‘Productions are central to our curriculum’

Over the last year, the Department of Theatre has completely reimagined its role as a teacher of the dramatic arts.

Using a “learning-first” approach, faculty have rewritten the structure of their degree programs and re-envisioned the production of their big public performances.

And as end-of-term productions come to the stage, reviews from faculty, staff and students have been good.

‘Our students have to be involved’

The Department made a definitive move away from a regional theatre model, says Assistant Professor Noah Drew. In that model, which the department had adapted for many years, artistic directors chose all the shows for a season. For each script they picked a director, who then picked student designers, actors and so forth.

From a pedagogical point of view, that’s limiting, Drew explains. According to that model, students took an elective course to be in the production – if they were selected. If there were nine roles in the script, nine roles were cast.

“That’s not really how classes should work. If a student is in the right program who has the right prerequisites, they get to take the class.”

“In a learning-first model, productions are central to our curriculum. Previously, a huge amount of resources were deployed for courses that weren’t required and that didn’t serve most students. Now, our Public Performance Projects serve all our students.  They have to take public performance project classes during their time with us.”

'Offering truly new takes on canonical works'

The change required them to reinvent annual productions. A public performance task force picked plays where they had the rights to make radical adaptations, so there would be enough roles for students and so they would have more freedom to make classic scripts relevant in a new way.

"It’s a way of offering truly new takes on canonical works, that we believe will help keep theatre meaningful in a contemporary milieu."

For example, Drew explains, Secrets and Lies is a mash-up of scenes from five plays by the Scandinavian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Every actor has one or two strong scenes where they be will challenged.

"There are no leads. Every student who is involved as a performer has a roughly equivalent role. You wouldn’t have a regular class where one person wrote five papers and three exams and everyone else just wrote a single 500 word paper.”

‘Build their vision as artists, no matter what role they play’

Artist-in-Residence Diane Roberts is impressed with the learning-first method.

“I really like that they are focusing on different kinds of production experiences for their students,” says Roberts.

“It’s more about the creative process than focusing on the perfect production. Students look at how to begin, how to build their vision as artists, no matter what role they play.”

Roberts teaches Genre and Text, a class that is putting on Yerma by the Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca. The purpose of the course is not only to perform a play; students must interpret the play through theatrical genres.

Three student directors each took one act of the play. Directors, designers, actors and dramaturges all researched different genres. They discussed the idea of genre. Then they chose a direction. The first act would be symbolist; the second would employ bouffon-meisner techniques; and the third would be a tragedy loosely connected to Greek theatre.

"If you are doing a conventional production, you don’t get to dig in and question the material in so many different ways," Roberts says. "Further, what students discovered was that genre expresses itself in different ways based on the role they play in production."

“For the designers, genre has a specific role because it manifests the visuals of the play. For actors, it’s how do I perform with in this genre? And for directors it’s sort of an overall visioning of their text in conversation with this genre,” says Roberts.

And what surprised Roberts is that, despite crossing genres, roles and time periods, students collaborated to make a play that moved forward in time with natural connections between each of their visions.

‘The creative implications are awesome’

Sarah Mauracher, a second-year Design for the Theatre student working as costume designer on Yerma, had the challenge of creating costumes for the same characters in 1920’s rural Spain, 1959 Montreal, and the present day.

“I am not seeing them as three different plays. Yerma in the 1920’s Spain is the same Yerma in 1950’s Montreal. I take that base character and don’t change her – just her silhouette.”

Characters keep the same colour palette and certain symbols repeat themselves in the play. Yerma always has roses in her costume. Juan is always in grey and his clothes don’t quite fit.

“It’s fun to be able to work on almost three plays at once. It’s a huge challenge and it takes a lot of time, but the creative implications are awesome. It’s not an opportunity you usually get.”