New Curriculum - Fall 2011
Click the icons below for a look at our new curriculum for this semester, including the new advising form, and the class list for Theatre Arts, and Radio-TV-Film Classes.
New Curriculum Graduation Form.pdf
TAMajorChecklist_REV_5_11_11.pdf
TA Minor Grad Form.pdf
TARTVFClassCheatSheet.pdf
Theatre Appreciation students were assigned a contemporary form of theatre and given the task of creating an informative video based on their research. This project is on "Invisible Theatre." Enjoy!
Click the icon to see our stage/film season
The Theatre Arts - B.A. is a degree focused on a multi-faceted approach to learning the craft of the performing arts. Students have the choice to concentrate in one of five different emphases, or work with an advisor to craft a multi-disciplinary degree. Concentrations are offered in Acting, Directing (for Stage and Screen), Design & Technology, Writing & Research, Theatre Education and Musical Theatre. Each area incorporates stage, cinematic, and radio techniques within the curriculum.
Students in the Theatre Arts - B.A. often pursue minors in Radio-Television & Film (where some major electives can be satisfied), Musical Theatre, Dance, English or Psychology.
Theatre Arts majors focusing on scriptwriting have the support of a department with a national reputation for new script development in both playwriting and screenwriting. Our department regularly produces student and faculty world premieres, having recently developed the stage adaptation of The Kite Runner currently being produced at leading regional theatres around the country.
Our rich network of Bay Area resources offers opportunities for graduates to be placed through our internship program with some of the most respected and influential film and theatre companies in the industry.
The 30-unit M.A. program prepares students from a wide variety of backgrounds for careers as teachers, administrators, managers, scholars, and creative artists. Masters students pursue an interdisciplinary approach to the study of stage and screen performance. The department does not make graduate-level distinctions between areas of specialization; students with tv, radio, film, theatre, dance, and other performance studies backgrounds are all considered within the Theatre Arts M.A. For more information, please visit the TRFT Graduate Program website by clicking here.
The minor in Theatre Arts is useful for a wide variety of career paths. Majors from Business Administration, Nursing, Animation, English, Dance and many others utilize the minor to learn the skills of performance and creative collaboration that are necessary beyond the entertainment industry. The program is designed with five different pathways: Performance, Design, Directing, Dramatic Writing, and Musical Theatre.
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DepartmentPamphletPrint.pdf
STAGE AND SCREEN
Courses are offered in acting and directing for the camera, and our curriculum offers numerous opportunities to work on student/faculty directed short and feature films. Our department annually produces feature films, shot on location in the Bay Area, and on our departments two state-of-the-art soundstages. Films produced in our department have been honored in major film festivals such as Cinequest, Slamdance, Mill Valley Film Festival and the Locarno International Film Festival and regularly receive commercial distribution, including VOD and DVD. Students get the chance to go beyond the classroom and receive hands-on mentoring from industry professionals, faculty and staff.
MAINSTAGE & STUDIO THEATRE
Theatre Arts students from all emphases have many opportunities to showcase their talents in our mainstage season. Productions are done in both the 350 seat University Theatre, and the 150 seat, modular Hal Todd Theatre. Actors, directors, playwrights and designers collaborate during the four annual mainstage productions, as well as in student productions and many other additional works throughout the season. Advanced performance students are also granted showcase auditions with San Jose Repertory Theatre as well as other Bay Area regional theatres and TV/Film casting directors and agents.
Super Hero Party Clown
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Theatre Arts majors also have access to numerous opportunities with many companies connected to the department. Our alliance with the award-winning San Jose Repertory Theatre provides students with access to professional instruction and experience in the theatre. San Jose Rep professionals and guest artists will lecture or teach courses in playwriting, design, directing, acting and educational theatre. Students will also have the opportunity to pursue internships in acting, directing, dramaturgy, stage management, production design, development, arts marketing and more. This affiliation between SJSU and San Jose Rep offers students the opportunity to work closely with top professionals in the field, gaining insight into the art and operations of a professional regional theatre through close interaction with members of the theatres staff. Through this partnership, students learn what the art form of theatre means to the life of a community, and how the life of a community enriches its theatre.
