Department: Theater and Performance Studies

Code Name Description
DANCE1 Contemporary Modern I: Liquid Flow Students in Liquid Flow will participate in a dance and movement class that 1) teaches the fundamentals of dance technique, and 2) addresses the way that you already dance in the world. Through discovering your own DIY movement signature and being aw...
DANCE102 Musical Theater Dance Styles Students will be able to demonstrate period specificity, character of style through learning different musical theater dances from the early 20th C.to the present. ALL students will participate in an end of quarter showing of the choreography develop...
DANCE103I Interdiscipline: Channeling Impulse into Form This course is about discovering the wonderment of dance through an interdisciplinary lens. The more disciplines we interface with through dance, the more rich and surprising the outcomes will be. When our primal urges for expression are interfaced w...
DANCE103O Contact Improvisation; The Onflowing Connection This course will introduce the students to the fundamentals of Contact Improvisation and its tenets for creativity and personal expression. The focus will be on exploring the potential of the body's primal urge to move, inspired by deep energies rele...
DANCE104 Duets Project Deepen partnering & rehearsal skills by learning contemporary duets from the repertory of acclaimed choreographers, some set by the choreographers themselves. Rehearsals culminate in an informal open performance. Expect different partners throughou...
DANCE105R Contemporary Choreography: Choreographic Realization Project Choreographic Realization Project will focus on the creation of a choreographic work created collaboratively between participating students and the instructor. Student dancers with all levels of choreographic experience will be invited to work in tan...
DANCE106I Stanford Dance Community: Inter-Style Choreography Workshop Designed for adventurous dancers, choreographers and student dance team leaders across Stanford campus. Students will explore a multiplicity of dance styles presented both by peer choreographers, as well as professionals in the field, to create a com...
DANCE108 Hip Hop Choreography: Hip Hop Meets Broadway What happens when Hip Hop meets "Fosse", "Aida", "Dream Girls" and "In the Heights"?The most amazing collaboration of Hip Hop styles adapted to some of the most memorable Broadway Productions.This class will explore the realm between Hip Hop Dance an...
DANCE109 Choreography: Strategies to Building Movement, Dance, and Time Based Art A class for students interested in contemporary methods of devising movement for performance. At the forefront of current dance culture hybridity has become the new normal, with movement blended from everyday actions, classical forms, hip-hop, and be...
DANCE11 Introduction to Dance Studies This class is an introduction to dance studies and the complex meanings bodily performances carry both onstage and off. Using critical frames drawn from dance criticism, history and ethnography and performance studies, and readings from cultural stud...
DANCE114 Movement for Actors/Acting for Dancers: Techniques for the Contemporary Performer Designed for the performing artist in the contemporary theatrical environment, this class will expose students to various training modalities from contemporary dance, popular dance styles, physical theater, musical theater, Greek theater and other s...
DANCE118 Developing Creativity In Dance This introductory course explores the creative process in dance. Two fields will constantly overlap and feed into each other. One is the Creative Process, with dozens of tips and suggestions which will be useful in your other work beyond dance, and t...
DANCE119 Special Topics: Dance, Architecture, Technology DANCE 119 Special Topics courses feature the annual Mohr Visiting Artist. The Mohr Visiting Artist program brings acclaimed and emerging artists to campus for a one-term period to teach a credited course and provide a presentation, exhibition or perf...
DANCE122 Moving the Message: Reading and embodying the works of bell hooks In this course, we will spend time reading, discussing and embodying the work of Black feminist theorist and teacher bell hooks. hook's work focuses on practices rooted in Black feminism, the role of love in revolutionary politics, rescuing ourselves...
DANCE123 Choreography: Hot Mess & Deliberate Failure as Practice A dance class in how we become the worst dancer possible. The foundation of this class has many parts. One is that, in almost every respect the way we gain insight into anything is to understand more clearly its polarity. As a class we purposely exp...
DANCE124 Danceacution: Performance Practice, Death Row, and the Evolution of Cultural Reform Danceacution is a unique course in performance practice taught by nationally recognized choreographer Alex Ketley. Creative expression does not exist in a vacuum but is deeply influenced by the societal contexts surrounding it. The class will use the...
DANCE128 Roots Modern Experience - Mixed Level In this course students will be introduced to a series of Afro-contemporary dance warm ups and dance combinations that are drawn from a broad range of dance traditions of the African diaspora with a particular focus on Afro Brazilian, Afro Cuban and...
DANCE131 Beginning/Intermediate Ballet Structured studio practice reviewing the basics of ballet technique including posture, placement, the foundation steps and ballet terms, and progressing to more complex positions and combination of steps. Emphasis is placed on improving forms, develo...
DANCE132 Ballet Technique & Classical Variations For Intermediate/Advanced Students. Structured studio practice reviewing the basics of ballet technique including posture, placement, the foundation steps and ballet terms, and progressing to more complex positions and combination of steps. Emphasis...
DANCE133 History of the Waltz Two hundred years of waltzing: Regency era waltz (1816), Vienna in the 1830s, redowa and mazurka waltz variations, waltz in 5/4 time, the Russian Mazurka Quadrille, pivots, 20th-century hesitation waltz, tango waltz, Parisian valse musette, 1930s Bos...
DANCE140 Contemporary Modern II This intermediate level course will cover fundamental principles underlying the evolving style of modern/contemporary dance both technical and artistic in nature. Students will perform creative and technical exercises that develop strength, flexibili...
DANCE141 Contemporary Modern III This advanced level technique course will cover the fundamental principles underlying modern/contemporary dance both technical and artistic in nature. Students will perform technical exercises that develop functional efficiency, strength, flexibility...
DANCE141S Contemporary Modern: Advanced Comparative Techniques Students will take technique classes each week from various, diverse and notable Contemporary Modern Dance Instructors from across the Bay Area and beyond, in order to learn from and be exposed to the scope and breadth of the contemporary dance field...
DANCE142 Intermediate/Advanced Contemporary Dance Technique This intermediate/advanced dance technique class is grounded in the technical training, aesthetic sensibilities, and choreographic processes of Merce Cunningham, American dancer/master choreographer. This studio work at an intermediate/advanced level...
DANCE146 Social Dance II Intermediate non-competitive social ballroom dance. The partner dances found in today's popular culture include Lindy hop, Viennese waltz, hustle, traveling foxtrot, plus intermediate/advanced levels of cross-step waltz and nightclub two-step. The co...
DANCE147 Social Dance History: Living Traditions of Swing A survey of 110 years of American swing dancing, as one form evolved into the next. Adapted to online Zoom format so that individuals can take the course without a partner. Swing dances will include the Texas Tommy, early Lindy of the 1920s; 6 and 8-...
DANCE148 Ballet II Intermediate Ballet at Stanford is designed for students who have done ballet in their past, but maybe have stepped away from the form for awhile. The class focuses on technique, musicality, vocabulary, coordination and artistic choice. The class loo...
DANCE149 Ballet III Advanced Ballet at Stanford is offered for students who are interested in rigorous, complex, and artistically compelling ballet training. The class focuses on technique, but in the broad sense of how ballet as a movement system can be used for a wid...
DANCE153D Creative Research for Artists This generative lab is dedicated to juniors and seniors in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, African and African American Studies, or related fields in the arts who are pursuing an advanced creative honors thesis or capstone project around q...
DANCE156 Social Dance III Intermediate non-competitive social ballroom dance. Intermediate/advanced waltz variations, redowa and Bohemian National Polka are followed by intermediate/advanced tango, cha-cha, salsa and bachata. The course continues further tips for great partne...
DANCE160J Conjure Art 101: Performances of Ritual, Spirituality and Decolonial Black Feminist Magic Conjure Art is a movement and embodied practice course looking at the work and techniques of artists of color who utilize spirituality and ritual practices in their art making and performance work to evoke social change. In this course we will discus...
