Beyond the Classroom
Education Abroad
Study in America
Theatre: London & Stratford, England
Program Overview
Our journey begins with two weeks of online classes in the US, setting the stage for our immersive study in London and Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Students have the unique opportunity to attend productions at the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford and take classes at Shakespeare's Globe in London. We explore Shakespeare in various styles, from perfectly recreated Elizabethan drama to a Macbeth set in post-apocalyptic Serbia. Our museum experiences include the National Art Gallery, the Victoria and Albert, Westminster Abbey, and the Tate Modern Art Gallery, offering a rich cultural backdrop to our studies.
What You Will Learn
This course centers around William Shakespeare’s plays, examined from two completely different approaches at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Shakespeare’s Globe. We have classes on the historical context of the productions as well as talk backs with actors. At the Globe, we take classes in acting, voice, text, movement and historical dance. Students work on scenes which are rehearsed and performed in the Globe facilities.
Throughout the program, students keep journals of their experience, critiquing the plays we see, analyzing the production approaches, and recording personal discoveries and challenges encountered in our performance classes and time in England. This becomes a valuable record of the experience.
Courses (Undergraduate/Graduate)
- Shakespeare Through Performance (TH 4323 || TH 5323)
- Shakespeare: Text and Context (TH 4324 || TH 5324)
Shakespeare in Performance (TH4323/TH5323) will expose students to different approaches to the performance of Shakespeare’s plays.
Shakespeare Through Performance will focus on contemporary performance practices while Shakespeare: Text and Context (TH4324/TH5324) will provide a historical and cultural background to the plays and the performances.
In addition, we will examine textual implications of Shakespeare’s source materials and analyze his texts for language characteristics. The primary teachers will come from the Birthplace Trust/Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare's Globe. The APD and assistant director will supplement instruction.
Faculty
Chuck Ney
Chuck is a director/actor with a career working on Shakespeare performance. He teaches the BFA Shakespeare class and the MFA Directing Shakespeare class every fall. He has directed productions at Shakespeare theatres across the US and given international talks on his performance research. He's published two books in his series Directing Shakespeare in America.
"My favorite thing is introducing students to Shakespeare in England. They often remark how the quality surpasses anything they’ve seen before. Students realize Shakespeare techniques can give them the skills to conquer ANY material.”
Kate Glasheen-Dentino
Kate is an actor and voice, speech, and dialect coach as well additional faculty for this program. She's served as text coach for many Shakespeare productions and teaches a class on analyzing, embodying, and acting heightened language every fall.
"I love both traditional Shakespeare productions and those with a modern twist. Having earned my MFA from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, returning to London is like coming home. My favorite thing is to help students navigate a new country and new life experiences that will further enrich them as artists."
Theatre: The Oregon Shakespeare Intensive
Program Overview
The Oregon Shakespeare Intensive offers undergraduate and graduate courses that examine theatre production with a specific focus on acting and directing at the nation's largest regional theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF).
What You Will Learn
Preliminary course work and instruction at two 3-hour class meetings held on-campus in San Marcos to be completed during Summer II semester. Students will examine eight productions at the OSF in Ashland, Oregon with several backstage tours and guest lectures from leading OSF directors and actors.
Courses (Undergraduate/Graduate)
- Oregon Shakespeare Festival Intensive (TH 4330R)
- Oregon Shakespeare Festival Intensive (TH 5361)
About the Festival
With an annual budget of over $25 million, the largest resident acting company in the United States, and a season of 11 plays produced in 3 varied theatre from February to November, the scope of impact of OSF is significant to theatre throughout the country. A company of directors, actors and designers work in a true rotating repertory system, performing in multiple plays in the season's offerings. Their contacts allow many of them to live and raise families in this unique community.
Faculty
Tobie Minor
Tobie is a seasoned professional in the world of theatre arts, specializing in both acting and stage combat. With a BA in Theatre Arts from New Mexico State University and 23 years of experience as an Advanced Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, Tobie currently serves as the Director of Stage Combat and Intimacy, as well as an instructor of Movement at Texas State University.
Film: Paris & Lyon, France
What You Will Learn
Students will then create and shoot their own visual, silent short film in Paris, Lyon & the ancient village of Perogues. These films first cuts will be shared at our closing dinner before we leave France.
Students will learn about the early filmmakers with a focus on George Melies, the Lumiere brothers and the inspirational work of the first female writer/director/producer, Alice Guy Blache.
Program Overview
The Birth of Cinema in France is all new, immersive program in Paris and Lyon in which students will literally walk in the steps of early groundbreaking filmmakers and the locations in Paris and Lyon where these first films were made.
While in Paris, students take three movie walking tours, a boat tour, visit museums, participate in a hands on workshop on mobile cinema at CineStudio, The Paris School of Film & Media, before putting what they learn into practice on the banks of the Seine.
In Lyon, students will visit and be able to shoot at the Lumiere Institute, where the cinematograph was invented. Finally, students will take the train on a day trip to the ancient village of Perogues where the students will finish their films. At the closing dinner, students will share what they have created.
Courses (Undergraduate)
- Smartphone Cinema in Paris (TH 4330O)
- The History of Early French Films (TH 4331Z)
Faculty
Elizabeth Buckley
Emmy, Peabody and Gracie award-winning producer and writer Elizabeth (Betty) Buckley is a native Texan with over 25 years of experience in film, television, new media and animation.
She has BFA in Broadcast-Film Arts from SMU, and studied in the Dramatic Writing Graduate Program at Texas State before becoming an FTE lecturer. She teaches Film Producing as well as The Business of Film, a legacy course created by Tom Copeland, who founded the film concentration program at Texas State.
She is an Alpha Chi Favorite Professors for 2021. In 2021 she served as Co-chair for the first inaugural Wellness Week at Texas State opening a dialog about mental health and wellness through workshops, dance performances, play readings and short film screenings plus and a keynote screening of Inside the Rain. In 2018, she organized and produced, Life in Film a special event/retrospective for Texas State Students, featuring the work of Jeanne and Bob Berney, then head of distribution for Amazon Studios. A member of the Directors Guild of America, and Co-Chair of the Advisory board of Women in Film & Televison–Austin.
Dance: Granada, Spain
Program Overview
Coming soon…
What You Will Learn
Coming soon…
Courses (Undergraduate)
- World Dance and Cultures (DAN 2368)
- Dance Internship (DAN 4371/4471)
Faculty
Ana Baer Carrillo
Ana Baer Carrillo is a Mexican-American video-choreographer living in the US since 2000. The international scope of her presentations, the diversity of the forms in which she works, and her frequent practice of collaboration are evidence of her twenty-first century, transitional, interdisciplinary contributions to the Arts. Baer Carrillo works across several discrete fields and genres, maintaining a clear dance-centric conceptual line in her research agenda.