STUDY GUIDE FOR EMMA
WRITTEN BY NOELLE BRADEN-WILLIAMS, DRAMATURG
Emma Study Guide.pdf
Spartan Film Studios at San Jose State University is a truly unique creative/artistic instructional program and innovative production facility operating in Silicon Valley. Since its inception in 2005, Spartan Film Studios has provided university students, under the direction of expert instructors and industry professionals, a full range of film production experience that has resulted in multiple feature length and short subject films.
Seducing Charlie Barker - 2010
Bye-Bye Bin Laden - 2009
Generic Thriller - 2009
Drifting Elegant - 2006
Seizing Me - 2003
Ball Lightning - 2003
Intentions - 2003
Pizza Wars - 2002
Cheer Up, Sam - 2010
Super Hero Party Clown - 2010
Liquor Store Cactus - 2009
All About Dad - 2009
College Radio Sucks - 2008
Glory Boy Days - 2008
Fox In The Snow - 2004
Buddy Butler
Mr. Butler's extensive professional credits span numerous affiliations coast to coast, as well as internationally. An original member of the Negro Ensemble Company of NYC, Mr. Butler was also a founding member of the Black Theatre Alliance of New York City, and the Black Theatre Network. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Butler grew up in the famous Karamu House Theatre where he directed and acted in many productions. Mr. Butler has directed productions for such diverse institutions as Black Arts/West in Seattle Washington (where he served as Artistic Director for five years), Seattle Repertorys Second Stage, Phoenix Black Theatre Troupe (Artistic Director), Stage 1 Theatre and New Arts Theatre, both in Dallas, Texas, The Wortham Theatre in Houston, the Houston Fine Arts Center, the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and the New Jomandi Productions in Atlanta, Georgia, where he recently directed a production of Joe Louis Blues. Mr. Butler is best known for his long association with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, where he was Associate Artistic Director of the Bonfils Theatre for ten years and directed over thirty-five productions. In California, Mr. Butler has directed at the Oakland Ensemble Theatre, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco, the Inner City Cultural Center and the Foxx Follies in Los Angeles, the San Jose Stage Company, City Lights Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, and Tabia Theatre Ensemble, all in San Jose where he currently resides.
Mr. Butlers production of Play On at the Rondo Theatre in Bath, England was the first international production by the San Jose State Theatre Arts department. Mr. Butler recently directed the world premiere of Conversations on a Dirt Road by Samm Art-Williams and Othello (v.20) by David Charles for the St. Louis Black Repertory Company. Mr. Butler is a graduate of Howard University and the University of Washington. Mr. Butler was named the outstanding post secondary theatre professor in the state of California in 1999. He was recipient of the Multicultural Award from the California Educational Theatre Association in 2001. Most recently, Mr. Butler was nominated as one of the ten most influential African Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001. Mr. Butler is also the recipient of two Audelco Awards.
Kathleen Normington
Kathleen Normington has taught at SJSU since 1999. She received her B.A. in Dramatic Arts from the University of California at Berkeley and her M.A. in Theatre Arts from San Jose State University. She has done additional study with a focus on the works of William Shakespeare at Oxford University, England, under the direction of renowned acting teacher John Barton. For the department, she has directed numerous productions including Charles Mees Big Love, Mary Zimmermans The Secret in the Wings, and Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream and Twelfth Night. She has also directed locally at Renegade Theatre Experiment, The Dragon Theatre, and assistant directed at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. As an actress, Kathleen has performed on stages from Europe to Japan to Los Angeles. In the Bay Area she has appeared in productions at Center Rep, Diablo Actors Ensemble, and many others. In 1997 she was honored by the Crown Prince of Belgium for her direction of James McLures Laundry and Bourbon at the FEATS theatre festival. Kathleen teaches beginning and advanced acting, theatre appreciation, script analysis, and voice and movement.
