Repertory Theatre, a director’s thesis production (see Directing program, DRAM 140a/b, The Director’s Thesis), a Shakespeare Repertory Project (see Directing program, DRAM 120a/b, Directing II), or a play by a playwriting student at the School.
Students work on School productions and Yale Repertory Theatre productions subject to availability and suitability of projects and program requirements.
Additionally, dramaturgy students assist the resident dramaturg and Yale Rep’s literary manager in script evaluation and related tasks through the Literary Office Practicum (DRAM 346a/b).
Yale Cabaret
Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students are encouraged to work in all capacities at the Yale Cabaret, but this participation is understood to be in addition to, and in no way a substitution for, required program work. No student with an “Incomplete” grade in any course, and no student on program-imposed academic warning, may participate in the Yale Cabaret in any capacity. Students must request approval from the student labor supervisor and should inform the program chair before agreeing to participate in the Cabaret.
Yale Repertory Theatre Artistic Office
Students are trained to read scripts for Yale Repertory Theatre, and each academic year, they are required to submit written evaluations of these scripts to the Artistic Office. This work is done under the supervision of Yale Rep’s senior artistic producer and dramaturgy adviser, who is a lecturer in the program, and the literary fellow, who is a D.F.A. candidate in the program.
Theater Magazine Requirement
During their first year, Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students take the Editing and Publishing Workshop (DRAM 106a), taught by the editor of Theater, the journal of criticism and performance co-published by David Geffen School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre and Duke University Press, which introduces them to major aspects of publishing such a journal. In their subsequent years, qualified students may have additional opportunities to work on the magazine’s staff in a variety of editing and publishing positions. Selected D.F.A. candidates may be appointed to senior staff positions as part of their doctoral fellowships. Along with essays, reviews, plays, and translations by leading authors and professional critics, Theater has published outstanding work by Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students, who are encouraged to propose and submit writing and editorial projects for possible publication.
Language Requirement
The language requirement is satisfied by the translation of a play in the Translation seminar (DRAM 246a). Students who wish to pursue a special emphasis in translation may take this course once more with the approval of their advisers and the course instructor.
Library Orientation
Upon entering the program, students are required to take orientation seminars introducing them to the Yale University Library system and its various facilities and resources.
Comprehensive Examination Requirement
The comprehensives are a set of final written and oral qualifying examinations in which third-year students demonstrate their ability to bring critical depth and dramaturgical perspective to broad areas of the field. Through this process students take responsibility for proficiency in subjects of their own choosing. Often these subjects have not been covered in course work.
Each student must write two independently researched exams. For each of these, the student writes essay-length answers to two questions in the chosen area of study. Topics for written examinations must be chosen in consultation with the student’s adviser and reflect breadth of study across time periods, genres, movements, etc. Areas of study should not overlap and may include major historical periods; important dramatists or other figures; basic dramatic genres; significant theoretically or critically defined movements. Other broad areas also may be devised in consultation with faculty advisers.
Each student must create one dramaturgical casebook each year based on a production assignment completed during the student’s first five terms at the School and approved by the faculty. Casebooks must include the full and cut scripts, an essay of textual analysis, a comprehensive production history, a critical bibliography, preproduction and rehearsal journals, and other pertinent materials generated by work on the production (program pages, poster design, etc.). Casebooks may be hard copies or in digital form. Guidelines for casebooks are available from the program.
These written components—exams and production casebooks—are followed by an oral comprehensive exam. Oral examinations are designed not only as defenses of the written exams but may also be a further exploration of areas students have worked on but not addressed in their other comprehensives. The production casebooks will provide the basis for discussion during the oral exam of the student’s development as a dramaturg. These exams will be completed in May.
Final grades for the comprehensive examinations are determined upon completion of the entire process. Following each written examination, students will be given a Pass/Fail evaluation for that exam by their faculty advisers. If the faculty concludes that the exam is not passing work, the student will be informed of the areas of deficiency. In such a case the oral examination becomes an opportunity for the student to redress the deficiencies. A student who fails one or more comprehensives and/or the oral is allowed to reenroll in the comprehensive process once more during the following year. A student failing the second time is not awarded a degree.
Second-year students must adhere to the following schedule*
- January 31, 2024: Deadline for submission of comprehensive examination topics. At this time, exam topics must be submitted in memorandum form via email to all non-visiting members of the program faculty for approval.
- March 8, 2024: Deadline for submission of a full comprehensive proposal, including a carefully researched and selected bibliography, for faculty approval. This bibliography should reflect an understanding of the most essential reading in the proposed subject and reflect prior consultation with appropriate members of the program’s faculty.
- April 19, 2024: Deadline for submission of final revised comprehensive proposal and bibliography.
*In 2023–2024 there are no third-year students; a typical calendar for third years’ comprehensive exam process will be reestablished next year.
