Michael Schweikardt | San Francisco State University (original) (raw)

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles by Michael Schweikardt

Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance, vol. 10, 2021

For scenic designers, the building of a scenic model is not merely a component of one's practice-... more For scenic designers, the building of a scenic model is not merely a component of one's practice-it is an act of creation. Handcrafted from pieces of this and that, the model's purpose is to imagine whole worlds in miniature that, in turn, inspire fantasies and daydreams. But when this purpose is ignored, and the model is regarded as simply a tool for communication, it is seen as having outlived its usefulness and often thrown away. On the stage our work exists only briefly and then it is gone (i.e., the bittersweet, ephemeral nature of theatre) but the model need not meet the same fate. The life of the scenic model, like any life spent in the service of art, is worthy of more consideration. We must imagine a better afterlife for it. In this article, I examine an exhibit of my own discarded scenic models titled Please Touch: Revitalizing Scenic Models through Play. Displayed in their ruined state, detached from their original duties as tools for production, I invited audiences to play with the models; to touch and examine them; and to move or rearrange them, as a way to revitalize them through engagement so that they might live again.

Text and Presentation, 2019 , 2020

Script Analysis for the scenic designer is often taught as little more than an exercise in report... more Script Analysis for the scenic designer is often taught as little more than an exercise in reporting given circumstances. While popular introductory design texts invite the student designer to ask useful questions like “when is the play set?”, these texts are unfortunately content with overly simple answers—answers that are insufficient for the scenic designer who aspires not merely to be a provider of scenery, but a builder of worlds. When creating a scenic environment, it is insufficient for student designers simply to know when a play is set; they must first understand the meaning of a play’s When. To make this distinction graspable, instructional demonstrations that are more ideational than any that are currently available will be required. This essay provides three examples of how a deeper investigation of the question of When can help the student to create meaningful stage designs.

Books by Michael Schweikardt

Teaching Critical Performance Theory in Today's Theatre Classroom, Studio, and Communities, 2020

The graduate program in Theatre at the Pennsylvania State University-which offers the MFA degree ... more The graduate program in Theatre at the Pennsylvania State University-which offers the MFA degree in scenic design, costume design, costume technology , musical theatre directing, and music direction-requires students to take four theatre history, theory, and criticism seminars in addition to studio courses, shop hours, mainstage production jobs, and assignments as teaching assistants for undergraduate courses. Jeanmarie and Michael met as instructor and student in the first course of this sequence, Research Methods, a course that contains a module of intensive critical theory instruction. 1 This chapter advocates for teaching critical theory to design students not only to enhance their artistic work, but also to encourage their awareness of how structures of power organize academic and professional theatre, and to show how emerging artists can produce satisfying work despite the time pressures that come with a life in professional theatre production. Research methods revisited (Jeanmarie) When I first arrived at Penn State in Fall 2017 I had never taught MFA students. Having only my own graduate student experience as a guide-and having never taken a research methods course in my MFA or PhD studies-I began by engaging students in a lackluster survey of, well, research methods. The first classes involved library orientation: here's how to find a journal article; here's how to request a book through interlibrary loan. I soon realized that my course syllabus had no argument other than "research is important," or worse, "all research should be modeled on how I do research." It was only when I asked students to introduce their own approaches that I learned how to teach them. From cosplay websites, costume technologist, Heather, showed us how to build period-specific armor; Mark, a music director, showed us where to find orchestrations for musicals online; Michael showed us the American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center podcast, which features interviews with creatives and actors. I added to the conversation by showing students how to find evidence of 1930s concert dance in the unindexed publications that I consulted as the dramaturg for a modern dance reconstruction (Higgins 2015).

Papers by Michael Schweikardt

Discussion with Jeanmarie Higgins on Palestine, the Gaza Monologues, and the question of Represen... more Discussion with Jeanmarie Higgins on Palestine, the Gaza Monologues, and the question of Representation.

Theatre History Studies, 2022

Performing ethos, Dec 1, 2020

For scenic designers, the building of a scenic model is not merely a component of one’s practice ... more For scenic designers, the building of a scenic model is not merely a component of one’s practice – it is an act of creation. Handcrafted from pieces of this and that, the model’s purpose is to imagine whole worlds in miniature that, in turn, inspire fantasies and daydreams. But when this purpose is ignored, and the model is regarded as simply a tool for communication, it is seen as having outlived its usefulness and often thrown away. On the stage our work exists only briefly and then it is gone (i.e., the bittersweet, ephemeral nature of theatre) but the model need not meet the same fate. The life of the scenic model, like any life spent in the service of art, is worthy of more consideration. We must imagine a better afterlife for it. In this article, I examine an exhibit of my own discarded scenic models titled Please Touch: Revitalizing Scenic Models through Play. Displayed in their ruined state, detached from their original duties as tools for production, I invited audiences to play with the models; to touch and examine them; and to move or rearrange them, as a way to revitalize them through engagement so that they might live again.

