Professors: W.B. Worthen (Chair, Alice Brady Pels Professor in the Arts)
Assistant Professor: Shawn-Marie Garrett, Maja Horn
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice: Sandra Goldmark
Senior Lecturers: Pam Cobrin (English; Director, Writing Program), Patricia Denison (English; Director of Undergraduate Studies, Drama and Theatre Arts),
Lecturers: Betsy Adams, Rob Bundy, Kyle deCamp, Sharon Fogarty, Rebecca Guy, Julia Jordan, Stacey McMath, Maria Mileaf, Sally Oswald, Fitz Patton, Rita Pietropinto, Wendy Waterman, Hana Worthen (Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow), Ralph Zito
Theatre Administrator: Jessica Brater
Technical Director: Greg Winkler
Production Manager: Michael Banta
Costume Shop Manager: Kara Feely
Departmental Assistant: Mike Placito
Other officers of the
University offering courses listed below:
Professor: Martin Puchner
Assistant Professor: Katherine Biers
Associate Professor of Professional Practice: Steven Chaikelson
For a complete list of
faculty on leave see:
http://www.barnard.edu/provost/facleavelist.html
The Barnard College Theatre major, a joint program with the Columbia College major in Drama and Theatre Arts, builds on its liberal arts setting by imagining an integrative approach to performance and theatre studies. Taking advantage of a wide variety of studio coursework, of the Department's production season in the Minor Latham Playhouse, as well as of a rich panoply of drama and theatre studies courses, students' creative work develops in dialogue with critical inquiry into the literature, history, culture, and theory of western and nonwestern performance, typically combining coursework in theatre and drama with study in other fields, such as anthropology, architecture, art history, classics, dance, film, languages, literature, music, and philosophy. Students work with accomplished artists, directors, designers, actors and playwrights whose work enlivens and enriches the contemporary American theatre; they also study the critical, historical, and theoretical lineaments of drama, theatre, and performance with celebrated teachers and internationally-recognized research scholars. Making, thinking about, and writing about art are an essential part of any undergraduate education: for this reason both the courses offered in the Barnard Theatre Department and casting for its theatrical productions are open to majors and nonmajors alike.
In a small program, students at once receive individual attention and ample performance and production opportunities. All students develop a vocabulary for conceptualizing performance in common courses in the history, literature, and theory of various world performance traditions. They also engage in the range of disciplines sustaining modern theatre--acting, design, directing, dramaturgy, playwriting--before taking up culminating work on a senior thesis. An original creative project, the thesis can take several forms: a significant research essay; a new play; or acting, dramaturging, directing, or designing as part of the Department's annual showcase of thesis productions. Theatre is a site of cultural innovation, transmission, and contestation, involving a variety of verbal, visual, spatial, musical, and gestural languages. Barnard/Columbia theatre majors understand the power of performance as an act of articulation; in speech, through movement and embodiment, as the manipulation of space, in the construction of an expressive event. Theatre majors are well-placed to pursue advanced professional work in the arts, as well as undertaking the kind of humanistic education that provides a solid platform for success in a wide range of endeavors.
Students intending to major in Theatre should consult with the department chair in their sophomore year or earlier to plan a program. Twelve courses and one senior thesis (in Performance or in History, Theory, Dramaturgy, and Criticism) are required as follows:
Dramatic literature and theatre history
Two courses in Theatre History: THTR V 3150 and 3151
One course in Drama, Theatre, and Theory: THTR V 3166 or ENTA W 3702
One course in Shakespeare
Two courses in Dramatic Literature. One course must be a seminar.
Theatre Practice
One course in World Theatre: THTR V 3000
One course in Theatre Design: THTR V3132-3136, 3510, or 4001
One course in Acting: THTR V 3004 or 3005
One course in Directing: THTR V 3200 or 3201
Two courses that continue work in one of these areas: design, acting, directing, or playwriting. These choices should be made in consultation with the major adviser. Other courses may be substituted with the chair's permission.
Please note that for Barnard students there is a limit on studio courses. Theatre majors may take 24 studio points in Theatre and an additional six in another discipline for a total of 30 studio points. Theatre Department studio courses are THTR V 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2120, 3004, 3005, 3006, 3122.
Senior Thesis
THTR V 3997 Senior Thesis: Performance (design, acting, directing, or playwriting)
or THTR V 3998 Senior Thesis: History, Theory, Dramaturgy, Criticism.
Before doing their senior performance thesis, students are required to complete a minor crew assignment, usually in the first two years, and a major crew assignment, usually in the junior year during the Senior Thesis Festival.