DANCE160M Introduction to Representations of the Middle East in Dance, Performance, & Popular Culture This course will introduce students to the ways in which the Middle East has been represented and performed by/in the 'West' through dance, performance, and popular culture in both historical and contemporary contexts. A brief look through today's me...
DANCE161D Introduction to Dance Studies: Dancing Across Stages, Clubs, Screens, and Borders This introduction to dance studies course explores dance practice and performance as means for producing cultural meaning. Through theoretical and historical texts and viewing live and recorded dance, we will develop tools for analyzing dance and und...
DANCE161P Dance and the Politics of Movement This course examines how the dancing body has been viewed, exhibited, analyzed, and interpreted from the late nineteenth century to the present. We will discuss how ideologies about race, gender, and sexual orientation are mapped onto the body, as we...
DANCE162L Latin/x America in Motion: An Introduction to Dance Studies This course introduces students to the field of Dance Studies by examining the histories of Latin American and Caribbean dances and their relationship to developing notions of race and nation in the Americas. We will study the historical emergence an...
DANCE162P Intersectionality and the Politics of Ballet Ballet dancers drag a long and conservative history with them each time they step onstage. Yet recently some of the most radical challenges in dance are coming from ballerinas, featuring prosthetic limbs, non-female identifying dancers en pointe, and...
DANCE162V Advanced Research in Black Performing Arts What is the history of Committee for Black Performing Arts (CBPA)? How did it come into being and how do we carry/re-member the legacy forward and into the future? In this course students will engage in the research and archiving process as we dig in...
DANCE166 History of Social Dance in Western Culture NEWLY REVISED COURSE. A survey of movement and historical dance from the past two centuries to today, with the technique and traditions that are distinctive to each era. Partnered dances include Waltz, Tango, Jazz Age and Swing Era dances, 1970s Disc...
DANCE16AX ReVIVAL: A Site-Specific, Multi media Dance Theater Production ReVIVAL: November 14-16, 2019 at Roble Studio Theater. Stanford Artist in Residence Amara Tabor-Smith leads the creation of a site-specific, multi media, dance theater work titled, ReVIVAL. ReVIVAL is a survival research performance work that is laun...
DANCE17AX Circa's Leviathan: Art of Circus Movement Stanford Live will host Circa's internationally-renowned ensemble and a local cast of circus performers, dancers and young people to perform Leviathan, a world premiere circus event. This Arts Intensive class will provide six students experience in m...
DANCE190 Special Research Topics related to the discipline of dance. May be repeated for credit.
DANCE195D Queer Caribbean Performance With its' lush and fantastic landscape, fabulous carnivalesque aesthetics, and rich African Diaspora Religious traditions, the Caribbean has long been a setting which New World black artists have staged competing visions of racial and sexual utopia a...
DANCE196 Dancing Black: Embodying the African Diaspora in the United States and the Caribbean What does it mean to dance black? How can studying comparative dance practices across the United States and the Caribbean expose continuities and differences in African diaspora experience? How can we draw strategies from black performance to inform...
DANCE2 Introduction to Dance & Movement: Afro Flows Students in Afro Flows will focus on fundamentals of contemporary dance, gain fluid movement in everyday life and develop a rhythmic sensibility. This class invites participants to be more expressive and spontaneous in their movement choices. In addi...
DANCE25 Studio to Stage: Student Choreography Projects Make your own dance, outdoors! In Studio-to-stage, student choreographers and dancers propose, develop, rehearse, and perform their own dances under the close guidance of a faculty mentor. This year's project focus is: Outdoor Site-Specific Dance....
DANCE26 Dancing Theories of Race What can choreography and movement practice lend a comparative understanding of race studies? Pairing critical theory in race studies with dance performance, this course moves through ten units to scaffold a nuanced orientation toward race and dance...
DANCE27 Faculty Choreography Collaborative building, rehearsal, filming and editing of unique Spring QTR dance films by TAPS/Dance Faculty choreographers. Culminating films will be screened May 27, 28 & 29, as a TAPS Main Stage production. Casting by Audition & Invitation accord...
DANCE27H Faculty Choreography: Aleta Hayes Creation, rehearsal, performance of faculty choreography by Senior Lecturer Aleta Hayes. Casting by audition/invitation.
DANCE27R Faculty Choreography: Raissa Simpson Through collaborative and dialogic processes, this course will investigate the real or perceived to be real systems of power as it relates to race, class and gender. Fall/Flight is an intercultural choreographic invention investigating the episteme o...
DANCE27S Faculty Choreography: amara tabor-smith Working in collaboration with the students, amara tabor-smith will create a dance-theater performance piece celebrating the life and work of the prolific writer, educator, feminist and social activist, bell hooks.
DANCE29 Roots Modern I In this course students will be introduced to a series of contemporary dance warm ups and dance combinations that are drawn from a broad range of modern dance techniques, somatic practices and dance traditions of the African diaspora with a particula...
DANCE290 Special Research Individual project on the work of any choreographer, period, genre, or dance-related topic. May be repeated for credit.
DANCE30 Contemporary Choreography: Chocolate Heads 'Weather Simulator' Performance Project An interdisciplinary project-based class to develop dance technique, collaborative choreography, and associated visual and musical arts. We invite dancers, movers, and emerging creators of all styles and backgrounds. The Autumn 22-23 project will foc...
DANCE30S Dance 30S: Chocolate Heads "Weather Simulator" Project: Where Choreography Meets Design Although dance is the main event, there is no limit to the elements you can use when creating a dance production. The work that happens in the studio with collaborators from different disciplines can be a space to expand the dancer's sense of perform...
DANCE3SI Bollywood Balle Balle This is a survey course of Bollywood dance styles throughout history, with particular focus on the modern filmi dance. Throughout the course, students will learn the history and context of particular dance styles through discussions of integration wi...
DANCE45 Dance Improvisation from Freestyle to Hip Hop In this dance improvisation class, we will develop techniques and practices to cultivate an improvisational practice in dance and domains beyond. This class is an arena for physical and artistic exploration to fire the imagination of dance improviser...
DANCE45H Dance Improvisation This synchronous online course will cover a range of theories and approaches to movement improvisation for all movement levels. Through diverse movement experiences students will familiarize themselves with the process of spontaneous creation in solo...
DANCE46 Social Dance I Introduction to non-competitive social dance. The social dances found in today's popular culture include 3 kinds of swing, 3 forms of waltz, tango, salsa, bachata, cha-cha and nightclub two-step. The course also includes tips for great partnering, en...
DANCE48 Ballet I: Introduction to Ballet Fundametals of ballet technique including posture, placement, the foundation steps, and ballet terms; emphasis on the development of coordination, balance, flexibility, sense of lines, and sensitivity to rhythm and music. May be repeated for credit.
DANCE50 Contemporary Choreography Each day Ketley will develop a new phrase of choreography with the students and use this as the platform for investigation. Consistent lines of inquiry include; sculpting with the body as an emotional, instinctual, and graphic landscape, how the frac...
DANCE58 Hip Hop I: Introduction to Hip Hop Steps and styling in one of America's 21st-century vernacular dance forms. May be repeated for credit.
DANCE59 Hip-Hop II Steps and styling in one of America's 21st-century vernacular dance forms. May be repeated for credit.
DANCE71 Introduction to Capoeira: An African Brazilian Art Form Capoeira is an African Brazilian art form that incorporates, dance, music, self-defense and acrobatics. Created by enslaved Africans in Brazil who used this form as a tool for liberation and survival, it has since become a popular art form practiced...
TAPS1 Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies TAPS 1 provides you with a solid foundation in Theater Studies and traces the development of the burgeoning field of Performance Studies. We will consider a range of canonical plays and emerging performance forms, and explore how performance can also...
