The Collaborative Arts Theatre Experience

(4 Credits)

Experimental makers have exploded the traditional structures of collaboration in theater. And yet, a completely egalitarian process - the image often associated with the words “collaborative” or “devised” - is a myth. “Liberation paves the way for new power relationships,” Foucault writes, “which must be controlled by practices of freedom.” How do we work together: with an auteur, with a chaos agent, with a friend, with a stranger? In this class, you will have the chance to write and make theater, and your classmates will be your collaborators, audience members, responders and peers. Throughout the semester, you will engage with the work of American experimental theater artists and make work of your own. During the first half of the course, we will be reading and watching a variety of experimental work that has been performed in NYC in the last 50 years. Each week, you will be given a prompt inspired by the texts we have been engaging with, and you will write a 5-7 minute play in response, to be shared with classmates the following week (they will offer comprehensive feedback.) In the second half of the course, you will rehearse with your classmates to eventually present either a mini-festival of your work, or one longer piece made collectively. In practice, you will have the opportunity to stage your work, and experiment with devising and directing as well as writing.