Requirements for the Doctor of Fine Arts in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Upon completion of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program requirements for an M.F.A. degree and graduation from the School, a student is eligible to register to remain in residence for the proposal year to apply to the Doctor of Fine Arts (D.F.A.) program.* Acceptance into the D.F.A. program is not to be considered an entitlement and is based not only on the merits of the proposal, but also on the faculty’s assessment of the student’s performance and progress in the M.F.A. program. Candidates must submit their proposals by January 8, 2024, the first day of the spring term, for review by the D.F.A. Committee. The proposal must conform to program guidelines and designate first and second readers. If either reader comes from outside the program, the proposal must include a letter from the reader acknowledging a willingness to advise the dissertation if the prospectus is approved. It is understood that, except in extraordinary circumstances, if the student’s proposed dissertation can be read by a member of the full-time faculty, that faculty member will be considered the first reader. Upon review, the committee may approve, reject, or recommend changes to the proposal. If changes are recommended, the student has until April 1, 2024, to resubmit the proposal in order to obtain the committee’s approval. If the proposal has not been sufficiently revised at that time, it will be finally rejected.
A student holding an M.F.A. degree from the School has two years after graduation to apply to and be accepted into the D.F.A. program. Upon acceptance of the proposal by the D.F.A. Committee, the student is expected to complete the dissertation within three years, working in close consultation with the first reader. If necessary, and so long as the student is able to demonstrate progress, an extension may be granted upon a written request. Each year all D.F.A. students registered as “in residence” are expected to attend an in-person chapter conference at the School; here they will offer a twenty-minute presentation about their latest research and writing. These chapter conferences will be held at the end of both the fall and spring terms. In consultation with their advisers, students may choose at which conference they would like to present.
Graduating D.F.A. students must adhere to the following schedule
- January 8, 2024: Final deadline for submission of revised drafts of all chapters to first and second readers.
- March 15, 2024: Notification of approval of revised chapter drafts and requests for final corrections.
- April 15, 2024: Final deadline for submission of all formatted files.
After the D.F.A. Committee’s final acceptance of the dissertation, two hard-bound copies must be delivered to the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism chair two weeks prior to the date on which the student expects to graduate. The dissertation proposal guidelines contain complete details and stipulations for obtaining the degree and are available through the program.
The D.F.A. candidate may elect to register as a full-time student in residence to pursue work on the dissertation. The tuition fee for this status is $1,000 per year in residence and entitles candidates to use libraries and related facilities, to audit courses related to their research, to eligibility for tickets to School and Yale Repertory Theatre productions, and to Yale Health Basic Coverage. Yale Health Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage is offered for an additional fee (for 2023–2024, the fee is $1,447 per term). In the first five years of residency, D.F.A. candidates receive a scholarship to cover tuition and the cost of Yale Health Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage. (If students decline this insurance coverage, their scholarship will be reduced by the amount equivalent to its cost.) Students enrolled in the D.F.A. program are eligible to apply for one of three writing fellowships, a Yale Rep artistic associate fellowship, a Theater magazine fellowship, or DRAM 6a/b teaching assistantships. These fellowships are awarded based on suitability and other factors, such as additional opportunities for support, pedagogical enrichment, and demand or history of support in the program. The Theater magazine, artistic associate, and literary office fellowships are twelve months long; the rest are for the nine-month academic year only. As a result, fellowship awards offer differing financial support. More information is available from the financial aid office.
*The Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program has instituted DRAM 46a, Special Research Project, as a capstone project for students enrolled in the four-year curriculum. Students interested in pursuing the D.F.A. degree are expected to use their enrollment in this course to complete their prospectus under the mentorship of program advisers. For more information on DRAM 46a, please see the section below.
Courses of Instruction
DRAM 3(04)a/b, Toward Anti-Racist Theater Practice in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism This course meets both within individual programs and across disciplines, with students and faculty members as fellow learners, using readings, viewings, and discussions in pursuit of these goals: to identify the roots and branches of racism and white supremacy in the structures and practices of theater making in the United States, including at the School and Yale Repertory Theatre; to interrogate where the practices do harm and hinder; and to invest in the future by inviting students and faculty to imagine and uplift systems and cultures that do not depend upon or promote supremacy, to build a more just and equitable field. For the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program, this course takes the form of practical modules that meet throughout the year. Carly McCollow and faculty
DRAM 6a/b, Survey of Theater and Drama An introduction to the varied histories of world drama and theater as an art form, as a profession, as a social event, and as an agent of cultural definition through the ages. DRAM 6a examines select theatrical cultures and performance practices to 1700. DRAM 6b examines select theatrical cultures and performance practices since 1700. Open to non-Drama students with prior permission of the instructor. Paul Walsh
DRAM 36a/b, The Passion Projects While dramaturgs and critics are trained to be in response to works of art—in process or production—it is important that they keep their acumen and empathy sharp by putting themselves in a generative position, as well. This yearlong engagement is intended to develop in students the habits of creating, risking, and evolving as their ideas inevitably change. The course culminates in a showing of short student pieces for an invited audience that includes program faculty and an outside responder. Catherine Sheehy, Rebecca Rugg
DRAM 46a, Special Research Project In the four-year curriculum, Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students in their final year undertake an approved special research project with a program adviser(s) to expand or deepen their field(s) of interest. The types of projects in which students engage might include: researching and writing a prospectus for the D.F.A. program; identifying a suite of courses from across the University that would comprise a “minor” of sorts to expand areas of expertise for future teaching or writing; creating a longform writing project for publication or submission to conferences; designing a dramaturgical project for realization with collaborators within or outside Yale’s auspices; creating a curatorial or interdisciplinary project; designing an archival project. Class members will present and discuss their project ideas and research in progress throughout the term. Thomas Sellar and faculty
DRAM 50a, The Theatrical Event See description under Directing.
