Year Two Curriculum

Core Classes

TA310 Advanced Acting / Rehearsal 1 (Professional Lab) / Credits earned:  4
Building on skills explored in the first year curriculum, students will work with professional companies, to explore the professional work environment. Students will work side by side with professional playwrights, dramaturgs, directors and some of the most respected professional actors in the Pacific Northwest. The class will culminate in a professional staged production.

• Instructor: Luan Schooler

TA311 Advanced Acting / Performance 1 (Professional Lab) / Credits earned:  4
Building on skills explored in the first-year curriculum, students will work with professional companies to explore the professional work environment. Students will work side by side with professional playwrights, dramaturgs, directors, and some of the most respected professional actors in the Pacific Northwest. The class will culminate in a professional staged production.

• Instructor: Kailey Rhodes

TA312 Advanced Scene Study / Credits earned:  3
This acting class emphasizes scene-study that includes dramatic literature written by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) playwrights. It builds on previously established foundations of acting and text analysis by layering “applied dramaturgy” into students’ developing skill sets. Continuing work on such concepts as accessing impulses, use of self, active listening, imagination, given circumstances, objectives, actions, obstacles, and beats, this course will also infuse learning about specific socio-historical and sociopolitical commentaries explored by each piece/playwright studied, and then apply what the play calls upon the actor to do with that information through action and relationship in performance.

• Instructor: William Earl Ray

TA314 Styles / Credits earned: 3
Exploring key acting styles of our western theatrical tradition including: realism, comedy of manners, wit, absurdism (post realistic) through discussions and presentations, students will gain an in-depth familiarity with social/historical periods and the acting techniques related to individual styles including Chekhov, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett, Pinter, and contemporary naturalistic lyricism in the style of Romulus Linney. Students will learn and apply techniques specific to each style related to character mask, movement, given circumstances, and text.

• Instructor: Michael Mendelson

TA323 Acting for Film 1 / Credits earned: 2
How to develop the inner emotional life of a character, how to react – not perform – how to feel relaxed, comfortable, and focused when the director says “Action” is the key to a creative and natural on-camera performance.

• Instructor: Angie Tennant

TA423 Acting for Film 2 / Credits earned: 1
As a continuation of Acting for Film 1, students will have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of on-camera technique. The course will focus on how to utilize physical storytelling choices tailored for the camera and clear script analysis to support genuine presence while working.

• Instructor: Angie Tennant

TA413 Graduation Thesis Project / Credits earned: 4
The two-year program will culminate in an evening of theatre and/or film that students will devise, produce, and create as an audition for the professional acting community.

• Instructor: Chris Harder & William Earl Ray

TA410 Advanced Acting / Rehearsal 2 (Professional Lab) / Credits earned: 1
Building on skills explored in the first year curriculum, students will work with professional companies, to explore the professional work environment. Students will work side by side with professional playwrights, dramaturgs, directors and some of the most respected professional actors in the Pacific Northwest. The class will culminate in a fully staged production or invited public performance.

• Instructor: Samantha Van Der Merwe

TA411 Advanced Acting / Rehearsal 3 / Credits earned: 4
Building on skills explored in the first-year curriculum, students will work with professional companies to explore the professional work environment. Students will work side by side with professional playwrights, dramaturgs, directors, and some of the most respected professional actors in the Pacific Northwest. The class will culminate in a fully staged production.

• Instructor: Michael Mendelson

TA411 Advanced Acting / Performance 3 / Credits earned: 3
Students will focus on maintaining the integrity of the play while keeping it fresh and playing it as if it is the very first time in a sustained run of the show.

• Instructor: Michael Mendelson

Skills and Method

TA320 Monologue Development / Credits earned: 2
Students will synthesize the skills explored in the first and second-year program; emphasis will be placed on professional monologue audition skills. Students will develop and create audition pieces for professional auditions, learning how to choose and execute appropriate material.

• Instructor: Sarah Lucht

TA420 Audition Technique / Credits earned: 1
In this semester-long class students will learn how to approach, prepare for, and professionally execute theatrical and film auditions. Students will develop the skills required to audition for both large and small-scale theatre auditions, submit self-tapes for film, and attend callbacks / cold reads. Over the course of the semester students will develop a tailored approach to auditioning which supports their ability to resiliently enter the professional field and audition regularly for projects.

• Instructor: Caitlin Lushington

TA322/TA422 Professional Orientation 1 & 2 / Credits earned: 1/1
In this year-long class, actors will begin to clarify and articulate what professional success looks like for them, and they will learn foundational skills and tools to move them toward this vision. Students will learn strategies for developing resiliency in anticipation of the stressors of being a professional actor. Informed by workshops with professionals in the industry and class discussions, students will investigate their own professional aspirations, identifying goals for meeting them as well as the resources they will need. Finally, applying the skills gained in first year classes along with the tools built through this workshop, students will learn the fundamentals of producing their own work via the production of a graduate showcase, introducing their talents to the professional world.

• Instructor: Caitlin Lushington

TA313 Graduation Thesis Research / Credits earned: 2
Drawing from the work the students have created throughout the year, and new material gathered, the students will craft and curate a Graduation showcase for professional purposes, that includes live stage scenes and filmed monologues.  This class meets in both the first and second semester.

• Instructor: Chris Harder & Sarah Lucht

Instrument

TA331 Dialect Intensive / Credits earned: 2
Students will continue to build upon their voice work of breath support, projection, articulation, and resonance placement. Students will continue to learn the anatomy of their unique voice and will be introduced to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as a tool for learning English Language dialects.

• Instructor: Michael O’Connell & Luisa Sermol

TA424 Stage Combat / Credits earned: 2
Stage combat is a physical class where we will learn the tools and techniques to execute staged violence. In this course we will cover the most common stage combat moves that are used in live theatre and we will begin to discuss how to stage a moment of violence. We will talk about sightlines, intention, and connecting the verbal story with the physical story.

• Instructor: Kristin Mun-Van Noy & Matthew Sepeda