TAPS100C History of World Cinema III: Queer Cinema around the World Provides an overview of cinema from around the world since 1960, highlighting the cultural, political, and economic forces that have shaped various film movements over the last six decades. We study key film movements and national cinemas towards dev...
TAPS101F Close Cinematic Analysis - Caste, Sexuality, and Religion in Indian Media India is the world's largest producer of films in over 20 languages, and Bollywood is often its most visible avatar, especially on US university curricula. This course will introduce you to a range of media from the Indian subcontinent across commerc...
TAPS101P Theater and Performance Making A creative workshop offering a range of generative exercises and techniques in order to devise, compose and perform original works. Students will explore a variety of texts (plays, poems, short stories, paintings) and work with the body, object and s...
TAPS101T Introduction to the Arts: Think, Make, Create What is art? How does literature, poetry, and painting intersect? What legacies of practice are shared between cinema, dance, and theatre? This course takes as its focus the practice and theory of art-making across mediums and forms. We will explore...
TAPS102L Yoga Psychology for Resilience and Creativity In this integrative class, learn about the practice, psychology, and philosophy of yoga as a conceptual model for well-being. Supported by findings in modern neuroscience and psychological research, yoga is an ancient, holistic modality that integrat...
TAPS103 Beginning Improvising The improvisational theater techniques that teach spontaneity, cooperation, team building, and rapid problem solving, emphasizing common sense, attention to reality, and helping your partner. Based on TheatreSports by Keith Johnstone. Readings, paper...
TAPS104 Intermediate Improvisation This class is the continued study of improvisational theater with a focus on stage skills, short and long form performance formats, and offstage applications of collaborative creativity. It is open to any students who have taken TAPS 103 or have prev...
TAPS108 Introduction to Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Introduction to interdisciplinary approaches to gender, sexuality, queer, trans, and feminist studies. Topics include social justice and feminist organizing, art and activism, feminist histories, the emergence of gender and sexuality studies in the a...
TAPS11 Introduction to Dance Studies This class is an introduction to dance studies and the complex meanings bodily performances carry both onstage and off. Using critical frames drawn from dance criticism, history and ethnography and performance studies, and readings from cultural stud...
TAPS115A Vocal Audition for Musical Theater: Acting and Singing Technique for Musical Theater Auditions The world of Musical Theater is filled with stories of love, passion, joy, violence, heartbreak and rage. In this workshop we will research, study and practice audition pieces from this exciting performance discipline. The class will serve as an int...
TAPS119 Modern Theatre Modern theatre in Europe and the US, with a focus on the most influential works from roughly 1880 to the present. What were the conventions of theatrical practice that modern theatre displaced? What were the principal innovations of modern playwrit...
TAPS119M Special Topics: Building the Digital Body: Decoding Live Video in Performance TAPS 119M Special Topics courses feature the annual Mohr Visiting Artist. The Mohr Visiting Artist program brings acclaimed and emerging artists to campus for a one-term period to teach a credited course and provide a presentation, exhibition or perf...
TAPS11N Dramatic Tensions: Theater and the Marketplace Preference to freshmen. The current state of the American theater and its artists. Conventional wisdom says that theater is a dying art, and a lost cause, especially in an age of multi-media entertainment. But there are more young playwrights, actors...
TAPS11Q Art in the Metropolis This seminar is offered in conjunction with the annual "Arts Immersion" trip to New York that takes place over the spring break and is organized by the Stanford Arts Institute (SAI). Enrollment in this course a requirement for taking part in the trip...
TAPS11SC Learning Theater: From Audience to Critic at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, a member of the audience community waiting to be entertained, charmed, and challenged? But how many of us know enough about the details of the plays, their interpretation, their produ...
TAPS120A Acting I: Fundamentals of Acting A substantive introduction to the basics of the craft of acting, this course gives all incoming students the foundation of a common vocabulary. Students will learn fundamental elements of dramatic analysis, and how to apply it in action. Topics incl...
TAPS120B Acting II: Advanced Acting In this course, students will learn how to expand character work beyond what is immediately familiar. We will continue basic practices from the first part of the sequence, and look beyond the strictly contemporary. We will approach roles drawn from...
TAPS120M Audition and Monologue Auditioning is an essential part of being an actor. This class will demystify the process, so that students develop the skill and confidence to prepare an effective audition. Cold reading and making committed clear acting choices in scenes and monolo...
TAPS121V Voice for the Actor This course will focus on releasing a voice that effectively reaches the listener and is responsive to the actor's thoughts and feelings. Through work on breath awareness, alignment, resonance, and muscularity, students will learn to identify habits...
TAPS122M Main Stage Theater Project The Main Stage Theater Project provides students the opportunity to receive units for participating in a TAPS Main Stage Show. In Autumn 2022-23 the main stage show is Parentheses of Blood. Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe will direct this production.
TAPS122P Undergrad Performance Project The Undergraduate Performance Project provides students the opportunity to study and perform in major dramatic works. Students learn to form an artistic ensemble, develop dramaturgical materials, learn professional arts protocols and practice, devise...
TAPS122V Voice II: Shakespeare and Greeks How does the actor authentically meet a passionate text that goes beyond everyday speech? In this course, students will practice bringing to life the language of Shakespeare and classical Greek playwrights. Students will explore passionate thought, i...
TAPS123V Voice II: Dialects and the International Phonetic Alphabet (I.P.A.) One of the most exciting ways an actor can portray a character is by making vocal choices and through use of language - speaking a character's dialect can be crucial to that. Like a costume, dialect helps tell the story of the character and create a...
TAPS124D Acting for Non-Majors This is a non-major studio class designed to introduce fundamental acting techniques and to provide performers with foundational exercises upon which to build an ever more sophisticated practice for performing onstage. Cooperative group exercises an...
TAPS125 Acting Shakespeare This course explores the unique demands of playing Shakespeare on the stage. Through deep exploration of language and performance techniques in sonnets, speeches and scenes, the student will learn how to bring Shakespeare's passions to life through r...
TAPS125C Acting Chekhov Playwright Anton Chekhov helped revolutionize the theater with his naturalistic representation of life onstage. In this course, students will explore the creation of character and ensemble by doing scenes from Chekhov's plays with a particular focus...
TAPS125S Shakespeare Now: An Actor's Lab This active workshop will provide the actor with skills for performing Shakespeare with clarity, joy and power. Actors work with scenes and monologues to develop ease with scansion, freedom of voice, and to expand their physical and imaginative range...
TAPS126 Sound Stories This special seminar is designed for students interested in creating stories for radio, podcast, and other sound media. Students will learn both the core principles of telling strong stories, whatever the medium, and the strategies of telling enterta...
TAPS126S Studio Performance Project The ensemble of artists enrolled in this course will stage a new work of dynamic, dreamlike physical theatre: Unseen Forces. This nonlinear piece involves object manipulation, powerful physicality, and poetic imagery. Instructor Matt Chapman has been...
TAPS127 Movement for the Actor This course is an exploration of movement techniques for the actor, designed to provide a foundation for performance practice. Students will develop a more grounded sense of ease and breath onstage, learn fundamentals of physical partnership, and acq...
TAPS127A Commedia dell'Arte This course is an introduction to the technique and spirit of Commedia dell'Arte: the form which began in Italy in the 16th century and lives on in contemporary comedy. Through the observation and embodiment of archetypes and the use of character ma...
TAPS127M Introduction to Mask This course is an exploration of the use of masks for the theatre - as a performance tool, a method of character creation, and a means of training for actors. Through the use of a wide range of mask types and techniques, we will identify and practice...
TAPS127P The Spirit of Play This course is designed to liberate actors and other human beings through immersion in the 'state of play,' and by providing a set of tools for its cultivation. Awareness, availability, fun, and spontaneity are natural components of playing - but the...