Amy Glazer
Amy Glazer has directed numerous World, American and West Coast premieres. Recent productions include The Model Apartment at Traveling Jewish Theatre and Animals Out of Paper, Shining City, and The Scene at SF Playhouse where she is the Associate Artistic Director. For Magic Theatre, where Glazer was an associate artist for a decade, her work included Sam Shepards The God Of Hell, Rebecca Gilmans The Crowd You're In With, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, Blue Surge and The American in Me, Steven Belbers Drifting Elegant and Tape, and Barry Giffords Wyoming. For Marin Theatre Company Amy has directed What The Butler Saw, Frozen, Displaced, Life x 3, My Old Lady, The Music Lesson, Misalliance, Candida and Indiscretions. She has also directed plays for Eureka Theatre, TheatreWorks, and the Assembly Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
Glazers short film, Ball Lightning, premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, and her feature film, Drifting Elegant, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival and is being distributed by Cinetic Media and is available via VOD, Netflix and Amazon. Seducing Charlie Barker by Theresa Rebeck, premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival this past year. All three films were developed from plays she had previously directed. Amy Glazer is a theatre and film professor at San Jose State University, and heads the Theatre Arts Area.
Cassandra Carpenter
David Kahn
David Kahn received his doctorate from UC Berkeley and taught there and at University of the Pacific before joining the SJSU Theatre Arts faculty in 1985. As a theatre professional he was founding artistic director of Sierra Repertory Theatre, production manager of the Eureka Theatre Co., managing director of the Bay Area Playwrights
Festival, literary manager of San Jose Rep, consulting director for City Lights Theatre Company of San Jose, and a guest artist with CSU SummerArts, Southern Rep of New Orleans in addition to numerous jobs as a freelance director and dramaturg. He teaches scriptwriting, dramatic literature and theatre history, directing, and graduate seminars at SJSU in addition to his university production work as a
director, writer and producer. Kahn has participated in panels and workshops with Kennedy Center-American College Theatre Festival, Association of Theatres in Higher Education, and California Educational Theatre Association. For many years he served a professional theatres site visitor for the California Arts Council. He is author of Bibliography of Multicultural Theatre Resources (CETA, 1993), numerous articles on new play development, dramaturgy, and computer-based theatre resources, and ScriptWork: A Director's Approach to New Play Development (SIU Press, 1995). At SJSU, Dr. Kahn has directed many world-premiere productions, including his own adaptation War of the Worlds v. 2.0. In 2001, he received the Kennedy
Center-American College Theatre Festival "Excellence in Education"
Award. In 2003 he was named as one of seven SJSU Teacher-Scholars.
For the past ten years he's served as coordinator of the TRFT Graduate program. His students have won recent national awards in screenwriting and playwriting, have received prestigious graduate school admissions, publication of research, developed important
teaching careers, assumed artistic leadership and other notable accomplishments.
Steve Shumway
Jim Culley
Professor Culley holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree is from the University of Texas in Austin and a Masters of Arts Degree from San Jose State. He teaches theatre graphics, scene design and technical theatre classes. At SJSU Jim designs two or three production each semester. Jim, also designs for the San Jose Childrens Musical Theatre and the Cabrillo Stage Company.
Beverly Swanson
A tried and true product of the Theatre Arts Dept. at SJSU, Beverly returned to us a seasoned stage and radio performer. She has also studied acting at HB studio in NYC, and has done several audio books, as well as hosting her own political-talk radio show. She is also a playwright, poet and lyricist and has been published by McGraw-Hill and The Wall Street Journal. Her country songs produced by Paramount of Nashville can be heard on ten thousand juke boxes across the country.
Kathie Kratochvil
Dr. Kratochvil earned her M.A. in Theatre from SJSU, and her Doctorate in Education from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Dr. Kratochvil's teaching background includes 30 years of teaching performing arts to over 13,000 students from kindergarten to university levels in the California public school systems, with the last 10 years at the university level. Her research interests center around arts education issues in the public school system, particularly issues involving equity and access for ethnic minorities and second language learners. She has worked in the performing arts community in the Monterey & San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years in a variety of capacities including actor, director, lighting designer, and playwright for stage, television and radio. She was the Regional Director of the Bay Area California Arts Project at SJSU from 2000-2008, where she facilitated and directed professional development workshops, seminars and institutes for classroom teachers and artists both locally and statewide. Dr. Kratochvil served on the California Dept. of Educations committee that designed the California K-12 Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards for Theatre. She has received Certificates of Recognition from the California Senate, The U. S. House of Representatives, and the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors for her work in Arts Education.
