Our Mission
The Department of Theatre Arts and Dance is entrusted with a body of knowledge. It is a product of more than 2,000 years of world theatre. The Department of Theatre Arts and Dance is also dedicated to process. The distinction between product and process is embodied in the difference between courses that are predominantly academic and those that are predominantly performance-oriented. It is the difference between “learning about” and “learning.” Students can be tested, in objective or essay form, on what they have learned about acting; the same tests will not tell us whether they have learned to act. Another part of the brain is activated here, the intuitive part, and the process of learning may not be— indeed, will not be—over at the end of the course. Often there is no right or wrong in such a course: the student is where he or she is. Something is still in motion, the process is still going on, and the creative insight has yet to surface. A student may be doing something “wrong” for two years before the “right” will appear: the interim is struggle.
Desired Outcomes for Theatre Arts and Dance Students
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the whole of the theatre experience by having participated in each segment of theatre. Those segments are: performance, dramaturgy, costume, scenic, lighting, sound, publicity, box office, and audience.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should have the opportunity to expand skills in a primary area of interest at an advanced level.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should have the freedom to experiment artistically, intellectually, and technically and be encouraged to do so in all spheres of theatre.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should demonstrate a sense of artistic and personal discipline, responsibility, and commitment to the theatre.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should gain a sense of confidence in self and respect for others and the art of theatre
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should understand the sense of wholeness of theatre collaboration and community.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should understand the social phenomena of theatre and how it imparts knowledge, values, and insight through feeling.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should be able to look at theatre, its performance, history, and literature and critically situate it in a context of events and ideas in Western/world history and in the contemporary world.
- Theatre Arts and Dance students should possess a desire to discover and an excitement to learn.