DRAM 51b, New Play Lab Required of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students who are assigned to work on the New Play Lab. See description under Playwriting.
DRAM 53a, Authentic Collaboration See description under Acting.
DRAM 96a, Models of Dramaturgy: The New Play Process In contemporary new play development and production, dramaturgs play instrumental roles inside and outside of institutions, in and out of rehearsal rooms. Through lecture, discussion, and practicum, this course explores how dramaturgical practice is essential to the new play process, the issues facing dramaturgs in the field, and the strategies dramaturgs can employ to be effective collaborators. The course features a wide range of voices from the field as we collectively investigate and define the tenets of anti-racist dramaturgical practice. Amy Boratko
DRAM 96b, Models of Dramaturgy: The Fixed Text Using a handful of plays with established production histories as resilient and fruitful objects of study, this course examines the many facets of working on fixed texts for performance. How do dramaturgs reanimate a venerable play for their collaborators and audiences? How can contextual readings and fresh conceptual thinking put older works in conversation with our current culture? With special attention to the mechanics of genre and the art of close reading, this course focuses on these plays as exemplars of broader principles. Students are asked to render original research for all artistic team members that considers the plays in their time, their sources, contemporary staging practice, and the newest thinking about them; to cut texts for both length and production concept; and to create actor packets, program notes to focus audience attention and thought, and material for educational outreach to make the plays accessible to younger playgoers. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Catherine Sheehy
DRAM 106a, Editing and Publishing Workshop This course combines an introduction to general interest theater publications and scholarly publishing with a workshop focused on editing Theater magazine, involving best practices in editorial production and creative proposals for future issues and new publications. Required of all first-year Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Thomas Sellar
[DRAM 146a, Taking the Temporal Turn into Theater and Performance This course looks at some of the existing models for thinking about temporality in theater studies. It also introduces new approaches and sources with which to imagine time in performance and theater differently. The course borrows its title from the idea of “the temporal turn”; afoot in other disciplines for some time, joined now by emerging work in our field, it signals the contemporary and urgent desire to rethink time. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 146b, Contemporary African, Black American, Black British, and Caribbean Drama and Performance Theater of the African diaspora is haunted by the migration, the movement, and the scattering of an African-descended people away from an ancestral homeland. Students look at when and where Kwame Kwei-Armah, the Negro Ensemble Company (New York City), Suzan-Lori Parks, the Sistren Theatre Collective (Kingston), debbie tucker green, and August Wilson transmit Africa’s cultures, languages, nations, races, religions, and tribes to Black America, Black Britain, and Caribbean islands. Paul Gilroy’s theory of the black Atlantic and Joseph R. Roach’s theory of circum-Atlantic performance are the methods of literary research igniting case-study-themed sessions. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 166a/b, Criticism Workshop A workshop in critical writing in which the student’s work is analyzed and discussed by the class and the instructor. Divided into sections, this class is required of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students in each of their six terms. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Eric M. Glover, Katherine Profeta, Marc Robinson, Thomas Sellar, Kimberly Jannarone
[DRAM 196a, Race and the American Musical from Jerome Kern to Jay Kuo Race as a biological essence and a social construct has long been a part of the aesthetics and the politics of the American musical. By drawing parallels between theatrical representations of Asians and Asian Americans, Blacks, Latinas and Latinos, and whites, students are able to indicate ways in which distinct writers see and hear racial identity. Students also listen to audio recordings of Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional/tour, and West End productions and watch film, television, video, and video clips on YouTube. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 206a/b, Tutorial Study With the exception of students in their first year, dramaturgs may elect to undertake tutorial independent study by submitting, in consultation with their proposed tutor, a request stipulating course title, course description, reading list or syllabus, schedule of meetings with the tutor, and method of grading the tutorial. Approval must be granted by the student’s adviser and by the program. Forms for application are available from the registrar of the School. Faculty
[DRAM 216b, Curating Performance In recent years the role of the performance curator has expanded along with context-reliant forms such as participatory, site-based, and documentary theater. This course probes the curator’s functions in live performance, examining new critical discourses around curation, including perspectives from the visual arts and how they might apply to dramaturgs and creative programmers of theater, dance, and performance. Topics include the role of temporality, institutional critique, and decolonization in the curatorial imagination. Special emphasis is placed on case studies, including sessions with visiting curators discussing their practices. Students devise critical and creative portfolios proposing an original curatorial platform. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with prior permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 226a, Contemporary Global Performance How might contemporary theater and performance makers be evolving their work in relation to the twenty-first century’s tectonic shifts in politics, aesthetics, and technology? This course considers examples of major transnational tendencies such as documentary performance, participatory art, and social practice, and examines works by selected pioneering artists active around the world today. Students propose additional or emerging categories and share their critical knowledge by jointly compiling dossiers of related artists and projects. The seminar requires viewing of videos in addition to the reading list. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with prior permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 246a, Translation This seminar explores the process of translation through practical assignments and culminates in the translation of a full-length play into English. Required of first- and second-year dramaturgs, and may be repeated as an elective in the third year with the permission of the student’s adviser and the course instructor. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor and Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Chair Catherine Sheehy. Paul Walsh