Ethel Walker
Tenured in the Department of Television, Radio, Film, and Theatre, Walker also has also taught in the Departments of African American Studies and Creative Arts. She has taught at the University for over 20 years and is now in the Faculty Early Retirement Program. Walker has served on most major committees of her Department, College and the University.
Throughout her career, she has directed over 25 productions, the most recent being George Wolfes Colored Museum, and written two books, The New/Lost Plays of Ed Bullins and The African American Scenebook. Her writings have been published in numerous scholarly journals, magazines, books, and newspapers. Walker is the founding president of the Black Theatre Network, a national organization of theatricans, past president of the California Educational Theatre Association, and past president of the Legislative Action Coalition for Arts Education. She is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre Association and received the Living Legend Award from the National Black Theatre Festival. She was also inducted into the Educational Theatre Hall of Fame. She was recognized as the 2007 San Jose State University Outstanding Professor, and received the 2008 University of Missouri-Columbia Distinguished Alumni. Award. The California Arts Council recognized her as one of the 10 outstanding arts educators in the State in 2001 and was appointed by Mayor Willie Brown, Jr. to sit on the San Francisco Arts Commission. Walker is a member of the Consortium of Doctors, a national organization of women with doctorate degrees. She is also a member of Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. Walker and her husband, Phillip own the African American Drama Company, a 32-year-old professional touring company that specializes in African American historical dramas.
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, she is a graduate of Lincoln University in Missouri, the University of Colorado, and the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her teaching career includes positions at Southern University, Lincoln University, the University of Illinois-Urbana, Laney College, Wayne State University, and the University of California-Berkeley.
Barnaby Dallas
Laura Long
Laura Long received her BA with an emphasis in Acting from UC Santa Cruz, and her MA in Performance Theory from San Jose State University. Her Master's Thesis, The Meaning of the Body in Performance: Cross Cultural Casting and Racial Identity won the Best Thesis Award at SJSU in 2000. She is currently completing an MFA in Screenwriting with a secondary emphasis in Nonfiction writing at San Jose State. She wrote a contemporary feminist teen screenplay, Rock the Field, and is currently working on a film adaptation of the Cupid and Psyche myth. She has taught acting, script analysis, and writing for the TRFT Department since 1997, as well as directing main stage productions. Directing credits at SJSU include The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, the world premiere of Bye, Bye bin Laden, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Angels in America, Of Mice and Men, Death of a Salesman, Yellow Face, and The Seagull. She has also directed California Suite for Northside Theatre Company, The Price for Santa Clara Players, and Quilters and A Midsummer Night's Dream for Notre Dame High School. As an actor, she studied classical acting at Shakespeare Santa Cruz with Tony Church, Paul Whitworth and Julian Curry. She also trained at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England with Rosemary Harris, Ian Hogg, and Earle Gister, among others, and worked in a new play development program at Playwright's Horizons in New York. A member of both Actor's Equity and SAG, she has performed on stage locally with Theatreworks, San Jose Stage Company and San Jose Repertory Company, as well as in film, industrial and commercial work in California and New York.
Professor Amy Glazer's latest film SEDUCING CHARLIE BARKER has won awards at film festivals nationwide and will be in a limited release starting in early December. Over 30 SJSU film students were involved in the production of this film.
www.seducingcharliebarker.com
Critics Applaud Professor's Indie Film
http://go.sjsu.edu/glazer-dec2011
We are located in Hugh Gillis Hall at the north-western corner of the San Jose State University campus along San Fernando Avenue next to the Martin Luther King Library.
For advising, department tours, or more information, please contact:
The University Theatre entrance is located directly next to the library near our electronic marquee. The box office for shows in the University Theatre opens 30 minutes before curtain.
The Hal Todd Studio Theatre is located inside Hugh Gillis Hall across from our department office (HGH 100).
Parking is located across San Fernando Street from the Martin Luther King Library at the 4th Street Parking Garage. Hourly rates apply.
TELEPHONE: 408-924-4530
E-MAIL: info_tvradiofilmtheatre.com
MAIL: Department of TRFTAI
San Jose State University
One Washington Square
San Jose, CA 95192-0098
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