TAPS127W Introduction to Clown This course is an introduction to the world and play of the theatrical clown, constructed for actors to explore truth in size, vulnerability, and a personal sense of humor. Students will develop their ability to play with the audience, a greater cap...
TAPS128 Acting Intensive: On Camera Acting Technique In this workshop we will explore film scripts and research iconic performances to introduce the beginning film actor to this exciting genre. The class will begin with familiarization of performance skills to relax and relate to the camera. Students...
TAPS12N To Die For: Antigone and Political Dissent (Formerly CLASSGEN 6N.) Preference to freshmen. Tensions inherent in the democracy of ancient Athens; how the character of Antigone emerges in later drama, film, and political thought as a figure of resistance against illegitimate authority; and her...
TAPS131 Lighting Design With the tools newly acquired from the previous quarter, this hands-on course features laboratory projects in lighting and designing live stage productions. Prerequisite TAPS 31.
TAPS132 Costume Design This course introduces the goals, directives and techniques of designing costumes for performance. From the first reading of the script to opening night, all aspects will be covered including director/designer relationships, design approach, researc...
TAPS132F Costume in Film Costume in Film will explore the process of costume design from the page to the screen. This course will discuss a range of period and contemporary films in order to discover how character development, storytelling and iconography relates to clothing...
TAPS132S Shopping, Styling, and the Culture of Costume This course will examine the practical world of costume and clothing. We will discuss the practice and techniques of shopping for TV, film and theatre, and how to use shopping as a tool for design. We will also explore the ways culture influences how...
TAPS133 Set Design Designing space as it relates to theater productions in our contemporary world. Visual research, spatial organization, found spaces, video experimentation, sketching, and model building will be a part of this course.
TAPS133D Set Design Practicum This course is intended for students who are in the process of designing scenery for a Stanford club or department production and seek guidance in developing and refining their design. It is also open to students who have not yet committed to a fully...
TAPS133T Transgender Performance and Performativity This course examines theater, performance art, dance, and embodied practice by transgender artists. Students will learn the history and politics of transgender performance while considering the creative processes and formal aesthetics trans artists u...
TAPS134 Stage Management Project For students assigned to a Stage Management team for productions in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies. TAPS 34 is a prerequisite.
TAPS134D Drawing and Storyboarding for Theater and Film Explores drawing as a fundamental component of the design process. Uses physical (pencil, charcoal, ink) and digital media to focus on developing the hand-to-eye relationship and pre-visualization skills essential to any designer. This class will exp...
TAPS134F Production Design for Film and TV This hands-on class will explore the world of production design, art direction, and general art department for film, TV, and commercials. We will create sets using stock flats and props from the TAPS prop stock. Using a camera, monitor, and a simple...
TAPS134P Scenic Painting This class explores the fundamentals of scenic painting. We will focus on painting for theatrical scenery, but the techniques are applicable to a wide range of artistic disciplines. We will cover many topics from mixing color and color theory, to st...
TAPS135C Theory & Craft of the Scenographic Model Students learn studio techniques for constructing dimensional models for stage designs. Students will work with their hands using common materials such as cardboard, paint and wood. Use of Stanford's Product Realization Lab encouraged for specialty i...
TAPS135D 3D Model Building- With 3D Printers and Glowforge The art of model building is ancient, but we now have modern digital tools that make this process faster, cleaner, and more precise. Using 3D printers and the Glowforge laser cutter as additional tools, we will create physical scale models that accur...
TAPS135M Introduction to Multimedia Production Students will learn filmmaking basics and apply them by creating a number of short multimedia projects to be shown and discussed in class. Hands-on practical instruction will cover the fundamentals of story, cinematography, sound recording, picture a...
TAPS136J Projection Design An exploration into Projection Design as it relates to Theatre and other areas of live entertainment. We will examine the art, tools and craft of Projection Design. Current practices, equipment, and content creation will be covered in this class.
TAPS136P Introduction to Producing From Youtube star to performing at Coachella, every performance needs a producer. The struggle to produce a work is quite astonishing, and often unbelievable. The challenging process of germinating an idea, deciding on a venue, assembling a collabora...
TAPS136V Design for Movement & Music From Beethoven to Beyonce, music inspires us. It rushes through our body, mind, and soul, inspiring us to move and be moved. Choreographers like Twyla, Taylor, and Todrick have us all express ourselves in different and amazing ways. Almost as importa...
TAPS137I Intimacy Direction for the Stage This course will take a deep dive into the ever-evolving field of intimacy direction. Together, we will investigate all major elements of intimacy work, with an emphasis on the structural and artistic components needed to create nuanced, authentic, a...
TAPS138 Introduction to Theater Sound Design This course explores the history and aesthetics,of theatre sound design, and provides the basic technical knowledge to create your own work. Learn how to analyze a script for sound design elements, gain practical knowledge of microphones and loudspe...
TAPS139 Pacific Ocean Worlds: A Sea of Islands How do we think about the modern Pacific Ocean world? Here in California, we border this vast waterscape, which is larger than all the world's remaining oceans combined and which could easily fit all of the planet's landmasses within it. What lessons...
TAPS13N Law and Drama Preference to Freshmen. If the purpose of criminal justice is to punish wrongdoers and deter crime, the objective of restorative justice to heal communities. It brings together perpetrators and victims to forge a dialogue, acknowledgment of harm, and...
TAPS140 Introduction to Projects in Theatrical Production A seminar course for students performing significant production work on Theater and Performance Studies Department or other Stanford University student theater projects. Students serving as producers, directors, designers or stage managers, who wish...
TAPS150G Performing Race, Gender, and Sexuality In this theory and practice-based course, students will examine performances by and scholarly texts about artists who critically and mindfully engage race, gender, and sexuality. Students will cultivate their skills as artist-scholars through written...
TAPS151 Dramaturgy Dramaturgy is one of the most transferable skills in performing arts. With its integration of scholarly research and creative practice, dramaturgy is in a position to augment all other areas of performance. For example, more often than not a good dir...
TAPS151C Hamlet and the Critics Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamlet as a site of rich critical controversy from the eighteenth century to the present. Aim is to read, discuss, and evaluate different approaches to the play, from biographical, theatrical, and psychological to formalist,...
TAPS151D Ethical STEM: Race, Justice, and Embodied Practice What role do science and technology play in the creation of a just society? How do we confront and redress the impact of racism and bias within the history, theory, and practice of these disciplines? This course invites students to grapple with the c...
TAPS151P Transpacific Performance Building on exciting new work in transpacific studies, this course explores how performance reveals the many ways in which cultures and communities intersect across the diverse and dynamic Pacific Ocean world, covering works from the Americas and Asi...
TAPS151T Global Great Books: Dramatic Dialogues The most influential and enduring texts in the dramatic canon from Sophocles to Shakespeare, Chekhov to Soyinka. Their historical and geopolitical contexts. Questions about the power dynamics involved in the formation of canons. This course counts as...
TAPS152L Nietzsche: Life as Performance Nietzsche famously considered that "there is no 'being' behind the deed, its effect, and what becomes of it; the 'doer' is invented as an afterthought - the doing is everything." How should we understand this idea of a deed without a doer, how might...
TAPS153 Revenge: From Aeschylus to ABC How has the topic of revenge inspired some of theatre history¿s most dramatic masterpieces? Covering works from ancient Greek and Roman tragedy to Chinese Opera, from Japanese samurai intrigues to Renaissance drama, and from nineteenth-century comedy...
TAPS153H History of Directing In this class, students will examine the work of directors who shaped modern theater. Some of directors we are going to explore are Konstantin Stanislavski, Jerzy Grotowski, and director-choreographer Pina Bausch. In order to engage closely with dire...
TAPS153M Mechanics of the Theater: The Technologies of Stagecraft This course explores the history of technologies vital to the theatre: traps, lifts, lights, and sounds have been crucial for creating stage illusion. Divided into three main sections, Mechanics and Machines, Lighting and Projections, and Acoustics...