[DRAM 256a, What’s So Funny: Comic Theory and Practice The formal and moral dimensions of comedy have been the subject of constant contemplation and comment from its written beginnings in the West to the present day. Satire is a tool of social and political outrage; new comedy is a paean to social cohesion. How can both be comprised by the same descriptor? A key to the effective production of a comedy or the authoritative criticism of any piece of art claiming comic license is understanding the rules of the genre. This course examines the workings of various comic forms by reading theory from the Greeks to the present, with care to include the perspectives of historically overlooked (and frequently caricatured) groups. These readings are in conversation with dramatic literature, film, and video to test out what is, and whether it is, so funny. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with prior permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 276b, Greek Drama This course focuses primarily on Greek tragedy, considering the most important plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, as well as two comedies by Aristophanes. In addition to studying the plays, we read some modern critical essays. The emphasis is on locating the dramas in terms of their cultural context including mythic and epic background, Athenian history, and dramatic conventions. The course work consists of participation in discussion, several short (two-page) papers, and one slightly longer paper (five to ten pages) and a class presentation at the end of the term. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 286b, The First Avant-Garde, 1880–1918 European modern performance innovations in such movements as naturalism, symbolism, expressionism, futurism, and dada. Artists covered include directors and producers (Reinhardt, Gémier, Diaghilev); playwrights (Maeterlinck, Wedekind, Mayakovsky); designers (Appia, Craig, Prampolini); theorists (Zola, Mallarmé, Moréas); and performers in non-text-based modes (Hennings, Efimova, von Freytag-Loringhoven). Artists are examined in their social, political, and philosophical backgrounds. An emphasis on historiography shapes the course’s approach: what types of artists do and do not occupy places in the canon of experimentation? Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Kimberly Jannarone
[DRAM 286b, The Second Avant-Garde, 1918–1939 Performance innovations, largely European, with an emphasis on artists seeking new modes of expression. This course is a sequel to DRAM 286a, but one is not required to take the other. Artists and artistic movements covered include post-WWI Surrealism, dada, Futurism, Brecht, Artaud, and Witkiewicz. We discuss direction, design, choreography, and theory along with the works’ historical, political, and cultural background. Historiographical questions frame the subject matter, including issues of archive and repertoire, influence and appropriation, and collaborative and individual creation. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 296b, The Third Avant-Garde, 1938–1959 This seminar examines modern performance innovations in the immediate aftermath of World War II through the work of directors, playwrights, designers, theorists, and performers. The materials focus attention on new ways of making, or unmaking, meaning through performance and language. Artists studied may include Beckett, Gombrowicz, Carrington, Césaire, Genet, Mishima, and Hijikata. While studying the movements that shaped modern performance, we engage with the historiography of the avant-garde, considering ideology, politics, and the ephemerality of live art. Students write about as well as creatively engage with the works. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. (The course is the third in the avant-garde sequence, but DRAM 286a and 286b are not prerequisites.) Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 306a/b, Theory Suite: Dramatic Structure In this seminar of the Theory Suite, students consider models of dramatic structure drawn from theoretical and dramatic literature, primarily, but not exclusively, in the Euro-American tradition. Contrasts with structures in other media (film/TV, literature, performance art) are also explored. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 316a, Theory Suite: Critical Race Theory In this performance theory seminar, students bring relevant radical political philosophy on race and racism to bear on the field of theater and performance studies. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructors. Chantal Rodriguez, Catherine Sheehy
DRAM 326b, Theory Suite: Theater and Performance In this third in a suite of three performance theory seminars, students first survey theoretical writing about the roles and purposes of the theater from antiquity to the present day and finish by looking at contemporary cultural theory with potential relevance for new work. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Katherine Profeta
DRAM 336a/b, Comprehensive Examinations Students submit comprehensive proposals to their advisers and other designated faculty members who help them to focus their areas of concentration and prepare bibliographies. In this way, the faculty oversees the course of study for the comprehensives. The evaluation in this course comprises the entirety of the process, including written and oral components. This tutorial is an essential part of the procedure leading to an M.F.A. degree. Catherine Sheehy and faculty
DRAM 346a/b, Literary Office Practicum Among the most important responsibilities of an institutional dramaturg is the evaluation of new writing. The dramaturg’s ability to analyze and assess the potential of unproduced work is crucial to a theater’s vitality. In the Literary Office Practicum, students in all years read work submitted for Yale Repertory Theatre and write reader’s reports articulating the scripts’ strengths and weaknesses. These reader’s reports provide the basis for the Literary Office’s communication with playwrights. Amy Boratko, Catherine Sheehy
