DRAM 392 - Intensive Topics

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

This intensive course is designed to accommodate small groups of students (roughly 6-8), working in a mentored relationship with a faculty member on a topic related to an aspect of performance or performance theory. Not to be confused with the senior projects or with preparation for a performance, this course provides students the opportunity for study in a specific area in drama. Topics might include, but are not limited to, professional considerations in acting, such as the audition process and finding an agent, a deep dive into the professional actor’s creative process; stage management, archival research, directing styles or the history of directing, the historic costume collection, etc.

Topic for 2026/2026b: Women Playwrights of The African Diaspora. This spring explores the work of women playwrights whose voices emerge from African and African diasporic contexts. By centering playwrights who engage questions of migration, memory, identity, and resistance, the course highlights how theater becomes a site of cultural expression, political struggle, and reimagined belonging. Students read, watch, and perform works by African, African American, Caribbean, and British-African women writers while reflecting on the broader diasporic conversations these works invite. Alongside close reading and discussion, students create their own short performance pieces, experimenting with how theater can serve as both storytelling and critical inquiry. Shona Tucker.

One 3-hour period.

Course Format: INT