TAPS153P Black Artistry: Strategies of Performance in the Black Diaspora Charting a course from colonial America to contemporary London, this course explores the long history of Black performance throughout an Atlantic diaspora. Defining performance as "forms of cultural staging," from Thomas DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez'...
TAPS154G Black Magic: Ethnicity, Race, and Identity in Performance Cultures In 2013, CaShawn Thompson devised a Twitter hashtag, #blackgirlmagic, to celebrate the beauty and intelligence of black women. Twitter users quickly adopted the slogan, using the hashtag to celebrate everyday moments of beauty, accomplishment, and ma...
TAPS155 Social Sculpture This course investigates the body as sculptural material in order to investigate private and social spaces. Through the development of projects in the realm of social practice, performance, and/or audience interaction, students will explore what it m...
TAPS155W The Wretched of the Stage The subtitle of this class is: Slaves, Women, Children, Servants, More Slaves, the Poor ... in Western Theater. The list could go on: homeless, prostitutes, mentally ill, laborers, disabled. Historically, the center stage of Western theater has been...
TAPS156 Performing History: Race, Politics, and Staging the Plays of August Wilson This course purposefully and explicitly mixes theory and practice. Students will read and discuss the plays of August Wilson, the most celebrated and most produced contemporary American playwright, that comprise his 20th Century History Cycle. Class...
TAPS157 World Drama and Performance This course takes up a geographically expansive conversation by looking at modern and contemporary drama from nations including Ghana, Egypt, India, Argentina, among others. Considering influential texts from the Global South will also enable us to e...
TAPS157P Performing Arabs and Others in Theory and Practice How deeply must the artist engage to be satisfied with a representation? Is there such a thing as `good representation¿? When must artists persist and when should they resist? In this class, we will dare to make mistakes, challenge formulaic popular...
TAPS157S Edward Said, or Scholar vs Empire How can an intellectual fight forces far larger than a single individual? How can solidarity be an antidote to racism? Why is there no distinction between the local and the global? What is the scholar's role in an alienating political climate? Why ar...
TAPS160 Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the...
TAPS160C Palestinian Theater, Film, and Performance Traditionally, courses on Palestinians focus on political histories and narratives of two nationalisms vying for uncontested statehood in the Levant. Humanists, artists, and social scientists have explored the political, military, sociological, and r...
TAPS160M Introduction to Representations of the Middle East in Dance, Performance, & Popular Culture This course will introduce students to the ways in which the Middle East has been represented and performed by/in the 'West' through dance, performance, and popular culture in both historical and contemporary contexts. A brief look through today's me...
TAPS161D Introduction to Dance Studies: Dancing Across Stages, Clubs, Screens, and Borders This introduction to dance studies course explores dance practice and performance as means for producing cultural meaning. Through theoretical and historical texts and viewing live and recorded dance, we will develop tools for analyzing dance and und...
TAPS161H Dance, History and Conflict This seminar investigates how moving bodies are compelling agents of social, cultural, and political change.Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class questions the impact of social conflict and war on selected...
TAPS161P Dance and the Politics of Movement This course examines how the dancing body has been viewed, exhibited, analyzed, and interpreted from the late nineteenth century to the present. We will discuss how ideologies about race, gender, and sexual orientation are mapped onto the body, as we...
TAPS162L Latin/x America in Motion: An Introduction to Dance Studies This course introduces students to the field of Dance Studies by examining the histories of Latin American and Caribbean dances and their relationship to developing notions of race and nation in the Americas. We will study the historical emergence an...
TAPS162P Intersectionality and the Politics of Ballet Ballet dancers drag a long and conservative history with them each time they step onstage. Yet recently some of the most radical challenges in dance are coming from ballerinas, featuring prosthetic limbs, non-female identifying dancers en pointe, and...
TAPS164 Race and Performance How does race function in performance and dare we say live and in living color? How does one deconstruct discrimination at its roots? From a perspective of global solidarity and recognition of shared plight among BIPOC communities, we will read and p...
TAPS165 Introduction to Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity Race and ethnicity are often taken for granted as naturally occurring, self-evident phenomena that must be navigated or overcome to understand and eradicate the (re)production of societal hierarchies across historical, geopolitical, and institutional...
TAPS167 Introduction to Greek Tragedy: Gods, Heroes, Fate, and Justice Gods and heroes, fate and free choice, gender conflict, the justice or injustice of the universe: these are just some of the fundamental human issues that we will explore in about ten of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
TAPS167H Revolutions in Theater This course surveys the period from the turn of the 20th century until WII, during which the European avant-garde movements transformed modern art. This period in history is marked by dynamic political events that had a deep impact on experimental ar...
TAPS169R Reality TV and American Society Class will explore the ways reality tv over the past 25 years has affected the way Americans see and relate to one another, then consider what comes next. Students will analyze and discuss seminal reality tv shows and print criticism thereof, and in...
TAPS170A The Director's Craft Are you interested in directing as a career, or would like to more about directing in order to direct a show on campus? This workshop class leads students into becoming directors of theater, musicals, and even film/media project. The course will cov...
TAPS170B Directing Workshop: The Actor-Director Dialogue This course focuses on the actor-director dialogue. We will work with actors and directors developing approaches to collaboration that make the actor-director dialogue in theater. TAPS Ph.D. students are required to enroll in TAPS 372 for 4 units. Th...
TAPS170W Laughter & Play for Wellbeing Learn about and practice laughter yoga, combined with theater exercises. Laughter yoga (distinct from traditional movement-based yoga) is a modality that integrates laughter exercises with yogic breathing. Explore the growing field of research on lau...
TAPS172 Transformative Art-Practices for Engaging Community This course is presented by IDA, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts. In this course, we will explore how artists are addressing and transforming issues central to communities of color such as housing, healthy food access, abolition, human traffi...
TAPS173 Making Your Solo Show Are you tired of the classics? Were you frustrated by casting choices in the past? Sometimes, you have to step away from the canon and create your own work. Do you have something to say about race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, sexuality, yo...
TAPS173D Theater Production Lab: Dramaturgy and Development 173/373: In this course students will explore general dramaturgical history and methodology as well as engaging in applied dramaturgy from evaluating works for a productions seasons, to developing dramaturgical materials for specific productions. S...
TAPS174 Digital Theater-Making: Creative Code and Performance A creative workshop offering a range of techniques and technologies in order to create original works of theater that are performed over the internet. Students will be invited to explore different artistic strategies combined with demonstrations of e...
TAPS175P New Play Development In this course, students will workshop three new plays with Professors Rush Rehm and Samer Al-Saber. Based on the enrolment in the class, the students will be cast in one (or more) of the following plays: As Soon As Impossible by Betty Shamieh, My Ar...
TAPS175T Collaborative Theater-Making Instructor Young Jean Lee has written and directed ten shows with her theater company and toured her work to over thirty cities around the world. In 2018, she became the first Asian-American female to have had her play produced in Broadway. In this w...
TAPS176 Script Analysis This class is an introduction to script analysis for directors, designers, and actors. Unlike literary analysis, which focuses on aesthetic, historical, and critical reading of plays, script analysis is geared towards production. In that sense, it is...
TAPS176 Script Analysis This class is an introduction to script analysis for directors, designers, and actors. Unlike literary analysis, which focuses on aesthetic, historical, and critical reading of plays, script analysis is geared towards production. In that sense, it is...
TAPS176N The Inside Story The Inside Story is a workshop that focuses on the generation of autobiographical material by exploring the connections between biology and biography. Students will gather autobiological and autobiographical material, investigate stories of their bod...
TAPS177 Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by co...
TAPS177W Workshop with Young Jean Lee Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. In this workshop, students will help to collaboratively perform, direct, and rewrite the script of one of these plays, which is about...