[DRAM 366b, Modern American Drama A seminar on American drama from World War I to 1960. Among the playwrights to be considered are O’Neill, Stein, Cummings, Odets, Wilder, Bonner, Hurston, Williams, Bowles, Miller, and Hansberry. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 376a, Ibsen and the Invention of Modern Drama A close reading of six or so plays by Henrik Ibsen and their contribution to European theatrical practice at the end of the nineteenth century. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 386b/AMST 681b/ENGL 931b, American Drama to 1914 Topics include the European inheritance, theater and nation building, melodrama and the rise of realism, popular and nonliterary forms. Readings in Tyler, Dunlap, Aiken, Boucicault, Daly, Herne, Belasco, and others. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with prior permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 396a/b, Dramaturgy Practicum This course consists of discussion among the program faculty and students about just-completed and current projects. The purpose is an exchange of practical and philosophical thoughts and information about issues, problems, and procedures encountered in the field. The course is required of all M.F.A. Dramaturgy students. Amy Boratko, Eric M. Glover, Catherine Sheehy, and faculty
[DRAM 406b/FILM 804b/MUSI 837b, Opera, Media, Technologies Opera has been assigned—and continues to assume—important roles in genealogies of technical media. This seminar explores both what media archaeology and other recent approaches in media studies and science and technology studies hold for an understanding of the nature of opera, and what opera might in turn contribute to a historically expanded perspective on electronic and digital multimedia. Understanding opera as a technical medium will also help address the latest operatic transformations in the digital age. Topics include theoretical discourses on eventness and mediation, strategies of audiovisual immersion, the development of illusionist stage devices, the function of screens, the orchestra as technology, and Wagner’s ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk, as well as examinations of the medial configurations in various operatic renditions, from the Baroque picture-frame stage to HD broadcasts, from Florentine intermedi to site-specific experiments, from Bayreuth to Zoom opera. Reading knowledge of Western musical notation is helpful but not required of students from outside the Department of Music. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 456a/GMAN 680a/MUSI 847a, Wagner In and On Production An exploration of Wagner’s ideas of the Gesamtkunstwerk and their role in the theory and history of opera since the mid-nineteenth century. The seminar contextualizes Wagner’s theories of staging and his attempts at creating a lasting, “correct” production within contemporary theatrical practices and discusses consequences for both historical and modern stagings, with a special focus on Tannhäuser, the Ring cycle, and (possibly) Parsifal. We broach such methodological issues as theories and analyses of performance, multimedia, and the operatic work; approaches to and reconstructions of historical stagings; and the increasing mediatization of opera. Ultimately, the seminar seeks to understand opera more broadly in its liminal state between fixity and ephemerality. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 466b, Research Methodologies This is a practice-based seminar of research methods relevant to scholarly projects in theater and performance. Students learn to use library resources, online databases, and other creative sources of information. Students develop skills for crafting annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, research proposals, interviews, and conference presentations while learning to identify their own skills and interests as researchers. The course draws from the students’ own scholarly interests and ongoing projects as the basis for the research. Required of all second-year students. Kimberly Jannarone
DRAM 476a/b, Hot Topics A lecture series inaugurated by the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program to make students aware of current discussions in theater and performance studies that lie outside the program’s core curriculum. Attendance at this yearlong series is required of all M.F.A. dramaturgs. The lectures in this series may be attended by any member of the Yale community. But non-Drama students may only enroll academically on a yearlong, Pass/Fail basis and only with permission of the instructors. Each lecture is accompanied by a short bibliography chosen by the lecturer and circulated in advance of the meeting through Canvas. Catherine Sheehy, Kimberly Jannarone, Katherine Profeta
[DRAM 496b/AMST 681b/ENGL 953b, The American Avant-Garde Topics include the Living Theater, Happenings, Cunningham/Cage, Open Theater, Judson Dance Theater, Grand Union, Bread and Puppet Theater, Free Southern Theater, Performance Group, Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Meredith Monk, Robert Wilson, Mabou Mines, and the Wooster Group. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with prior permission of both the instructor and Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism chair Catherine Sheehy. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 506a, Mass Performance This course looks at exemplary instances of mass performance—moments in which a society or government orchestrates thousands of people to perform the same actions at the same time. Performances examined include the festivals of the French Revolution, European gymnastic displays, North Korean mass gymnastic and artistic performances, and contemporary virtual mass phenomena. The course examines psychological impulses toward mass movement, social ideals of community formations, and political upheavals. Critical literature includes works by Elias Canetti, Gustave Le Bon, Michel Foucault, Clifford Geertz, and Émile Durkheim. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Kimberly Jannarone
