New, Revised, and Special Topics Courses (Spring 2023)

While some PMA instructors will allow students to enroll in classes that overlap, not all do. If your proposed Spring 2023 schedule includes overlaps, please consult with the faculty in question before enrolling so that you can adjust your enrollment plans if necessary.

Instructors: Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz & Debra Ann Castillo

Students develop a specific dramatic text for full-scale production. The course involves selection of an appropriate text, close analysis of the literary aspects of the play, and group evaluation of its representational value and effectiveness. All students in the course are involved in some aspects of production of the play, and write a final paper as a course requirement. 

Full details for PMA 3010/COML 3010 Hispanic Theatre Production 

Instructors: Beth Milles

A survey of the origins and applications of the term Absurdism. What is the style it provokes? This course traces the roots, definitions, and contemporary resonance of Absurdism. How and why would we stage the impossible? How could we re-new the term for the 21st century—does a post historical post apocalypse necessitate a new approach? In this class we will investigate and perform the works of Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Ruhl, Charles Ludlam, Virginia Woolf and the Cirque du Soleil. We will also examine the pathos of silent film and consider the influence and the inheritance of The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud and The Creative Mind by Henri Bergson.

Full details for PMA 4661 Absurdism: Performance and the Uncanny

Instructor: Samantha Noelle Sheppard

Radical transformations in our media landscape raise urgent questions for the field of cinema and media studies.  This course focuses on a topic drawn from current scholarly research.  They may include: theorizing the global, narrative and new media, queer/trans media paradigms, media and public life, media and migration, and critical race and media studies.  Weekly class meetings will combine discussion and short screenings; there may be additional screenings outside of class.

Full details for PMA 4501/6501 Special Topics in Cinema and Media Theory – Spring Topic: Black Media Studies

Instructors: Warren Cross & Kevin Ernste

A co-taught exploration (Profs. Cross, Ernste) in sound making, design, capture, analysis, manipulation, mixing, and production. Topics include microphones and audio capture, recording and synthesis, signals and noise, DIY synths and sensors, mixing and live performance, as well as deeper conceptual topics such as listening and hearing, the ear and the brain, fundamentals of acoustics and localization, composition and production techniques and aesthetics, as well as live performance and installation. Students produce a series of creative projects synthesizing course concepts and student interests.

Full details for PMA 3682/MUSIC 3182 Making Noise: The Art of Process of Sound Generation

Instructors: Theo Black & Bruce Levitt

This course will use the process devised by Fiasco Theatre Company to produce a play by Shakespeare with reduced support, inventive design, and smaller casts. The  selected text will be arranged so that between eight to twelve actors can perform all the roles and physical support relies on inventiveness, economy, and adaptation.   At the beginning of the semester students will study the language, history, and acting techniques necessary to perform the play and then rehearse the text--devising solutions to the complexities of production--during the remainder of the semester.  Students may participate as actors, dramaturgs, or designers.  The semester's work culminates in a presentation of a "reduced/condensed" production of the selected text.

Full details for PMA 3682/MUSIC 3182 Making Noise: The Art of Process of Sound Generation