Artists Under the Influence: Creation on Location

SINY 32 - Arists Under the Influence: Creation on Location

People drawn to living and working in the theater share a common drive. To live fully, to make a splash, be heard, be seen, be loved -- in other words, to be part of the show. They understand that for them, theater is essential, even if they can't always articulate why. Theater is the art of articulation. It's the dramatic writer who puts human yearning into everyday words, dignifies dreams, finds poetry in a broken utterance. A good playwright also allows the audience to feel seen, as well. Plays shatter secrecy, releases truth, and reveals the inner lives of others. And when we find ourselves in others, theater impacts and powerfully enlarges a society.

Artists Under the Influence is a part seminar and part studio-practice course designed for students to engage with the most basic forms of making theater: acting and playwriting. Through guiding students into an understanding of the roots of 20th American theater, students will gain insight into why theater is so essential for us, and why New York remains essential for the art form. Students of all disciplines will work on a piece of theater performance or dramatic writing drawn from or inspired by the history, stories and evolution of the city that gave us the American theater.

This course fulfills the Creative Expression (CE) WAYS requirement. 

Meet the Instructor(s)

Amy Freed

Amy Freed is the author of Restoration Comedy, The Beard of Avon, Freedomland, Safe in Hell, The Psychic Life of Savages, You, Nero and other plays. She 's a past recipient of the Charles McArthur Playwriting Award (D.C.) The New York Art's Club Joseph Kesserling Award, a several-times winner of the LA Critic's Circle Award, and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Her work has been produced at South Coast Repertory Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Seattle Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, Yale Rep, California Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Playwright's Horizons, Woolly Mammoth, Arena Stage and other theaters around the country.

Her most recent play is The Monster Builder, and she is developing commissions for Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep and Arena Stage. She is currently Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University and also holds a Mellon Foundation Playwriting Residency for the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.