Routledge eBooks, Apr 12, 2022

In Fall 2020 -- the year that performance scholar Sarah Bay-Cheng refers to as “the infamous pand... more In Fall 2020 -- the year that performance scholar Sarah Bay-Cheng refers to as “the infamous pandemic academic year of Annos Coronavirus (ACV)” -- I was asked by The Pennsylvania State University’s School of Theatre to teach THEA150 Fundamentals of Design to undergraduate students studying theatre design, technology, and stage management. For reasons of safety, the course was to be delivered in “hybrid mode”, implying a balanced combination of virtual teaching/learning and in-person teaching/learning. As it turned out, there was little that could be described as “hybrid” for this class of twenty-six students. Given maximum room capacities, on any given day thirteen students attended class in-person (split between two classrooms), while thirteen students attended synchronously remote. Reaching all students required every class be totally mediated by Zoom - even when present in the same classroom, students and I communicated with one another through our laptops. Out of necessity, our hybrid class was pulled irrevocably into the digital realm. In response, I devised a semester-long sketchbook assignment. Students created five sketches per week based on open-ended prompts such as “What I Miss . . .”, “Sometime at Night . . .”, or “I Wish . . .”. Over time these sketchbooks transformed into journals--intimate spaces of self-reflection--where students exorcized their fears and anxieties. The simple act of drawing with pencil on paper created an analog space that allowed students to reconnect with their body, mind, and spirit. In this space I got to know my students while they got to know themselves. The analog sketchbook served as ballast against our ever-increasing digital experience. If we are to return to the in-person classroom post-ACV, we must keep virtual teaching/learning and in-person teaching/learning in balance today. Hybrid teaching/learning tends towards the digital, so this requires the intentional carving out of sacrosanct analog spaces in our hybrid classrooms - spaces removed from digital media for tool-in-hand reflection.

Routledge eBooks, May 12, 2020

Teaching Performance Practices in Remote and Hybrid Spaces, 2022

In Fall 2020 -- the year that performance scholar Sarah Bay-Cheng refers to as “the infamous pand... more In Fall 2020 -- the year that performance scholar Sarah Bay-Cheng refers to as “the infamous pandemic academic year of Annos Coronavirus (ACV)” -- I was asked by The Pennsylvania State University’s School of Theatre to teach THEA150 Fundamentals of Design to undergraduate students studying theatre design, technology, and stage management. For reasons of safety, the course was to be delivered in “hybrid mode”, implying a balanced combination of virtual teaching/learning and in-person teaching/learning. As it turned out, there was little that could be described as “hybrid” for this class of twenty-six students.
Given maximum room capacities, on any given day thirteen students attended class in-person (split between two classrooms), while thirteen students attended synchronously remote. Reaching all students required every class be totally mediated by Zoom - even when present in the same classroom, students and I communicated with one another through our laptops. Out of necessity, our hybrid class was pulled irrevocably into the digital realm.
In response, I devised a semester-long sketchbook assignment. Students created five sketches per week based on open-ended prompts such as “What I Miss . . .”, “Sometime at Night . . .”, or “I Wish . . .”. Over time these sketchbooks transformed into journals--intimate spaces of self-reflection--where students exorcized their fears and anxieties. The simple act of drawing with pencil on paper created an analog space that allowed students to reconnect with their body, mind, and spirit. In this space I got to know my students while they got to know themselves. The analog sketchbook served as ballast against our ever-increasing digital experience.
If we are to return to the in-person classroom post-ACV, we must keep virtual teaching/learning and in-person teaching/learning in balance today. Hybrid teaching/learning tends towards the digital, so this requires the intentional carving out of sacrosanct analog spaces in our hybrid classrooms - spaces removed from digital media for tool-in-hand reflection.

Teaching Critical Performance Theory

Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance, vol. 10, 2021

Text and Presentation, 2019 , 2020

Teaching Critical Performance Theory in Today's Theatre Classroom, Studio, and Communities, 2020

Theatre History Studies, 2022

Performing ethos, Dec 1, 2020

Routledge eBooks, Apr 12, 2022

Routledge eBooks, May 12, 2020

Teaching Performance Practices in Remote and Hybrid Spaces, 2022

In Fall 2020 -- the year that performance scholar Sarah Bay-Cheng refers to as “the infamous pand... more In Fall 2020 -- the year that performance scholar Sarah Bay-Cheng refers to as “the infamous pandemic academic year of Annos Coronavirus (ACV)” -- I was asked by The Pennsylvania State University’s School of Theatre to teach THEA150 Fundamentals of Design to undergraduate students studying theatre design, technology, and stage management. For reasons of safety, the course was to be delivered in “hybrid mode”, implying a balanced combination of virtual teaching/learning and in-person teaching/learning. As it turned out, there was little that could be described as “hybrid” for this class of twenty-six students.
Given maximum room capacities, on any given day thirteen students attended class in-person (split between two classrooms), while thirteen students attended synchronously remote. Reaching all students required every class be totally mediated by Zoom - even when present in the same classroom, students and I communicated with one another through our laptops. Out of necessity, our hybrid class was pulled irrevocably into the digital realm.
In response, I devised a semester-long sketchbook assignment. Students created five sketches per week based on open-ended prompts such as “What I Miss . . .”, “Sometime at Night . . .”, or “I Wish . . .”. Over time these sketchbooks transformed into journals--intimate spaces of self-reflection--where students exorcized their fears and anxieties. The simple act of drawing with pencil on paper created an analog space that allowed students to reconnect with their body, mind, and spirit. In this space I got to know my students while they got to know themselves. The analog sketchbook served as ballast against our ever-increasing digital experience.
If we are to return to the in-person classroom post-ACV, we must keep virtual teaching/learning and in-person teaching/learning in balance today. Hybrid teaching/learning tends towards the digital, so this requires the intentional carving out of sacrosanct analog spaces in our hybrid classrooms - spaces removed from digital media for tool-in-hand reflection.

Teaching Critical Performance Theory