Teaching

Courses

Introduction to Theatre
Script Analysis
Theatre History 1
Theatre History 2
Dramaturgy
Shakespeare Unbound
Shakespeare’s Plays
Capstone
Dramatic Literature

Philosophy of Teaching

I take as the core of my teaching philosophy a simple quote from Bertolt Brecht’s essay on the instructional nature of theatre: “there is thrilling learning, joyous and militant learning.”[1] As an instructor, director, dramaturg, and scholar it is my task to create, in collaboration with students, this basic and exceptionally elusive form of learning. To not only become aware of one’s critical capacities, artistic abilities, or political and social positions, but to be thrilled by their discovery and dedicated to the work necessary to refine these tools. Theatre provides a laboratory for such exploration and allows students to work collaboratively as artists and citizens. Students are not simply asked to learn from theatre but to teach each other through its creation. Often during the course of the semester we fail, we learn, we try again. Theatre is a place to experiment, a place to fail, and most of all a place to interrogate both our individual differences and collective humanity. It is a place to learn.

To accomplish this lofty goal I expose students to a wide range of performances, theories, ideas, and perspectives. I believe in not only challenging students with difficult material but in acknowledging the diversity of the classroom by including perspectives from various races, genders, economic classes, and communities. This informs my selection of material, creation of syllabi, and construction of assignments. In my Script Analysis courses I rely on a diverse set of plays by women, people of color, and from communities outside my students’ experience. Exposure to a multitude of different types of performance and a broad spectrum of subject material encourages students to be creative and open to a diverse range of theatre and performance.

 Students learn from their mistakes and must be presented with the opportunity to improve. I always permit the revision of a performance or essay. Instead of allowing for revisions after assignments, time is built into the schedule for students to complete a task and receive feedback before turning in their work for a final grade. Seeing students’ work at multiple stages not only allows students to improve but it creates a record of their progression that can be tracked to understand and deploy alternate pedagogic strategies. Students respond well to this policy of revision and soon come to understand that criticism and grades are not about quantifying what they accomplished but improving their work. My classrooms are active spaces where students are asked to discuss, perform, create, work in groups, and provide constructive feedback. Theatre is a collaborative art and I attempt to replicate this sort of environment in class through group projects and activities that rely on diplomacy, the navigation of different perspectives, and the combination of ideas to succeed. For example, my theatre history courses rely heavily on short lectures and presentations followed by group projects and work that ask the students to connect the material they’ve read, the material they heard from me, and their own perspectives. Students are assessed not only on the final product of their group work, but on how well they collaborate within the group to explore multiple viewpoints. In sum, my commitment to theatre, as an artist and scholar interested in its ability to form community and affect audiences, informs my pedagogic strategies. I am dedicated to engaging students in the field of theatre, teaching them how theatre creates community, and fostering their ability to have an impact on society through art.

[1] Bertolt Brecht, “Theatre for Learning,” Brecht Sourcebook, trans. Edith Anderson, eds. Carol Martin and Henry Bial (London and New York: Routledge, 2000) 27.