1020B - Performance Everywhere POPULAR!
This course introduces students to concepts in Theatre Studies. The course emphasizes hands-on and experiential learning. 0.5 course

2201F - Understanding Performance
This course will equip students with the primary tools necessary to conduct basic performance analysis. From costumes to lighting and sound effects to textual alterations, students will learn to analyze a production while exploring the social, political, and aesthetic meanings of the required texts. This year, we will be seeing The Sound of Music at the Grand Theatre in London and The Knight of the Burning Pestle at Western. 0.5 course

2205G - Forms and Genres: The Modern Context
This course traces developments in playwriting, acting, and playhouse design from the Restoration to the present day. This introductory course will explore the theatrical innovations and political interventions of the work of such dramatists as Aphra Behn, George Lillo, Ibsen, Brecht, Pinter, Caryl Churchill, and Sarah Kane. 0.5 course

2212F - Adapting Across Page, Stage, and Screen (cross-listed with Film 2212F and English 2112F)
How does the shape an artwork takes contribute to its aesthetic and political power? When artworks flex across form and media how do their messages change? What did Marshall McLuhan mean when he said “the medium is the message”? How do genre and form shape social and political discourse? In this course, students explore these questions and more as they investigate texts that assume multiple cultural forms and represent a diversity of perspectives. 0.5 course

Fall 2025

2212F / 001

B. Diemert

Syllabus

3205F - History of Performance Theory
This course introduces students to major statements and treatises about theatre and performance from Plato and Aristotle to anti-theatrical positions of the Renaissance and late-nineteenth and twentieth-century thinkers such as Nietzsche, Stanislavski, Artaud, Brecht, and Brook. Students will also apply theories of practice to specific dramatic texts. 0.5 course

3211F - In Your Skin: Sexualities and Performance (cross-listed with GSWS 3345F)
The stage is where we come into being as someone, or something, new: nobody knows this better than those who identify as queer, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans. In this class we’ll explore the wide range of performance tools LGBTQ2IA+ folks use to embody the politics of becoming – from fantasia (Angels in America) to musicals (Fun Home), to verbatim theatre (Sunny Drake’s Child-ish), epistolary realism (Emma Donoghue’s I Know My Own Heart) … and much more. In keeping with this spirit of self-trans-formation, students will have the chance to use a range of assignment formats to react to, and be in conversation with, the works we read and see. Plus: artist visits guaranteed!

Course outline coming in August. Questions now? Email Professor Kim Solga at ksolga@uwo.ca. 0.5 course

3900G - Destination Theatre APPLICATION REQUIRED
This course provides students with the opportunity to develop their drama education more deeply through the experience of theatre abroad, in cities such as New York and London, England. Students' attendance at live performance will be complemented with daily lectures, and tours of theatres, archives, and relevant historical sites. See full course details. 0.5 course

3952G - Special Topics in Theatre Studies: Making Decolonial Shakespeares (cross-listed with English 3679G)
Making Decolonial Shakespeares aims to introduce students to the "decolonial turn" in Shakespeare and early modern cultural studies, with a specific focus on the contributions of women-identifying artists (including AFAB, trans, Indigenous, POC, Black, and disabled artists). We will begin by unpacking what we talk about when we talk about "Shakespeare", examining the ways in which that figure became first, in the 18th and 19th centuries, central to the labour of the British Empire, and through the long 20th century central to the Anglo-American cultural economy. We will then turn to recent explorations of Shakespeare and race, Indigeneity, ability, gender identity, and more – both in the scholarly literature and, more importantly, in contemporary performance work. 0.5 course

Mark your calendars!

Elevate your university experience with our two exclusive courses offered every spring in collaboration with the renowned Stratford Festival!👇

Theatre Studies 3206F - Shakespeare in Performance and Theatre Studies 3207F - Voice and Text in the Theatre

These immersive courses run for two weeks during the Spring/Summer session, providing a unique blend of academic rigor and theatrical excellence. Enrollment is limited. Visit the course page for full details.

4216G - Reviewing Performance
This course explores the function of modern arts reviewing. We will study the form across several media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and think critically about the place of long-form review criticism in contemporary culture. Students should expect to write multiple reviews over the course of the semester. 0.5 course

4999E - Thesis Project
Individual instruction in the selection of a topic, preparation of materials, and creation of a thesis project with a focus on theatre or performance studies. The outcome may be a written piece of research or a performance-creation project. Students who wish to take this course must apply to the Program Director, Theatre Studies. This course is restricted to students with an 80% or above average and who have completed at least 1.0 course(s) from Theatre Studies 3000-4999 or approved substitutions. See Theatre Studies 4999E - Thesis Project for details. 1.0 course

3206F - Shakespeare in Performance
An historical, theoretical, and analytical introduction to Shakespeare's plays in performance. This course focuses on specific problems related to past productions and to those in the current Stratford Festival season. Class usually meets for three hours a day, six afternoons a week (Mon-Sat, Sun off), and usually includes attendance at Shakespeare productions. THEATRE STUDIES 3206F RUNS CONCURRENTLY WITH THEATRE STUDIES 3207F. Intersession only. 0.5 course

3207F - Voice and Text in the Theatre (co-requisite TS3206F)
A workshop in which students will experience, with simple, practical exercises, the ways in which Festival actors develop and maintain their voices and explore various aspects of the text they are performing. Class usually meets for three hours a day, six mornings a week (Mon-Sat, Sun off). Taught by Stratford Festival staff. THEATRE STUDIES 3207F RUNS CONCURRENTLY WITH THEATRE STUDIES 3206F. STUDENTS TAKING THEATRE STUDIES 3207F MUST ALSO BE REGISTERED IN THEATRE STUDIES 3206F. Intersession only. 0.5 course

To request permission to enroll in the courses, please contact uenglish@uwo.ca.