TAPS178C Dramatic Writing Workshop Instructor Young Jean Lee is the first Asian-American woman to have had a play produced in Broadway. This workshop will guide you through the process of of creating a script for a full-length play, musical, or screenplay, and will focus on helping yo...
TAPS178D Editing a Full-Length Play To participate in this workshop, students must bring in a draft of a full length straight play for revision, which was written in part one of this course, WRITING A FULL-LENGTH PLAY. In conjunction with a variety of other editing techniques, students...
TAPS178E Advanced Playwriting Workshop Instructor Young Jean Lee is the first Asian-American female to have had her play produced in Broadway. This workshop will guide you through the process of of creating a script for a full-length piece of theater, and will focus on helping you to make...
TAPS179 Reality is All You Need: An Introduction to Documentary-Theater Documentary theater isn't just a form of art, it is also a political statement, and an ethical stand. In this course we'll explore the foundations of docu-theater, identify artistic mechanisms, and focus on dramatic challenges. Students will exercise...
TAPS17N Acting for Activists Acting for Activists is designed for students who are interested in combining acting with activism, performance with politics. We will work with theatre that responds to specific political events and crisis such as hate crimes or war through the pe...
TAPS180Q Noam Chomsky: The Drama of Resistance Preference to sophomores. Chomsky's ideas and work which challenge the political and economic paradigms governing the U.S. Topics include his model for linguistics; cold war U.S. involvements in S.E. Asia, the Middle East, Central and S. America, th...
TAPS183C Interpretation of Musical Theater Repertoire By audition only: Contact instructor prior to enrolling (mlcats@stanford.edu). Ability to read music expected, but students with experience singing in musical theater can be accepted. For singers and pianists as partners. Performance class in a works...
TAPS183E Singing for Musicals Do you love singing in musicals? Do you know how to sing in musicals? This course provides training in vocal technique and acting for students interested in performing musical theater. Students will learn about the physical process of singing, incl...
TAPS184B Topics on the Musical Stage This course is a practical workshop in vocal repertoire for the stage. Each quarter's offering emphasizes a specific genre or period, therefore the course can be repeated with permission of the instructor. In addition to broadening the student's know...
TAPS184C Dramatic Vocal Arts: Songs and Scenes Onstage Studies in stagecraft, acting and performance for singers, culminating in a public performance. Repertoire to be drawn from the art song, opera, American Songbook and musical theater genres. Enrollment by audition only. May be repeated for credit a t...
TAPS190 Special Research Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
TAPS190C TAPS Undergraduate Curricular Practical Training TAPS Undergraduate Curricular Practical Training. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
TAPS192 Nitery Board Practicum Credit given for undergraduate student board members of the Experimental Nitery Studio.
TAPS195D Queer Caribbean Performance With its' lush and fantastic landscape, fabulous carnivalesque aesthetics, and rich African Diaspora Religious traditions, the Caribbean has long been a setting which New World black artists have staged competing visions of racial and sexual utopia a...
TAPS196 Dancing Black: Embodying the African Diaspora in the United States and the Caribbean What does it mean to dance black? How can studying comparative dance practices across the United States and the Caribbean expose continuities and differences in African diaspora experience? How can we draw strategies from black performance to inform...
TAPS200 Senior Project All TAPS Majors must complete a Senior Project that represents significant work in any area of theater and/or performance. The project must be an original contribution and can consist of any of the following: devising a performance, choreographing a...
TAPS201 Theater History A survey of the history of theatre and dance from the ancient Greeks to the modern world. While primarily intended to help TAPS graduate students prepare for their Comprehensive Exam, this course may also be taken by undergraduates or non-TAPS gradu...
TAPS202 Honors Thesis An advanced written project to fulfill the requirements for the Honors degree in TAPS. There are two ways to undertake an honors thesis. The first is to write a 40-50 page essay, which presents research on an important issue or subject of the student...
TAPS20N Prisons and Performance Preference to Freshmen. This seminar starts with the unlikely question of what can the performing arts, particularly dance and theater, illuminate about the situation of mass incarceration in America. Part seminar, part immersive context building, st...
TAPS21 StoryCraft StoryCraft is a hands-on, experiential workshop offering participants the opportunity, structure and guidance to craft compelling personal stories to be shared in front of a live audience. The class will focus on several areas of storytelling: Mining...
TAPS21AR StoryCraft: Athlete Relationships What is intimacy like as an athlete? What are the stereotypes and the realities? In this class, athletic-identifying students will learn about relationships from the inside out: through an examination and telling of their lived experiences. We will e...
TAPS21N The Idea of Virtual Reality What is virtual reality and where is it heading? Was there VR before digital technology? What is the value of the real in a virtual culture? How, where, and when do we draw the line between the virtual and the real, the live and the mediated today...
TAPS21S StoryCraft: On Relationships Do we need love? And if so, what does it look like? In this class, students will learn about relationships from the inside out: through an examination and telling of their lived experiences. We will explore various perspectives on intimacy and relati...
TAPS21T StoryCraft: Sexuality, Intimacy & Relationships What are the roles of sexuality, intimacy, and relationships in my life? How do I tell a compelling story? In this class, you will learn about these topics from the inside out. We will explore various perspectives on sexuality, intimacy, and relation...
TAPS220 Academic Publishing This course offers systematic opportunities for students to develop a publishable article for a scholarly journal. We will examine a range of successful articles in journals and carefully consider a variety of effective writing techniques and styles.
TAPS22AX Theatre of the People: Performance Based Acting Theatre of the People is a performance-based course that guides students through the process of creating and performing an original play that draws on popular theatre traditions to address burning social issues. Students will learn how the touring Co...
TAPS22N Culture, Conflict, and the Modern Middle East In this course, you will encounter the Middle East through places, peoples, and performances, beyond the basic study of identifying the region and learning its history. The main question that we will contend with is: how can one achieve an ideal enco...
TAPS231 Advanced Stage Lighting Design Individually structured class in lighting mechanics and design through experimentation, discussions, and written reports. Prerequisite: 131 or consent of instructor.
TAPS232 Advanced Costume Design Individually structured tutorial for costume designers. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 132 or consent of instructor.
TAPS233 Advanced Scene Design Individually structured workshop. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 133 or consent of instructor.
TAPS234 Advanced Stage Management Project For students stage managing a Department of Theater and Performance Studies production. May be repeat for credit. Prerequisite: 134.
TAPS235 Advanced Dramaturgy Project Independent Study for Graduate Students completing dramaturgy projects.
TAPS23N How to Create A Ghost: Theater, Magic, and Technology How do you conjure a ghost? Fly a bird? Make a person disappear? And why? What is the appeal of magic, illusions, and technological tricks? This course will explore the history of magic through its theatrical history, exploring important relationship...
TAPS250J Baldwin and Hansberry: The Myriad Meanings of Love This course looks at major dramatic works by James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. Both of these queer black writers had prophetic things to say about the world-historical significance of major dramas on the 20th Century including civil rights, revol...
TAPS251C Hamlet and the Critics Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamlet as a site of rich critical controversy from the eighteenth century to the present. Aim is to read, discuss, and evaluate different approaches to the play, from biographical, theatrical, and psychological to formalist,...
TAPS252 Objects and Things: Theater, Performance, and Material Culture Objects, devices, machines, technologies--how do we engage with the material things that come across our research, into our performances, and out of our lives? This course examines how various scholars, theorists, and practitioners have defined and e...
TAPS253H History of Directing In this class, students will examine the work of directors who shaped modern theater. Some of directors we are going to explore are Konstantin Stanislavski, Jerzy Grotowski, and director-choreographer Pina Bausch. In order to engage closely with dire...
