Download MFA PROGRAM IN DRAMATURGY

 MFA PROGRAM IN DRAMATURGY
The Columbia MFA Dramaturgy program seeks highly self-motivated,
entrepreneurial, creative thinkers who are interested in deepening their total
knowledge of the theatre, while finding new collaborators and newly expansive
ideas about their professional prospects. Dramaturgs are people of ideas who
function as a fluid, creative, motivating liaison among all the components of a
creative team. They are at once theatre generalists and specialists who delve
deeply into the world of the play at hand and are instrumental in its
development. They possess sharp critical faculties, unrestrained creative
abilities, identification both with their fellow artists and the audience, and
highly developed interpersonal skills. Many of the best dramaturgs are
individuals who have excelled in and continue to work in another theatrical
discipline.
In the School of the Arts program, we seek to define the career prospects of
dramaturgy students broadly and ambitiously. While traditional positions of
literary management and production dramaturgy will be a goal for some, we
also encourage our students to think of themselves as future artistic directors,
producers, and institution-builders. Students receive a foundation in dramatic
theory, history, and literature as well as classes in producing, playwriting, acting,
directing and various forms of theatrical collaboration. There are also
possibilities for interested students to expand their professional horizons by
exploring the worlds of screenwriting, and film and television project
development. Dramaturgy students will gain extensive experience in the
development and production of new plays and classic texts, and will work on
all Theatre Program productions and class projects as well as with playwrights
and screenwriters on works in progress
We seek to position our Dramaturgy MFA graduates at the forefront of
thought and practice about new modes of producing and making great stories
for the theatre of the 21st century.
PAGE 1 SAMPLE CURRICULUM
Fall Semester – Year 1:
Introduction to Dramaturgy – Christian Parker
Fundamentals of Directing – Gregory Mosher
Models of Dramatic Structure – Timothy Youker
History & Theory of Theatre – Arnold Aronson
Creating a Play – Leslie Ayvazian
Spring Semester – Year 1:
20th Century Theatre – Christian Parker
Collaboration – Anne Bogart
Critical Writing - Linda Winer
Creating a Play - Leslie Ayvazian
Elective
Fall Semester – Year 2:
Development Process – Barry Grove
Planning a Theatrical Season – Christian Parker
Dramaturgy II (Shakespeare) – John Dias
Topics in Theatre History and Theory – Arnold Aronson
Elective*
Spring Semester – Year 2:
Dramaturgy Practicum – Christian Parker
Advanced Drama Criticism Seminar – Morgan Jenness
Storytelling and Drama - Gregory Mosher
Issues in the National Not-for-Profit Theatre – Gigi Bolt
Elective*
*Recommended Electives include Directing III, Shakespeare in
Performance, TV as a Dramatic Medium, Viewpoints, Fundraising and
Marketing, American Musical Theatre, Budgeting and Reporting, Press,
Publicity and Audience Development, Television Writing, Silent Cinema,
Fundamentals of Acting, Visiting Directors, and courses in the English
department.
Additional Requirements include one production assignment, Collaboration
Weekend Workshop, two professional internships and a Foreign Language
requirement.
PAGE 2 Dramaturgy Thesis Project: MFA dramaturgy students complete a written
thesis based on production work, scholarly research, translations, or other
projects approved by their advisor.
FACULTY
CHRISTIAN PARKER (Chair; Associate Professor; Concentration
Head, Dramaturgy) is the Associate Artistic Director at the Atlantic Theater
Company, where he has worked since the fall of 2001. For Atlantic he has
directed new plays by Leslie Ayvazian, Tina Howe, Jeff Whitty, Ken Weitzman,
Kate Moira Ryan, Kevin Heelan, Keith Reddin, and Rolin Jones, in addition to
numerous readings and workshops of new plays. Prior to his tenure at the
Atlantic, he spent several seasons as the Literary Manager at Manhattan Theatre
Club. Christian has produced or dramaturged over fifty premieres of new
American and British plays on, off and off-off Broadway. He is fluent in
Russian and was part of the national artistic advisory board for the CITD New
Russian Plays initiative. He has worked as well with Sundance Theatre Labs,
The Lark Play Development Center, Bread Loaf, and at Perry-Mansfield
developing new plays. He holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA
from Columbia.
