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Graduate Courses

THEA 200. Advanced Play Analysis (4) Seminar, 4 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Analysis of dramatic structure from a sophisticated perspective. Covers strategies for dealing with openness, ambiguity, and metatheatre. Also discusses tied versus gratuitous elements, archetypes, motifs, and symbolism.

THEA 201. The Writer’s Life: Literary Strategies and Structures (4) Seminar, 3 hours; extra reading, 1 hour; outside research, 1 hour; written work, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Explores the artistic, practical, and professional aspects of life as a working novelist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, or essayist. Topics include publishing, literary journals, commercial magazines, the film industry, the theatre industry, agents, and overviews of genre and art. Cross-listed with CRWT 201.

THEA 210. Literature and Improvisation: The Intersection of Culture and Performance (4) Lecture, 3 hours; studio, 3 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Examines the literary and performative tools needed to construct original, language-based plays. Combines improvisational performance with storytelling to challenge students to develop and explore the connectivity between cultural history, oral tradition passed on through personal narratives, and public discourse.

THEA 227. Theories of the Modern Theatre (4) Seminar, 4 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Examines the major theories underlying twentieth-century theatre practice. Emphasis is on the wide range of styles in modern theatre, including realism, symbolism, expressionism, surrealism, absurdism, Epic Theatre, and Theatre of Cruelty.

THEA 252 (E-Z). Theory and Craft of Writing (4) Seminar, 3 hours; outside research, 2 hours; extra reading, 1-2 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing. Analyzes writing techniques, structures, and approaches to craft in traditional, contemporary, and avant garde literary works. E. Fiction; F. Poetry; G. Nonfiction; I. Playwriting; J. Screenwriting; K. First
Person. Cross-listed with CRWT 252 (E-Z).

THEA 264. Playwriting (4) Workshop, 3 hours; consultation, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Intensive formal study of playwriting with emphasis on plot, character, theme, dialogue, and style. Course is repeatable.

THEA 265A. Four Forms (4) Workshop, 3 hours; outside research, 3 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing. Explores similarities and differences of three kinds of creative writing: fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting. Students participate in live stagings and video shoots, translating stories from one form to another to highlight the unique qualities of each form as well as areas of commonality. Course is repeatable.

THEA 265B. Four Forms (4) Workshop, 3 hours; outside research, 3 hours. Prerequisite(s): THEA 265A; graduate standing. Students adapt a one-act play into a screenplay not longer than 15 pages. Demonstrates how to develop work dependent on dialogue into work dependent on visuals and action. Students shoot, edit, and screen their short films. Course is repeatable.

THEA 266. Screenwriting (4) Workshop, 3 hours; screening, 2 hours; consultation, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Students outline and complete the first draft of a feature-length screenplay and complete a short paper comparing two movies in the same genre. Course is repeatable.

THEA 267. Writing for Television (4) Workshop, 3 hours; consultation, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Provides intensive formal study of writing for television. Emphasizes creating guidelines for a one-hour pilot and a 13-episode series. Course is repeatable to a maximum of 24 units. THEA 280. Writers’ Colloquium (1) Colloquium, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing. Colloquia featuring writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, playwriting, and screenwriting. Students who present a seminar receive a letter grade; other students receive a
Satisfactory (S) or No Credit (NC) grade. Course is repeatable to a maximum of 6 units. Cross-listed with CRWT 280.

THEA 281. Oscar Wilde and Late Victorian Theatre (4) Seminar, 4 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing
or consent of instructor. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), an Irish, feminist, aesthete, socialist, homosexual Victorian author, becomes a focus for the study of late Victorian theatre and culture. Readings are of Wilde’s plays and nondramatic writings and plays by related playwrights such as Ibsen and Shaw.

THEA 282. Film Noir: Stories and Cinema from the Shadows (4) Seminar, 3 hours; screening, 2 hours; outside research, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Examines the genre of fiction and cinema known as “film noir.” Looks at films, writing, and art to understand how “film noir” reshapes the way America looks at itself. Each week examines a different aspect of the genre, combining readings and films to understand its roots and rules.

THEA 283. Shakespeare and Film (4) Seminar, 3 hours; screening, 2 hours; outside research, 1 hour. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing or consent of instructor. Examines the influence Shakespeare exerted on film, from faithful adaptations to broad reinventions. Compares Shakespeare in his period and ours, the wide range of movies that have taken from Shakespeare for inspiration, and how modern filmmakers deal with issues of language and structure.

THEA 290. Directed Studies (1-6) Outside research, 3- 18 hours. Literature studies, directed by a faculty member, on special topics. Graded Satisfactory (S) or No Credit (NC). Course is repeatable.

THEA 292. Concurrent Analytical Studies in Theatre (1-4) Outside research, 3-12 hours. Prerequisite(s): graduate standing; consent of instructor and graduate advisor. Taken concurrently with a 100-series course but on an individual basis. Devoted to research, criticism, and written work related to the 100-series course. Graded Satisfactory (S) or No Credit (NC). Course is repeatable.

THEA 299. Research for Thesis (1-12) Thesis, 3-36 hours. Prerequisite(s): consent of thesis director. Research for and preparation of the thesis. Graded Satisfactory (S) or No Credit (NC). Course is repeatable.