TAPS253T Virtual Realities: Art, Technology, Performance Contemporary virtual reality extends a long-standing quest to create a fully immersive, multisensory environment, a quest that may go back to the earliest cave paintings and includes such projects as cathedrals, operas, panoramas, theme parks, video...
TAPS255W The Wretched of the Stage The subtitle of this class is: Slaves, Women, Children, Servants, More Slaves, the Poor ... in Western Theater. The list could go on: homeless, prostitutes, mentally ill, laborers, disabled. Historically, the center stage of Western theater has been...
TAPS257P Performing Arabs and Others in Theory and Practice How deeply must the artist engage to be satisfied with a representation? Is there such a thing as `good representation¿? When must artists persist and when should they resist? In this class, we will dare to make mistakes, challenge formulaic popular...
TAPS258 Black Feminist Theater and Theory From the rave reviews garnered by Angelina Weld Grimke's lynching play, Rachel to recent work by Lynn Nottage on Rwanda, black women playwrights have addressed key issues in modern culture and politics. We will analyze and perform work written by bl...
TAPS26 Dancing Theories of Race What can choreography and movement practice lend a comparative understanding of race studies? Pairing critical theory in race studies with dance performance, this course moves through ten units to scaffold a nuanced orientation toward race and dance...
TAPS260 Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the...
TAPS262L Latin/x America in Motion: An Introduction to Dance Studies This course introduces students to the field of Dance Studies by examining the histories of Latin American and Caribbean dances and their relationship to developing notions of race and nation in the Americas. We will study the historical emergence an...
TAPS264S Race, Gender, Justice The question of justice animates some of the most influential classics and contemporary plays in the dramatic canon. We will examine the relationship between state laws and kinship obligations in Sophocles's Antigone. We will trace the transnational...
TAPS267 Revolutions in Theater This course surveys the period from the turn of the 20th century until WII, during which the European avant-garde movements transformed modern art. This period in history is marked by dynamic political events that had a deep impact on experimental ar...
TAPS268H Poor Theater The goal of this class is not to offer a survey of Happenings and other happening-related art of the late twentieth century. Instead, we will use Happenings as a paradigm of "poor theater" and "poor art" - umbrella terms for a number of experimental...
TAPS26N Anthropo-Scene: Climate Change and the Arts Climate change is, arguably, the first major crisis in the history of humankind that did not produce striking images, a recognizable plot, a tragic hero or victim. To complicate things, it appears as a game of large numbers: the square miles of melte...
TAPS273 Making Your Solo Show Are you tired of the classics? Were you frustrated by casting choices in the past? Sometimes, you have to step away from the canon and create your own work. Do you have something to say about race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, sexuality, yo...
TAPS275T Collaborative Theater-Making Instructor Young Jean Lee has written and directed ten shows with her theater company and toured her work to over thirty cities around the world. In 2018, she became the first Asian-American female to have had her play produced in Broadway. In this w...
TAPS277 Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by co...
TAPS277W Workshop with Young Jean Lee Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. In this workshop, students will help to collaboratively perform, direct, and rewrite the script of one of these plays, which is about...
TAPS278 Intensive Playwriting Intermediate level study of fundamentals of playwriting through an intensive play development process. Course emphasizes visual scripting for the stage and play revision. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Suzan-Lori Pa...
TAPS278C Dramatic Writing Workshop Instructor Young Jean Lee is the first Asian-American woman to have had a play produced in Broadway. This workshop will guide you through the process of of creating a script for a full-length play, musical, or screenplay, and will focus on helping yo...
TAPS278D Editing a Full-Length Play To participate in this workshop, students must bring in a draft of a full length straight play for revision, which was written in part one of this course, WRITING A FULL-LENGTH PLAY. In conjunction with a variety of other editing techniques, students...
TAPS278E Advanced Playwriting Workshop Instructor Young Jean Lee is the first Asian-American female to have had her play produced in Broadway. This workshop will guide you through the process of of creating a script for a full-length piece of theater, and will focus on helping you to make...
TAPS28 Makeup for the Stage Techniques of make-up application and design for the actor and artist including corrective, age, character, and fantasy. Emphasis placed on utilizing make-up for development of character by the actor. Limited enrollment.
TAPS29 Theater Performance: Acting Students cast in department productions receive credit for their participation as actors; 1-2 units for graduate directing workshop projects and 1-3 units for major productions (units determined by instructor). May be repeated for credit. Prerequisit...
TAPS290 Special Research Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre.
TAPS30 Introduction to Theatrical Design Introduction to Theatrical Design is aimed at students interested in exploring the fundamentals of design for the stage. Students are introduced to the practical and theoretical basics of design and are challenged to answer the question: What makes...
TAPS300C History of World Cinema III: Queer Cinema around the World Provides an overview of cinema from around the world since 1960, highlighting the cultural, political, and economic forces that have shaped various film movements over the last six decades. We study key film movements and national cinemas towards dev...
TAPS301 World Theater History This seminar offers a global survey of theater and performance from antiquity to 1945. Students will read plays and historical texts to broaden and enrich their knowledge of theater history and research. The course takes place during the Fall and Win...
TAPS302 The Interruption of the Machine: Introduction to Sound Studies through Literature This course will introduce students to the field of Sound Studies (methodology, vocabulary, main claims) with a focus on the various sonic articulations of human-machine interactions in literature. The world of fiction as a sonic machine that articul...
TAPS31 Introduction to Lighting and Production Good visual storytelling begins and ends with good lighting. All visual storytelling forms--from photos to films to stage productions--provide a canvas in which lighting paints the scene. Lighting sets a mood, a tone, and can shape character and stor...
TAPS311 Performance and Historiography This graduate seminar focuses on questions of historiography and the archive as they relate to studies of theater, dance, and performance. It blends rigorous discussion and theoretical exploration with practical experience in libraries, museums, and...
TAPS313 Performance and Performativity Performance theory through topics including: affect/trauma, embodiment, empathy, theatricality/performativity, specularity/visibility, liveness/disappearance, belonging/abjection, and utopias and dystopias. Readings from Schechner, Phelan, Austin, Bu...
TAPS314 Performing Identities This course examines claims and counter-claims of identity, a heated political and cultural concept over the past few decades. We will consider the ways in which theories of performance have offered generative discursive frameworks for the study of i...
TAPS315 Dramaturgy Dramaturgy is one of the most transferable skills in performing arts. With its integration of scholarly research and creative practice, dramaturgy is in a position to augment all other areas of performance. For example, more often than not a good dir...
TAPS319 Modern Theatre Modern theatre in Europe and the US, with a focus on the most influential works from roughly 1880 to the present. What were the conventions of theatrical practice that modern theatre displaced? What were the principal innovations of modern playwrit...
TAPS321 Proseminar Prepares PhD students for the academic profession by honing skills in presenting and publishing research, navigating the job market, and managing a career.
TAPS325 Nietzsche: Life as Performance Nietzsche famously considered that "there is no 'being' behind the deed, its effect, and what becomes of it; the 'doer' is invented as an afterthought - the doing is everything." How should we understand this idea of a deed without a doer, how might...
TAPS33 Introduction to Technical Theater and Production A fun, collaborative, hands-on course subjecting students to the basics of scenery, props, painting, rigging, sound, lighting, costumes, and other production elements used in theater. This class is good for all types of theater students interested in...
TAPS332 Performance and Ethnography This graduate seminar covers theories and methods of ethnographic research that will be of use to emerging scholars in theatre and performance studies and related disciplines. We will focus on two main approaches to the relationship between performan...
TAPS335 Introduction to Graduate Production This course introduces first-year TAPS PhD student to the TAPS production process and resources. Meetings will be scheduled ad hoc.
TAPS336 Comprehensive 1st Year Exam Required course for first-year Ph.D. students in Theater & Performance Studies. Credits for work toward the Comprehensive 1st-year Exam taken in late February or Early March.