ARNOLD ARONSON (Chair, Professor) is a theatre historian and has
taught at Columbia since 1991. He is the author of Exhibition on the Stage:
Reflections on the 2007 Prague Quadrennial (2008); Looking into the Abyss: Essays on
Scenography (2005); American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History (2001); Architect of
Dreams: The Theatrical Vision of Joseph Urban (2001); American Set Design (1985);
and The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography (1981), as well as chapters
in several anthologies. In 2007 he served as the first non-Czech General
Commissioner of the Prague Quadrennial of Stage Design and Theatre
Architecture. Prof. Aronson served as the editor of Theatre Design & Technology
from 1978 to 1988. His articles have appeared in The Cambridge History of
American Theatre, Cambridge Guide to World Theatre, The Drama Review, American
Theatre, Theatre Forum, Theatre Research International, and The New York Times Book
Review, among many others. Prior to coming to Columbia in 1991, he chaired
the theatre departments at Hunter College and the University of Michigan and
has also taught at Cornell University and the University of Virginia. Prof.
Aronson regularly teaches classes in theatre history, as well as seminars in such
topics as the History of Stage Design; the Theory of Comedy; and American
Avant-Garde Theatre.
PAGE 3 LESLIE AYVAZIAN (Adjunct Assistant Professor) Ms. Ayvazian is the
author of 8 full-length plays and 7 one act plays, published variously by Samuel
French and Dramatist Play Service. Some have been included in annual
anthologies of best plays. Nine Armenians won the John Gassner/Outer Critics
Award for best new play, The Roger L. Stevens Award, and second place for
the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Rosemary and I received an honorable mention
from the Susan Smith Blackburn jury. Leslie has received commissions from
the Manhattan Theatre Club, Windancer Productions and South Coast
Repertory Theatre. Make Me, directed by Christian Parker, was produced in
New York by the Atlantic Theatre Company. High Dive was produced at the
Long Wharf Theatre and the Manhattan Class Company, directed by David
Warren, and went on to be produced in Poland and Slovakia. Her short film,
Every Three Minutes starring Olympia Dukakis was produced by Showtime and
won a Telly Award. Her play Deaf Day was produced as a short film in Syria by
Rana Kaz Kaz; was included in the 2012 Palm Springs International Short Film
Festival. Her current play Out of the City has received workshops at the
Manhattan Theatre Club and the Southampton Writers’ Conference. It will
premier at Bay Street Theatre, Sag Harbor, NY, in summer, 1013. Her one-act
play Above it All is currently touring the Miami FL school system. Leslie is an
adjunct professor of playwriting at the Columbia University Graduate School
of the Arts. Her credits as an actress include a recurring role on “Law & Order
– SVU” and roles on Broadway in Lost in Yonkers and Naked Girl on the Apian
Way.
ANNE BOGART (Professor; Concentration Head, Directing) Bogart is
the Artistic Director of SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese
director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is the recipient of a Doris Duke Artist
Grant, a USA Fellowship, a Rockefeller Fellowship, and a Guggenheim
Fellowship. Recent works with SITI include Café Variations, Trojan Women,
American Document, Antigone, Freshwater Under Construction; Who Do You Think You
Are; Radio Macbeth; Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman; La Dispute; Score;
bobrauschenbergamerica; Room; War of the Worlds; Cabin Pressure; The Radio Play;
Alice’s Adventures; Culture of Desire; Bob; Going, Going, Gone; Small Lives/Big Dreams;
The Medium; Noel Coward’s Hay Fever and Private Lives; August Strindberg’s Miss
Julie; and Charles Mee’s Orestes 2.0. Operas include Carmen, I Capuleti e i
Montecchi, Nicholas and Alexandra (Los Angeles Opera), Marina: A Captive Spirit
(American Opera Projects), and Lilith and Seven Deadly Sins (New York City
Opera). Bogart is the author of several books: A Director Prepares, The Viewpoints
Book, And Then, You Act and most recently Conversations with Anne.
