Courses

ARTT B150 Introduction to Theater

Fall 2026

An exploration of a wide range of dramatic works and history of theater through research, analysis and discussion to develop understanding and foundations for a theatrical production.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

ARTT B214 Playwriting: Adaptation as Text & Craft

Not offered 2026-27

What is an adaptation? In what ways are adaptations in conversation with source materials? How does one articulate a politics of adaptation? This course explores the theory and practice of dramatic adaptation. Students will study texts, representations, and receptions of adaptations. Building on this dramaturgical foundation, students will write their own adaptations.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

ARTT B230 Women in Theater

Not offered 2026-27

This course explores provocative portraits of women in plays written by women. Students begin with a tenth-century nun and read their way right up to the present day. This is the subversive side of dramatic literature-the plays not included in most anthologies. We will investigate the objectification and reclamation of the female body, gendered language, intersectionality, and the politics of drama by and about women in their socio-historical contexts.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Back to top

ARTT B234 Lighting Design

Not offered 2026-27

This class is an introduction to the process of lighting design for the theatre. We will explore the steps and skills necessary to navigate the designer's path from text to production. This course will focus on how to think about light, how light can function as a dramaturgical tool, and how we can communicate lighting ideas to our collaborators.

Back to top

ARTT B238 Stage Properties

Not offered 2026-27

Stage properties is a varied discipline encompassing dozens of crafting/building challenges as well as textual analysis, historical and object research, cost estimation and planning, design analysis, and, most of all, the ability to think critically and creatively about some of the performing arts' weirdest challenges. This class will be part lectures and demos by the instructors, and a good part reading, research, presentations, and hands-on design and building work by the students. We'll explore a wide variety of construction and craft techniques as we learn about organizing, researching, acquiring, designing, and building the objects required to create the worlds in which the plays we read are set. This class will exercise students' abilities to think creatively about unexpected and unusual design issues and give them a chance to solve problems in an experiential way.

Back to top

ARTT B245 Staging the Revolution

Not offered 2026-27

We will look at and engage with the tradition of revolutionary acts of theater, such as Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre, which used plays to critique social issues and incite change, The Living Theatre's performances protesting war and capitalism, Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed empowering marginalized communities, and more recently, the movement started by We See You W.A.T. (White American Theater). Our readings will also include plays by Vaclav Haval, that influenced Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution. We will create our own piece of revolutionary theater to be performed both at Bryn Mawr and in Prague, asking if theater can provoke revolution, or if is it, as Boal says, merely rehearsal for revolution.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Back to top

ARTT B251 Acting I

Fall 2026

This studio course provides an introduction to the basic processes of acting to students of various experience levels. We develop tools and a shared vocabulary using performance exercises, games, improvisation and scene work.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ARTT B252 Technical Theater I

Fall 2026

This course is an introduction to the building blocks of technical theater production and covers a wide range of topics in various technical disciplines. Through a combination of lectures, in-class demonstrations, and hands-on experience, students gain a basic understanding of terminology, materials, techniques, personnel, and processes involved in technical theater production. Students will gain some proficiency with tools and technology that will be useful in both theatrical and non-theatrical environments.

Back to top

ARTT B253 Performance Ensemble

Fall 2026

An intensive workshop in the methodologies and aesthetics of theater performance, this course is open to students with significant experience in performance. In collaboration with the director of theater, students will explore a range of performance techniques and styles in the context of rehearsing a performance project. Admission to the class is by audition or permission of the instructor. The class is offered for a half-unit of credit.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ARTT B254 Fundamentals of Theater Design

Not offered 2026-27

An introduction to the creative process of visual design for theater, exploring dramatic context and influence of cultural, social, and ideological forces on theater and examining practical applications of various technical elements such as scenery, costume, and lighting while emphasizing their aesthetic integration.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ARTT B255 Costume Design

Fall 2026

Hands-on practical workshop on costume design for performing arts; analysis of text, characters, movement, situations; historical and stylistic research; cultivation of initial concept through materialization and plotting to execution of design.

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ARTT B258 Intermediate Topics in Technical Theater Production

Not offered 2026-27

This course is a deeper exploration of the process of technical theater production introduced in ARTT B252 - Fundamentals of Technical Theater Production. Through a combination of lecture, in-class and out-of-class analysis, and hands-on experience students will gain a more thorough understanding of the processes of technical theatrical production. The course focuses on five sections of technical production: basic technical drawing, advanced scenic construction techniques, electricity for the entertainment industry (lighting, sound, motors), basic rigging, and basic sound system design and execution. While mathematics is not the focus of the class, basic math and some algebra and trigonometry will be necessary. Prerequisite: ARTT B252 or Permission of Instructor

Course does not meet an Approach

Back to top

ARTT B262 Playwriting I

Not offered 2026-27

An introduction to playwriting through a combination of reading assignments, writing exercises, discussions about craft and ultimately the creation of a complete one-act play. Students will work to discover and develop their own unique voices as they learn the technical aspects of the craft of playwriting. Short writing assignments will complement each reading assignment. The final assignment will be to write an original one-act play.

Back to top

ARTT B265 Spaces of Possibility: Shakespeare and the Classroom

Not offered 2026-27

Focused on creating and collaborating, this course examines how we access Shakespeare and make Shakespeare accessible while working with 8th graders in Philadelphia. We will work as performers, creators, directors, designers, mentors and audience members. This course will be collaborative, sharing ideas and working as an ensemble comprised of college students and 8th graders. Prerequisite: ARTT B251 Fundamentals of Acting or permission of the instructor.