TAPS34 Stage Management Techniques TAPS 34 examines the role and responsibilities of the Stage Manager within a live performance production organization. This includes exploring and creating methods for documenting, recording and 'calling' a production. The purpose of TAPS 34 is to pr...
TAPS341 Ars Theoretica: On Scholar-Artists Interdisciplinarity is one of the hallmarks of performance studies, and integration of scholarly research and creative practice is at the core of our educational mission in TAPS. In this seminar, we will investigate the promise of mutual enrichment b...
TAPS342 Counter-Institution: Performance and Institutional Critique Out of 100 members of the current US Senate, only one has a college degree in arts. In the House of Representatives, the situation is even bleaker: while some ten representatives, out of 435, have experience in some kind of artistic practice (music,...
TAPS351 Global Great Books: Dramatic Dialogues The most influential and enduring texts in the dramatic canon from Sophocles to Shakespeare, Chekhov to Soyinka. Their historical and geopolitical contexts. Questions about the power dynamics involved in the formation of canons. This course counts as...
TAPS351P Transpacific Performance Building on exciting new work in transpacific studies, this course explores how performance reveals the many ways in which cultures and communities intersect across the diverse and dynamic Pacific Ocean world, covering works from the Americas and Asi...
TAPS353P Black Artistry: Strategies of Performance in the Black Diaspora Charting a course from colonial America to contemporary London, this course explores the long history of Black performance throughout an Atlantic diaspora. Defining performance as "forms of cultural staging," from Thomas DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez'...
TAPS354G Black Magic: Ethnicity, Race, and Identity in Performance Cultures In 2013, CaShawn Thompson devised a Twitter hashtag, #blackgirlmagic, to celebrate the beauty and intelligence of black women. Twitter users quickly adopted the slogan, using the hashtag to celebrate everyday moments of beauty, accomplishment, and ma...
TAPS356 Performing History: Race, Politics, and Staging the Plays of August Wilson This course purposefully and explicitly mixes theory and practice. Students will read and discuss the plays of August Wilson, the most celebrated and most produced contemporary American playwright, that comprise his 20th Century History Cycle. Class...
TAPS357 World Drama and Performance This course takes up a geographically expansive conversation by looking at modern and contemporary drama from nations including Ghana, Egypt, India, Argentina, among others. Considering influential texts from the Global South will also enable us to e...
TAPS357S Edward Said, or Scholar vs Empire How can an intellectual fight forces far larger than a single individual? How can solidarity be an antidote to racism? Why is there no distinction between the local and the global? What is the scholar's role in an alienating political climate? Why ar...
TAPS36 Dangerous Ideas Ideas matter. Concepts such as equality, tradition, and Hell have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like race and urban renewal, play an important role in contemporary d...
TAPS360 Greek Tragedy The seminar explores the intellectual, political, and cultural background of 5th-century Athenian tragedy, with special focus on the theatrical dynamics of the major plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Although the seminar emphasizes a clos...
TAPS360C Palestinian Theater, Film, and Performance Traditionally, courses on Palestinians focus on political histories and narratives of two nationalisms vying for uncontested statehood in the Levant. Humanists, artists, and social scientists have explored the political, military, sociological, and r...
TAPS361P Dance and the Politics of Movement This course examines how the dancing body has been viewed, exhibited, analyzed, and interpreted from the late nineteenth century to the present. We will discuss how ideologies about race, gender, and sexual orientation are mapped onto the body, as we...
TAPS370A The Director's Craft Are you interested in directing as a career, or would like to more about directing in order to direct a show on campus? This workshop class leads students into becoming directors of theater, musicals, and even film/media project. The course will cov...
TAPS371 Performance Making A studio course focused on creative processes and generating original material. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the relationship between form and content exploring the possibilities of site specific, gallery and theatre setting...
TAPS371P Theater and Performance Making A creative workshop offering a range of generative exercises and techniques in order to devise, compose and perform original works. Students will explore a variety of texts (plays, poems, short stories, paintings) and work with the body, object and s...
TAPS372 Directing Workshop: The Actor-Director Dialogue This course focuses on the actor-director dialogue. We will work with actors and directors developing approaches to collaboration that make the actor-director dialogue in theater. TAPS Ph.D. students are required to enroll in TAPS 372 for 4 units. Th...
TAPS374 Digital Theater-Making: Creative Code and Performance A creative workshop offering a range of techniques and technologies in order to create original works of theater that are performed over the internet. Students will be invited to explore different artistic strategies combined with demonstrations of e...
TAPS375P New Play Development In this course, students will workshop three new plays with Professors Rush Rehm and Samer Al-Saber. Based on the enrolment in the class, the students will be cast in one (or more) of the following plays: As Soon As Impossible by Betty Shamieh, My Ar...
TAPS376 Projects in Performance Creative projects to be determined in consultation with Drama graduate faculty and production advisor
TAPS379 Dramatic Literature in English: A Survey, 1900-2015 Beginning with the first production of Ibsen's "A Doll House" and ending with Miranda's "Hamilton," this course focuses on innovative dramatic literature that transformed the genre.
TAPS39 Theater Crew Class for students working on TAPS department productions in the following role: backstage/run crew, scenic technician, or costume technician. Night and weekend time possible. Pre-approval from Jane Casamajor (janecasa@stanford.edu) is required for e...
TAPS390 Directed Reading Students may take directing reading only with the permission of their dissertation advisor. Might be repeatable for credit twice for 6 units total.
TAPS391 Summer Research Independent study course for TAPS PhD students conducting research as part of their preparation to complete upcoming milestone requirements during the summer quarter. Enrollment only permitted for TAPS PhD students in their first, second, or third su...
TAPS395D Queer Caribbean Performance With its' lush and fantastic landscape, fabulous carnivalesque aesthetics, and rich African Diaspora Religious traditions, the Caribbean has long been a setting which New World black artists have staged competing visions of racial and sexual utopia a...
TAPS396 Dancing Black: Embodying the African Diaspora in the United States and the Caribbean What does it mean to dance black? How can studying comparative dance practices across the United States and the Caribbean expose continuities and differences in African diaspora experience? How can we draw strategies from black performance to inform...
TAPS39D Small Project Stage Management For students Stage Mananging a TAPS Senior Project or Assistant Stage Managing a TAPS department production. Pre-approval by Laxmi Kumaran (laxmik@stanford.edu) required for enrollment.
TAPS42 Costume Construction Course will cover the basics of costume and garment construction. Includes hand and machine skills as well as basic patterning ideas that may be applied to more advanced projects. Lecture/Lab
TAPS44 Wigs & Hair A practical course covering techniques and design of wigs and hair styles. Students will learn basic wig building techniques including ventilating and wig alteration. We will also cover braiding, curling techniques, and other styling processes. Resea...
TAPS460 Decolonizing Theory The past year has witnessed a remarkable reckoning with systemic racism and embedded structures of inequality, underscoring once again the epistemic violence of the privileging of a white, western, heteropatriarchal intellectual tradition in the acad...
TAPS60 How We Sing: The Voice, How It Functions, and the Singer's Mind A weekly lecture course for singers, pianists, directors, conductors, and anyone who is interested in the art and craft of the voice. The voice is an instrument whose sounds are determined by its structure and the choices the singer makes. Students w...
TAPS61 Theater and Social Justice: Skills for Rethinking Everything In this course we will employ theater foundations (writing, acting, staging and direction) to interrogate individual and collective belief systems prescribed through our lineage, geography, genetics, culture and class. We will ask big questions like:...
TAPS802 TGR Dissertation (Staff)
TAPS99 Kinesthetic Delight: Movement and Meditation The words meditation and mindfulness often conjure images of people sitting quietly in peaceful contemplation. However, as contemplatives and scholars from various fields have argued, though the brain resides in the cranium, the mind functions throug...