PAGE 4 GIGI BOLT (Adjunct Assistant Professor) is a theatre and musical theatre
program and philanthropy consultant. In 2006-2007, she served as the interim
executive director of Theatre Communications Group. Ms. Bolt was director of
theater and musical theater at the National Endowment for the Arts from
1995-2006. Prior to joining the NEA, she served as director of the Theater
Program at the New York State Council on the Arts. Her tenure at the Council
was preceded by work as an actor including five seasons as a member of the
company of the Cleveland Play House. She serves as the interim board chair of
SITI Company and a member of the board of the William Inge Festival
Foundation.
JOHN DIAS (Adjunct Assistant Professor) is the Artistic Director of Two
River Theater Company in Red Bank, NJ. For almost twenty years he was in
New York City, where, as a producer and dramaturg, he was a leading advocate
for stimulating productions of the classics and bold new American plays,
including the Broadway productions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Lisa
Kron’s Well. For twelve seasons, he worked in a variety of capacities at The
Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, including Associate Producer
and Associate Artistic Director. He also ran the theater’s literary department
and directed and taught in the Shakespeare Lab, a professional actor-training
program. Previously, he was dramaturg at Hartford Stage Company in
Connecticut. Prior to coming to Two River Theater, he co-founded and led
Affinity Company Theater, a production company dedicated to bringing daring
new works from around the world to New York, and the Playwright’s Realm,
an off-Broadway theater company dedicated to producing new plays by
emerging artists. Dias has been a Tony Award nominator, a consultant for the
National Endowment for the Arts and numerous other organizations, and has
taught at New York University and Yale University. He received his BA from
George Washington University and his MFA from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst.
BARRY GROVE (Adjunct Professor) is in his 38th year as the Executive
Producer of the Manhattan Theatre Club, where, in partnership with Artistic
Director Lynne Meadow, he has produced over 380 American and world
premieres. Since MTC’s founding in 1970, its productions have earned eighteen
Tony Awards, six Pulitzer Prizes, forty-eight Obie Awards, thirty Drama Desk
Awards, as well as numerous Outer Critics Circle Awards, Theatre World
Awards and, in 2001, the prestigious Jujamcyn Award. Among the numerous
plays produced by MTC are An Enemy of the People, The Other Place, The Assembled
Parties, The Columnist, Wit, Venus in Fur, Good People, The Whipping Man, Time
Stands Still, Ruined, Shining City, Rabbit Hole, Doubt, Translations, The Tale of the
PAGE 5 Allergist’s Wife, Proof, Blackbird, Crimes of the Heart, and King Hedley II. Mr. Grove
is a member of the LORT Executive Committee, the Broadway League, and
the Tony Administration Committee and is a trustee of the Equity-League
Pension and Health Trust Funds. He has served as President of the OffBroadway League and the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, as
Treasurer of TCG, and as a Board Member of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights
AIDS. He has also served on numerous panels, including a term as Chairman
of the theatre panels for both the NEA and the New York State Council on the
Arts. He received the 2000 Edith Oliver Award for sustained Excellence OffBroadway, the Arts and Business Council’s 1997 Arts Management Excellence
Award, and a citation from the New York City Council, which declared June 4,
1990, “Barry Grove Day.” A Dartmouth graduate, he is a past Chairman of the
Board of Overseers of the Hopkins Center/Hood Museum of Art. Mr. Grove
is an adjunct professor at both Yale and Columbia universities.