[DRAM 516b, Re-designing Women The seminar examines ancient and classical dramatic representations of female characters and their afterlives in modern and contemporary performance. Figures and texts to be studied may include Medea and Clytemnestra; the medieval abbess Hroswitha of Gandersheim; ancient iconic female figures including Penelope, the Sirens, and Eve; the women of the Italian Renaissance commedia dell’arte and their afterlives in Molière; Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew; and contemporary plays by Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill, and Sarah Ruhl. The seminar uses female dramatic figures as a rubric for thinking about dramaturgy, directing, translation, and adaptation. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 526b/AMST 772b/THST 438b, Performance and/in the Archive This seminar considers how performance addresses history, and how history shapes performance. Topics include the archive and the repertoire; collective memory and trauma; documentary; fictive historiography; and queer and feminist approaches to time and temporality. Consideration is also given to the role of digital technologies in transforming how we access, interpret, and remix the past. Attention is paid to the genres of history writing and to the ethics and aesthetics of reconstructing, reinterpreting, and reenacting the past. Enrollment limited; permission of both the instructor and Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism chair Catherine Sheehy required. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 556b, Latinx Theater What constitutes Latinx theater? What are its historical, cultural, aesthetic, and political genealogies? This course explores the trajectory of Latinx theater and performance in the United States, from the 1960s to the present by examining the relationship between Latinx theater and social justice movements of the 1960s and ’70s; Latinx playwright development programs in the 1980s and ’90s; and contemporary initiatives such as the Sol Project and the Latinx Theatre Commons. Through close readings of plays and performances, along with accompanying theory and criticism, we celebrate, analyze, and critique the works of Luis Valdez, María Irene Fornés, Cherríe Moraga, Josefina Báez, Caridad Svich, Kristoffer Díaz, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Guadalís Del Carmen, Cándido Tirado, Brian Quijada, Karen Zacarías, Isaac Gomez, and Christina Quintana, among others. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 566a, Dance and Movement Performance, 1900–Present An exploration of the history and theory of dance and movement performances since 1900, with an emphasis on American concert-dance contexts since 1960, though discussion of non-concert contexts is a key part of our term’s work. This seminar combines extensive video viewing, whenever possible, with primary source readings from choreographers and critics and recent dance studies scholarship. The term concludes with a consideration of the practice of contemporary dance dramaturgy. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Katherine Profeta
DRAM 576b/ENGL 933b, Realism A study of European and American dramatic realism, from its beginnings in the 1870s through its radical revision in the twenty-first century. Works by Ibsen, Zola, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Hauptmann, Belasco, and Shaw, as well as by María Irene Fornés, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Richard Maxwell, David Levine, and other contemporary figures. Readings in pertinent theory and criticism; discussion of nineteenth- and twentieth-century staging practices; and, when possible, video viewings of important recent productions. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Marc Robinson
[DRAM 586b, How French Is It? Pierre Pathelin to Cyrano de Bergerac A gallop through the pre-twentieth-century French canon, covering the classical troika Corneille, Racine, and Molière, as well as forays into Marivaux, melodrama, théâtre de la foire, the Romantics, la pièce bien faite, and Naturalism. Three plays a week and a critical document. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 596a, History and Theory of Performer Training Behind every hour of live public performance are hidden hours and hours spent in schools and rehearsal rooms, establishing well-worn patterns of use for body/mind and determining highly variable standards for what will be considered desirable, undesirable, and exceptional in performance. In this seminar we historicize different modes of performer training, seeking to understand where they come from and what assumptions they are built on. We read contemporary theorizations of performer training (or, where they don’t exist, devise them ourselves). The immediate practical result is a better understanding of the working methods of many of the performers we collaborate with; the larger results include a more complete historical understanding of performer training and a philosophical appreciation of what exactly it means to perform. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 606b, Theater and Social Change “The theater itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.”—Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed. This seminar examines historical and contemporary theatrical responses to social justice issues including: labor rights, disability rights, incarceration, state-sanctioned violence, racism, sexism, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, health care, and the global climate crisis. To what extent do these responses result in tangible social change? How do we measure a production’s or artist’s influence on shifting social thought and public policy? Together we investigate the efficacy and limitations of theater as a means of tangible social change. Course work includes close readings of plays, history, theory, and criticism, and video viewings of productions and/or films. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 616b, Adaptation How do myths, legends, photographs, novels, short stories, poems, paintings, true stories, and graphic novels operate? Why do they affect us the way they do? Why are some adapted more successfully than others? To musicalize or not to musicalize? This seminar explores the process of adapting source material for the stage, augmented by practical assignments and culminating in an adaptation based on material of each student’s choosing. Required of second-year dramaturgs. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor and Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Chair Catherine Sheehy. Jill Rachel Morris
