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Course Info for THDN - 254 - 01, Fall 2025
Class number: 2442 Title: Modern & Postmodern Theater Department: Theater and Dance
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 19 Current enrollment: 3 Available seats: 16
Start date: Tuesday, September 2, 2025 End date: Wednesday, December 17, 2025 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: MW: 10:00AM-11:15AM, AAC - 231 Instructor(s): Orvis, Nicholas
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Arts Requirement
Note: Seat Reservations: 5 first years, 5 sophomores.
Course Description:
This discussion-based course examines dramatic literature and its theatrical performance from the explosion of "-isms" at the beginning of the twentieth century through the innovations heralding the beginning of the twenty-first. Modern societies and ways of thinking have undergone radical transformations during this period, as have dramatic and theatrical expression. We will explore this era of change through the close examination of approximately twenty plays, related critical readings, films of plays, class presentations, and lively discourse. The plays and theatrical movements studied in class will investigate questions of identity and representation, analyzing the construction of gender, class, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexuality on stage in the contexts of the cultural climates in which each work was created and, in many cases, revived for contemporary audiences.