MORGAN JENNESS (Adjunct Assistant Professor) spent over a decade at
the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, with both Joseph Papp
and George C. Wolfe, in various capacities ranging from literary manager to
Director of Play Development to Associate Producer. She was also Associate
Artistic Director at the New York Theater Workshop, and an Associate
Director at the Los Angeles Theater Center in charge of new projects. She has
worked as a dramaturg, workshop director, and/or artistic consultant at
theaters and new play programs across the country, including the Young
Playwrights Festival, the Mark Taper Forum, The Playwrights Center/Playlabs,
The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Double Image/New York Stage and Film,
CSC, Victory Gardens, Hartford Stage, and Center Stage. She has participated
as a visiting artist and adjunct in theater programs at the University of Iowa,
Brown University, Breadloaf, Columbia and NYU (including Tisch Asia) and is
currently on the adjunct faculty at Fordham University. She has served on peer
panels for various funding institutions, including NYSCA and the NEA, with
whom she served as a site evaluator for almost a decade. In 1998 Ms. Jenness
joined Helen Merrill Ltd., an agency representing writers, directors, composers
and designers, as Creative Director. She now holds a position as Creative
Consultant in the Literary Department at Abrams Artists Agency. In 2003, Ms.
Jenness was presented with an Obie Award Special Citation for Longtime
Support of Playwrights.
PAGE 6 GREGORY MOSHER (Professor) has directed and produced nearly 200
stage productions at the Lincoln Center and Goodman Theatres (both of
which he led), on and off Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre and in
London’s West End. Among them were John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves
and Six Degrees of Separation; David Rabe’s Hurly-Burly; the South African
township musical Sarafina!; Richard Nelson's musical adaptation of James
Joyce’s The Dead; David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross; and John Leguizamo’s
Freak. Mosher’s collaboration with Mamet began with American Buffalo in 1975
and continued for over two decades and more than twenty works. He has
produced or directed new work by such theatre artists as Samuel Beckett,
Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Elaine
May, Spalding Gray, and Nobel Prize winners Wole Soyinka and Derek
Walcott. He has directed many of America's well-known actors, including
William Macy, Jessica Lange, Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, Matthew Broderick,
Ed Harris, Vince Vaughn, Sally Field, Liev Scheiber, Scarlet Johannson, and
Kiefer Sutherland. He has received every major American theatre award,
including two Tonys. Recent work on Broadway includes A View from the Bridge
and That Championship Season.
LINDA WINER (Adjunct Associate Professor) received her BA, with
honors, from Northeastern Illinois in 1968 and did additional study in
musicology at University of Southern California. She is chief theatre critic of
Newsday, where she also served as arts columnist from 1987 to 2004. She has
been the host of the “Women in Theatre” series on CUNY-TV since 2002 and
is host of the “Women in Theatre” DVD (available through Theater
Communications Catalog, 2006). Her writing has been published in the Chicago
Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Lear’s, The Nation, and American
Theatre. She has won the Rockefeller Fellowship for the Training of Music
Critics, the New York Newspaper Guild’s Page One Award for commentary
and reviews, two New York Newswomen’s Club Front Page Awards, two Long
Island Press Club Awards, the Society of the Silurians Award, and first prize in
both criticism and commentary from the American Society of Sunday and
Features Editors. She has judged the Obie Awards, the Astaire Awards, and the
Lucille Lortel Awards, has served on the board of the Burns Mantle theatre
yearbook, Best Plays, since 2001, and been a member of the New York Drama
Critics Circle since 1983. She teaches at the Eugene O’Neill Center, has served
on the Pulitzer Prize nominating juries, and has judged the Pulitzer Prize for
drama six times, four times as panel chair.
PAGE 7 TIMOTHY YOUKER (Adjunct Assistant Professor) is a theatre
researcher, dramaturg, and writer with a PhD from Columbia's doctoral theatre
program. He has taught Theatre Studies at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts
and is co-founder and dramaturg of United Broadcasting Theater
Company. Excerpts from his solo performance material have been performed
at the Ensemble Studio Theater. His research focuses on documentary theatre
and historical representation in drama; modernist and avant-garde
performance; and themes of aesthetic education, enlightenment, and sociality in
theatre theory.
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