THEA 345 - How to Watch Plays and Film

Units: 3 ; Breadth Area: GE-UD-3
How the audience understands a show. What production elements like acting, scenery, costume, lights, sound, and other physical aspects add to understanding. Identifying a personally satisfying issue and theme. Why performance enhances, supports, and occasionally contradicts the script.

Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-3 - Upper Division Arts or Humanities
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas 1A, 1B, 1C and GE-2 with grade C- (CR) or better (GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area 3 requirements (lower division Area C requirements for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Course Typically Offered: Fall ONLY

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Understand the work involved in production, especially the roles of performers, designers, and technicians in creation of a performance.
Distinguish the role of text in the process of creating production elements, including how elements of production, aside from any text, reveal issues and themes of value to society.
evaluate the ability of the various creative contributors of a performance to communicate issues, cultural perspective, and meaning.

GE-UD-3. Upper-division Arts or Humanities Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply principles, methodologies, values systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities.
Analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human.
Demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts or humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.