Cat Rodríguez

Undergraduate Discipline

Theatre

Graduate Program

MFA Theatre Program

BFA, Yale University. MFA, Carnegie Mellon. Rodríguez (she/ella) werqs in theatre and media, serving collaboration, community, and lqqks, and wears many wigs: She acts, directs, and dramaturgs. A co-foundress of the queer collective Fake Friends, Rodríguez recently performed in the company’s Off-Broadway production of Circle Jerk (2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Finalist). A “people person” with a politic and a love for the Ridiculous, she’s all about bringing discernment, critical rigor, playfulness, specificity, and laughter to process. Black/Latinx feminisms, as well as collectivist organizing experiences, fundamentally inform her artmaking and pathtaking. She lives and labors in both english y español, talks with her hands, and also anda con ganas. Formally trained at Yale School of Drama and Carnegie Mellon (where she’s taught, too), Rodríguez stays undomesticated and undisciplined; she's a feral force. A freelancing femme, she considers herself a nomad but always names New Orleans and Nicaragua home. 2022 Latine Fellow, Sundance Institute. 2021-22 Art of Practice Fellow + Community Leader, Sundance Interdisciplinary Program. SLC, 2022–

Graduate Courses 2023-2024

MFA Theatre

Performance Research

Graduate Component—Year

How do we as artists engage with an accelerating, fractured, technology-infused world? How do we as creators produce our work under current economic pressures? Contemporary Practice is a year-long course that focuses on artists and thinkers dealing with these questions and looks at how we situate our practice in the field. Students will investigate current and emerging practices in Performing Care, Contemporary Choreography, Speculative Theater, Immersive Theatre, Co-Presence, Performance Cabaret, Post-Digital Strategies, Socially Engaged Art, and Mixed Reality Performance. Classes will be structured around weekly readings/discussions. Through field research, embodied laboratories, and creative/professional development we will build a skill set, network, and knowledge base for articulating and supporting our work and engaging with collaborators, organizations, and audiences. This class meets once a week. Open to Graduates, Seniors or by permission of the professor.

 

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Written Thesis

Graduate Component—Year

This class meets once a week and is required for all second-year Theatre graduate students.

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Previous Courses

Theatre

Contemporary Playwrights

Open, Component—Year

The art created during our own lifetimes hits differently. In this course, we will examine plays written in the 21st century, covering work written from 2000-2010 in the fall semester and from 2011-the present in the spring semester. We will read one play every week and examine it from a dramaturgical perspective—that is, how the play is constructed—as well as discuss the cultural, political, and artistic context in which it was written. Assignments will include short response papers, one creative project, and one research paper. There will be an emphasis on work by BIPOC and queer writers. Playwrights examined may include: David Henry Hwang, Lynn Nottage, Kristoffer Diaz, Qui Nguyen, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Paula Vogel, Martyna Majok, Michael R. Jackson, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, and Jen Silverman.

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