Contextualizing Basic Acting for Graduate Instructors

Abstract

Contextualizing Basic Acting for Graduate Instructors Claire Syler (bio) “Introduction to Acting,” “Acting for Non-Majors,” “Basic Acting”: these are some of the names associated with the ubiquitous college course dedicated to the practical introduction to “acting.” You probably know the class; it is typically taught by graduate instructors, populated with non-majors, and located in basement studio spaces. Over the spread of fifteen years, I have taught Introduction to Acting courses at a range of institutions across the United States. While the students and settings shifted, as well as my professional identity (from MFA student, to adjunct instructor/arts administrator, to PhD student), the institutional support I received was mostly the same. Sometimes I was assigned a textbook to teach the course; other times I was given a syllabus and a workshop. And in some cases, I was allowed to teach realistic acting in whatever way I chose. But in general, the introductory course I was charged to teach was given little attention by the full-time faculty and seemed to operate beneath bigger performance priorities, like the production season and courses designed for majors and graduate students. Introductory acting courses, which I will also refer to as “Basic Acting” classes, have a relationship with graduate education.1 As of this writing, thirty-six of the thirty-eight US universities that offer a doctoral degree in theatre, dance, or performance studies also offer an Introduction to Acting course with enrollment open to non-majors and sometimes majors.2 But because Basic Acting is a studio course, which makes it necessarily dependent on performance practice and small class sizes (usually between sixteen and twenty-two students), large, public universities tend to offer multiple sections of the course, to some extent it seems, because graduate students hired as undergraduate instructors are available to teach them. Sometimes, the multiple sections of Basic Acting are a modest amount; graduate students at the University of Illinois, for instance, teach about four Introduction to Acting courses per semester (Morrissette). In other cases, the numbers are high. For example, during the 2017–18 academic year, UC San Diego offered thirty-one sections of Introduction to Acting, nearly all taught by graduate students enrolled in the university’s acting or directing MFA programs (Walsh). The same is true at the University of Missouri, where I am a tenure-track faculty member and the supervisor for our department’s twenty annual sections of Basic Acting, nearly all of which are taught by doctoral students. For many graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in theatre in the United States, teaching Introduction to Acting is a rite of professional—and pedagogical—passage. For theatre programs that grant graduate degrees, graduate students’ teaching can expand a department’s reach in foundational ways. In Basic Acting classes (and additional entry-level courses), graduate students teach and mentor hundreds of non-majors and majors. Over the past fifteen years, I have observed undergraduates’ positive experiences in entry-level theatre courses taught by graduate students translate into sustained participation in college theatre as technicians, actors, audience members, or students in other theatre courses. Because graduate students carry the teaching load of introductory classes, full-time faculty are free to teach specialized courses focused on theatre practices and content areas. Graduate students’ teaching is so tightly woven into the institutional fabric of the modern research university, it is difficult to imagine how a large department could “run” without their labor. [End Page 115] And yet, as the supervisor for my university’s twenty annual Basic Acting courses (an administrative role that counts as departmental “service”), I now recognize how difficult it is to support graduate instructors in high-quality ways. The hour-long meeting I organize at the beginning of the year to discuss the course (similar to the preparation I received as a PhD student) focuses on the class’s structure, sample exercises, and where to find basic supplies—in short, classroom procedure. With the intensity of the new semester looming, any spare time is devoted to practical concerns (“What’s the new seating policy on sold-out shows?” or “How do you get a parking permit for that building?”), but not discussing the social...