[DRAM 626b, Topics in Casting Choosing which actor plays each part is as much about the limits of everyday life as it is about the possibilities of live performance. By looking at primary texts in contexts and topics that include Asian American Performers Action Coalition, blackface minstrelsy versus black-on-black minstrelsy, Audra McDonald, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, #oscarssowhite, and yellowface, students are able to indicate ways in which the show-business fiction of “the best actor for the role” is exacerbated by the reality that the entertainment industry has never been equitable. Students also propose measures that may be taken across ability, class, gender, race, sex, and sexuality to overturn material conditions that uphold representational invisibility. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 646b/AFAM 612b/ENGL 958b, James Baldwin, On Stage Using Baldwin’s years in the theater as a timeline, we read Black and queer playwrights who came out of the postwar naturalistic tradition that the author upheld in his scripts, while moving on to various traditions—the Black Arts Movement, Queer Theater, Black Surrealism, and so on—that Baldwin did not embrace but that served to enrich the scene. In addition to reading Baldwin’s essays and published thoughts about the theater and film, we analyze his plays, including his unpublished stage adaptation of his 1955 novel Giovanni’s Room. Also subject to discussion are his brilliant contemporaries, whom we read for context, including Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Ed Bullins, Adrienne Kennedy, Derek Walcott, Wole Soyinka, Charles Gordone, Hanif Kureishi, Caryl Phillips, Ntozake Shange. The class concludes with plays written by Baldwin’s former student Suzan-Lori Parks. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 656a, Theater Re-Visioning History “Memory cannot be flattened. Memory is history singing in tune with the stars, and no sheriff’s baton can reach that high.”—Manazar in Chavez Ravine by Culture Clash. This seminar considers plays and performances that re-vision history as they reconstruct, reinterpret, and reembody the past. Focus is given to artists, companies, and movements from across the Americas that mobilize theatrical strategies to counter dominant narratives and resist the erasure of lived experience from the historical record. Through analysis of archival records, theatrical forms, and aesthetics, this course interrogates the complex relationships between performance, memory, history, and identity. Course work includes close readings of plays, history, theory, and criticism, and viewings of productions and/or films. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 666b/AMST 790b/ENGL 964b, American Performance in the 1970s An exploration of formally innovative and thematically transgressive art from an uncertain decade. The 1970s are distinguished by their intermediacy, positioned between the forceful dissension of the 1960s and the cool detachment of the 1980s and beyond. In its latter half, the decade’s transitional identity is especially pronounced, as the culture reformed itself in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the economic crisis in New York and elsewhere. We consider how these shifting energies affected performance, with consideration of drama (María Irene Fornés, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, Ntozake Shange, David Mamet), theater (Robert Wilson, Elizabeth LeCompte, Lee Breuer, Richard Foreman, Meredith Monk), dance (Lucinda Childs, Grand Union, Merce Cunningham), and performance art and other forms (Adrian Piper, Joan Jonas, Ana Mendieta, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci). Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 686b, Black Women Playwrights Works of drama by historical Black women playwrights in the modern and postwar eras are read in parallel with Black feminism and queer theory. From Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins’s post-Reconstruction drama and performance to Ntozake Shange’s Black Arts poetics and poetry, students note what is similar and different about representative Black women’s dramatic composition and theatrical representation. Attention is also paid to Black women’s history of ideas, such as the culture of dissemblance, intersectionality, the politics of respectability, and safe spaces. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 696b/ENGL 956b, Modern European Drama The major European playwrights active from 1879 (the premiere of Ibsen’s Doll’s House) to 1989 (the death of Beckett) were responsible for theatrical advances of continuing influence and importance. This seminar traces the advent of dramatic naturalism and realism (early Ibsen and Strindberg, the major plays of Chekhov); the contrary movement toward symbolist subtlety and expressionist urgency (late Strindberg and Ibsen, early Brecht); the effort to shoulder the burden of history and engage contemporary politics (Shaw, middle- and late-period Brecht); and the opening of drama to the ambiguities of religion and philosophy (Beckett). The seminar is grounded in close readings of representative plays but also considers how dramas change under the pressures of performance. Readings in theater theory, manifestos, and criticism supplement the primary texts. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
DRAM 706b, Black Theater History in the Making at David Geffen School of Drama Early dramatic works by early M.F.A. student playwrights who were enrolled at the School. Students learn the history of Black theater at the School, from when John M. Ross enters in 1931 as the first Black student in the then-department to when Lloyd G. Richards exits in 1991 as the first Black dean of the now-school. Subjects for study may include Fannin S. Belcher, Jr., Anne M. Cooke, Dixwell Players (New Haven), Owen Dodson, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and FOLKS. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Eric M. Glover
[DRAM 716a, Theorizing the Oceanic for Theater and Performance This class explores the possibilities of the oceanic as an emergent theater and performance practice, dramaturgy, and politics. Paul Gilroy (of The Black Atlantic) has recently made a passionate argument for “sea-level theory.” We practice this through adopting a “watery” perspective beginning with a historical and theoretical look at white Enlightenment and modernity’s instrumentalization of the ocean. This includes the imperial and colonial ocean-dependent production of what Sylvia Wynter calls genres of the human and the ocean of the slave trade. By contrast, we turn to the oceanic: made in the hold, in the Atlantic revolutions, in the oceanic in Melville and the oceanic sublime and gothic, in the oceanic in archipelagic and decontinentalizing thought, in environmental thought and more. Our “planetary” orientations flow through the Oceania, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. Readings include Wynter, Christina Sharpe, Édouard Glissant, Kamau Brathwaite, Sarah Jane Cervenak, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, Paul Gilroy, Tiffany Lethabo King, Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey, and others. Theory is combined with plays and contemporary performance examples including, for instance, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Derek Walcott, Naomi Wallace, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson, Robert Lowell, Lina Issa, and others. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 726a/THST 411, Special Topics in Performance Studies: Presence This course accompanies the themed speaker series for the Performance Studies Working Group, a weekly meeting convened by faculty in Theater and Performance Studies and the School’s Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program. It features thematic research presentations by performance studies scholars and practitioners from Yale and surrounding regions. Students enrolled for credit complete weekly readings based on that week’s scholarship, as well as weekly written responses and a final paper of which they present a portion at the final meetings of the PSWG. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 736b, Greek Tragedy and the Modern Imagination This seminar examines selected ancient tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and their reimagining for the modern stage by such playwrights as Jean Cocteau, Jean Giraudoux, Virgilio Piñera, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Anouilh, Bertolt Brecht, Countee Cullen, Ola Rotimi, Adrienne Kennedy, Wole Soyinka, Heiner Müller, Caryl Churchill, Marina Carr, Femi Osofisan, Yerandy Fleites Pérez, Mickaël de Oliveira, Luis Alfaro, and Slavoj Žižek. Course work for this reading-intensive seminar includes seminar presentations, written assignments, and focused discussion based on the close reading and analysis of plays, as well as modern assessments and commentary from scholars, theorists, and practitioners. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 746b, Dramaturgy and… Dramaturgy is a capacious specialization; it is also an embodied practice. This praxis course provides a laboratory for practitioners to explore connections between dramaturgy and several practices in the wider world, such as jazz aesthetics, improvisation, abolition, social justice, poetry, speculative fiction, and healing arts. We explore how these ideas and methodologies might illuminate and transform our dramaturgy practice. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 756b, “What is it you do again?” or Professional Directions for Dramaturgs How will you keep from facing that question every day of your career? Speaking of that career: do you truly know how many professional options you have? Exactly what should you consider when you plan your career beyond drama school? Let’s explore your options—knowing what they are and understanding how to take advantage of them. Consider the first rule of professional longevity: “Know thyself.” Be honest. Do you really want to hold “final cut”? Do you know what it means, truly, to have the final say? Because, more often than not, it’s someone with a dramaturg’s skills—not a writer or a director—who wields the actual final word. Or would you be more comfortable in the role of researcher, the brilliant mind shaping the overall collaboration and facilitating the knowledge necessary for a creative team’s success? Or do you love contracts and negotiations—determining the specific nuanced structure which will make a creative endeavor possible? Are you the indispensable bridge between the creative process and the interests of the business entity financing the show? Where are you comfortable, personally and professionally? What skills would an ideal professional partner possess? Once you know yourself, your work, and your professional options, no one will wonder what you do ever again. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 766a, Reading Modern Drama This seminar reads illustrative texts of dramatic literature from the Anglo-European world in, roughly, the twentieth century and the two adjacent “turns of the century.” We read with an eye toward discovering the unique ways authors adjusted theatrical form, content, and event to new conditions of modernity. Our specific focus is close-reading plays, looking at how playwrights create worlds through devices such as plot, characterization, imagery, etc., as well as through the conception of the audience/performer relationship; considerations of time, tempo, musicality; visual dramaturgy; non-linearity and repetition; coding and transcribing; and other dramaturgical devices that took on unique importance and new forms in the modern era. We read one play a week, establishing its historical context and examining different approaches of playwriting and world-making. Authors may include Frank Wedekind, Sophie Treadwell, Aimé Césaire, Witold Gombrowicz, María Irene Fornés, Luis Valdez, and others. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and to non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 776b, Dance Dramaturgy Students enter the contemporary conversation on the particular nature and characteristics of dramaturgy in dance, from 1990 to the present day and consider selected case studies. This course offers both a toolbox for dance dramaturgy practice and a consideration of how the field illuminates the potential of dramaturgy in general. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
[DRAM 786b, Offending the Audience Although theater companies have, historically, always required generally pleased audiences in order to survive—being dependent on audiences as protectors, patrons, ticket-buyers, or simply as members of the social community—the history of offending that audience is long and varied. This seminar examines a select variety of indecencies, shocks, insults, outrages, provocations, and a few daring risks that left—or sometimes only sought to leave—spectators affronted, disoriented, dissatisfied, or angry with the theatrical performance. We focus primarily on the last century, including Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview and the work of Young Jean Lee, but we connect this to a tradition beginning in the early modern era, with players being booed and authors being vilified for breaking traditional Alexandrine verse phrasing (Racine), for engaging in sprawling dramaturgy (Hugo), and depicting a woman leaving her husband’s house (Ibsen, whose play was called “a dirty deed done publicly”). In between, authors including Oscar Wilde, Alfred Jarry, and Peter Handke put material on the page and stage that provoked audiences to pitches of fury that tell us much about social values, artistic expression, and the unique relationship of live performers to their audiences. Open to non-Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism students and to non-Drama students with permission of the instructor. Not offered in 2023–2024]
Additional Courses
Students may elect to take appropriate graduate courses in other schools and departments at Yale, subject to permission of the instructor, scheduling limitations, and the approval of the faculty adviser.