Dramatic Art

Dramatic Art

242 Center for Dramatic Art, CB# 3230
(919) 962-1132

First Session, 2023

DRAM 191 Technical Methods: Scenery (3)

MAYMESTER. No prerequisite required Introduction to the equipment, procedures, and personnel in the design and execution of plans for scenery, lighting, properties, and sound for theatrical productions. Students will learn the structure, tools, and safety aspects of the scene shop. They will then apply these skills while designing and building half-size scenery for a chosen play.

DRAM 245 Acting for the Camera (3)

MAYMESTER. No prerequisite required. The process of acting and its relationship to the technical and artistic demands of television/film production. Problems of continuity and out-of-sequence filming. Concentration and thinking on camera. Students will explore techniques to successfully navigate the invigorating chaos of a professional camera set. Each student will execute production roles from actor to cinematographer to holistically understand how to create an effective on-camera “take” culminating with an original scene in collaboration with DRAM 290 – Special Studies: Writing the Half-Hour Comedy for Television, and DRAM 300 – Directing. The environment will be highly collaborative, energized, and engaging for all.
DRAM 191 Technical Methods: Scenery (3)

MAYMESTER. No prerequisite required Introduction to the equipment, procedures, and personnel in the design and execution of plans for scenery, lighting, properties, and sound for theatrical productions. Students will learn the structure, tools, and safety aspects of the scene shop. They will then apply these skills while designing and building half-size scenery for a chosen play.

DRAM 290 Special Studies: Writing the Half-Hour Comedy for Television (3)

MAYMESTER. The course is designed to provide students with the essential building blocks of successful television writing and train them to act as colleagues in a simulation of a professional Writer’s Room. Our ultimate goal is to create and produce an original TV scene acted by students from DRAM 245 – Acting for the Camera, and directed by students taking DRAM 300 -Directing, also Maymester classes.

DRAM 300 Directing (3)

MAYMESTER. No prerequisite required. This course is designed to give the director a detailed understanding of basic tools needed for storytelling, how to communicate ideas to actors, as well as way of bringing a strong point of view and thematic vision to the forefront of their work. In addition, students will incorporate framing devices and camera techniques in order to collaborate with DRAM 245 – Acting for the Camera, and DRAM 290 – Special Studies: Writing the Half-Hour Comedy for Television, also Maymester classes.

Second Session, 2023

DRAM 120 – Play Analysis (3)

ONLINE. Development of the skill to analyze plays for academic and production purposes through the intensive study of representative plays. DRAM 120 is the first course in the major and the minor in dramatic art.

DRAM 292 “Corner of the Sky”: The American Musical (3)

ONLINE. This course considers the anatomy and diversity of the American musical, exploring its history and aesthetics, and employing an interdisciplinary approach to examining its shows, sounds, stars, structures, styles, and sensibilities within the genre’s dominant contexts of Broadway, Hollywood, and Utopia.