Theatre Arts and Dance Courses

Each incoming BFA class, numbering approximately 14-20 students, moves as a group through the four years of training, forming a company, with a strong emphasis on the idea of ensemble. In addition to learning from the BFA core faculty, students benefit from instruction by visiting teachers, directors, and other artists.

The majority of classroom work takes place on-campus at the Rarig Center and off-campus. Students will take most of their core acting, voice & speech, and movement classes on campus, while spending part of the week in masterclasses at other locations. The masterclasses include a wide range of teaching artists from all over the world as well as talk backs with artists.
 
Along with coursework during the day, students continue their training in the evening working on performance projects that provide the opportunity to apply their training in real time. The projects span from Shakespeare to contemporary plays to heightened-text epics to comedies, all giving students a wide range of experiences and roles to prepare them for the professional world. We use prescriptive casting (no auditioning, the faculty casts the projects from the company) in order to create a plan for each student, giving stretches and opportunities for growth within each individual's journey. Each project is performed with members of your company and often there are shows performed in repertory. Starting in the third year, students are given the opportunity to get academic exemptions to work professionally. These exemptions have to be approved by the faculty and have ranged from working on a professional production to working on films and more. Students are also given audition opportunities throughout the year by different companies that come to the school looking for actors for their summer seasons.