Back to top

ARTT B314 Modern Queer Drama

Not offered 2026-27

This seminar explores provocative portraits of queer life in modern drama including the evolution, reclamation, and employment of gender- and sexuality-specific language and stereotypes within and outside of queer communities. How does the socio-historical environment in which a queer play is written inform its content and reception? Are plays about or written by queer individuals necessarily political? Does queer theater intervene in culture differently from the manner in which other theater does?

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: English; Gender & Sexuality Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies.

Back to top

ARTT B332 The Actor Creates: Performance Studio in Generating Original Work

Not offered 2026-27

This course explores the actor as creator, inviting the performer to become a generative artist with agency to invent their own work. Building on skills introduced in Fundamentals of Acting, we will introduce new methodologies of training to construct a framework in which students can approach making original solo and group work. Students will use processes employing visual art, found dialogue, music, autobiography, and more. Emphasizing guided, individual, and group collaboration, we will examine the role of the actor/creator through exercises and readings that relate the actor's creative process to an understanding of self and the artist's role in communities. Prerequisite: ARTT B251 (Fundamentals of Acting)

Back to top

ARTT B351 Acting II

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Acting for the Camera

Fall 2026

A continuation of the methods of inquiry in Fundamentals of Acting, this course is structured as a series of project-based learning explorations in acting. Recommended preparation: Prior experience in theater is recommended but not required, ARTT B251 (Fundamentals of Acting) or permission of instructor.

Back to top

ARTT B353 Advanced Performance Ensemble

Section 002 (Fall 2025): Sound and Radio Lab
Section 002 (Fall 2026): Sound and Radio Lab

Fall 2026

An advanced, intensive workshop in theater performance. Students explore a range of performance techniques in the context of rehearsing a performance project, and participate in weekly seminars in which the aesthetic and theatrical principles of the play and production will be developed and challenged. The course may be repeated. Prerequisite: ARTT B253 or permission of the instructor.

Current topic description: This course is for students interested in performance, sound production, radio, or storytelling. This performance ensemble course culminates in the production of a classic radio play, and all students enrolled in the course will participate as actors, sound technicians, and Foley effects artists. No prior performance or technical experience is necessary. Together, the professor and students will explore the relationship between storytelling and sound; this includes voice, homemade sound effects, computer-based creation tools, and so much more. Please note that although this class meets once a week, a few extra rehearsals may be scheduled outside of class time, based on student availability, to prepare for the public performance.

Back to top

ARTT B354 Shakespeare on the Stage

Not offered 2026-27

An exploration of Shakespeare's texts from the point of view of the performer. A historical survey of the various approaches to producing Shakespeare from Elizabethan to contemporary times, with intensive scene work culminating in on-campus performances. Prerequisite: ARTT B251 Fundamentals of Acting or permission of the instructor.

Back to top

ARTT B356 Theaters Of and After Samuel Beckett

Not offered 2026-27

An exploration of Beckett's theater work conducted through both reading and practical exercises in performance techniques. Points of special interest include the monologue form of the early novels and its translation into theater, Beckett's influences (particularly silent film) and collaborations, and the relationship between the texts of the major dramatic works and the development of both modern and postmodern performance techniques.

Back to top

ARTT B403 Supervised Work

Research and work in a particular topic of theater under the guidance of an instructor.

Back to top

ARTT B420 Theater Production Ensemble

This seminar course is made up of the four to seven students each semester who serve as production team leads for the semester-long theater production. Each student will work in a practicum fashion as the leader of a theatrical production department (depending on the needs of a specific production, that will potentially include stage management, sound, electrics, carpentry, technical direction, stage properties, projections, and more). Students will gather weekly with the instructors to go over readings and conduct shared critiques, as well as to discuss the practical, day-to-day concerns of each of their departments. The class will also read about and examine the deeper overall concerns of production and personnel management and the ways that theater makers collaborate to integrate production elements into a fully realized work of art. Students will gain high-level professional management skills as they plan and execute the steps necessary to fulfill the needs of their individual departments; learn to delegate work to and manage the student technicians who work under them; communicate regularly with professional directors, designers, and consultants from positions of real authority; and work collaboratively with their fellow production leads, including their instructors. They will work closely with a variety of professional theater makers, including their professors and artist consultants from outside the college.

Back to top

ARTT B425 Praxis III

Back to top

ARTT B430 Practicum in Stage Management

Over the semester, the student will attend all auditions, rehearsals, and performances of the Bi-College Theater Program production, and will be responsible for managing all the details of same. With the guidance of a mentor and through reading and research, the student will learn to perform the many organizational and communications tasks involved in stage management. Students will be required to read a number of texts with the goal of understanding the vast scope of the job, the artistry and authority expected of a stage manager, the variations in styles of stage management, and the standard procedures a student stage manager can incorporate into a college setting. Each student will be expected to keep a daily journal of their experience-intellectual, artistic, and practical. The journal is their own and is meant to stimulate and deepen their thinking about the process. This practicum requires that a student be willing to engage in the production process both as an artist with an intellectual stake in the work and as an adult with a position of real authority in the group. The student will be expected to use that authority while always remaining calm, polite, kind, and generous to the artists with whom they are working. Prerequisites: Prior academic work in theater and the permission of the instructor

Back to top

ARTD B144 Dance Composition: Elements and Craft

Fall 2026

This dance composition course introduces students to the craft of choreography. Foundations of dance making, such as space, time, performance, and artistry are explored and refined through the creation of short choreographic studies while observing and reflecting upon the work of peers. This course will explore structured and open movement experiences, such as: movement invention skills; compositional strategies; investigating music, language, images, and objects as sources of individual and collective inspiration. Students will be guided through solo and collaborative methods. Supplemental viewings and readings may be offered to support choreographic processes. Concurrent participation in any Dance Program technique course, either for academic or PE credit, is encouraged.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward: Theater Arts Program; Theater-Arts Program.

Back to top