Overview
Our Musical Theatre program provides professionally focused training within the context of a broader university experience. The intensive, hands-on curriculum includes coursework in acting, dance, voice, musical theatre performance and audition technique, theatre/musical theatre history and analysis, technical theatre, music theory, and piano. Students develop their skills in a structured program that includes one-on-one mentorship and guidance.
We believe that musical theatre is a highly interdisciplinary art form. At the heart of our Musical Theatre program is a core practice to encourage students to hone their skills as performers, while also providing them the opportunity to explore and expand their knowledge of all areas of collaborative theatre making; affording students the opportunity to form their own unique voices as creative artists prepared to succeed in the professional arena.
Our graduates enjoy an excellent record of placement in jobs at professional theatres around the country, on Broadway and off-Broadway, in film and television, and as teachers, theatre makers, and leaders in the arts. Faculty are distinguished for their professional accomplishment and student-centered teaching.
Opportunities
Our musical theatre program is brimming with projects and opportunities. Each year we produce 3 plays and 2 musicals as part of our mainstage season; 5 – 8 student produced full-length plays and musicals or devised work in the Studio Theatre; and 3 – 8 staged readings of original student work in our Workshop season. Because we focus exclusively on undergraduate education, you won’t be competing with graduate students for resources.
Students in the Musical Theatre major have the opportunity to take coursework, and advantage of hands-on experiences in many allied areas of theatre, dance, and music in addition to performance, including Arts in Community, Arts Education, Arts Management, Choreography, Composition & Songwriting, Design & Technology, Devising, Directing, Dramaturgy, Musical Directing, Playwriting… among others.
School of Theatre and Dance students are socially active and engaged, frequent participants in various study abroad and service programs, professional performance work and internships, and are regular creators of independent projects, including films, performances, and events in and outside of the School of Theatre and Dance.
Student Success
We look with pride to graduates who are working on Broadway, off-Broadway, in national tours, in regional and stock theatres and at theme parks all over the country. Many students go on to study further at some of the finest graduate schools in the country.