Theater Arts, B.A.

Curriculum

In your first two years, you’ll complete the core courses, begin participating in practicums, join student organizations, and explore the theater curriculum. You’ll also connect with the Kennedy Center American Collegiate Theatre Festival, consider study abroad options, and begin building your professional network.

In your junior and senior years, you move deeper into your concentration, take on leadership roles in productions and student organizations, and prepare your capstone. Junior year is also the right time to explore graduate school options and begin planning the capstone project in consultation with your faculty advisor.

Requirements

The theater arts major requires 12 courses organized around a core foundation, a Theatre Practicum requirement, theatre history, and a concentration in your chosen area of focus. The curriculum is designed to give you a strong shared foundation while allowing significant flexibility in the upper-level work you pursue.

Core foundation

(required of all majors)
Three courses form the foundation of the major, introducing the essential tools of performance, production, and script analysis:

The Creative Actor (Theatre Arts 112) — the basic tools of acting, drawing on the techniques of Stanislavski, Viola Spolin, Joseph Chaikin, and others, with an introduction to voice and movement
Introduction to Technical Theater (Theatre Arts 120) — an introduction to the full range of theatrical production: scenery, lights, properties, drafting, design, and construction
The Play and its Stages (Theatre Arts 203) — in-depth script analysis, research, and discussion of the theatrical text in the context of the playwright’s life and times

Theatre Practicum

(three completions required, grade of B- or higher)
The Theatre Practicum is one of the program’s signature features. Each semester, a professionally directed production is mounted as a curriculum course, open to all Clark students through audition (acting) or application (technical and design). Participants earn academic credit while gaining the kind of hands-on production experience that prepares them for professional work. Three options exist:

Shakespeare Practicum (Theatre Arts 214)
Theatre Practicum (Theatre Arts 223)
Advanced Production Projects (Theatre Arts 226)

Theatre History

(one course required)
All majors complete at least one theatre history course, situating their practice within the long arc of dramatic literature and performance:

Theatre History 1: Greeks to Shakespeare (Theatre Arts 144)
Theatre History 2: Moliere to Modern (Theatre Arts 153)
Contemporary Women Playwrights (Theatre Arts 109)

Concentration Courses

(three courses in your chosen area)
Upper-level work is shaped by your concentration. Each path has its own course requirements and its own professional logic.

Acting and Directing — combines a foundation in music and production with training in movement and dance, and a course chosen from advanced acting, directing, playwriting, or related options. Courses include Actor as Thinker, Acting for Film and Television, the Political Play, and Interactive Theater.

Technical Theater and Design — focuses on the craft and theory of design across costume, scenic, lighting, and properties, with affiliated studio art courses that build visual skills. Options include Costume Design, Scenic Design, Crafting the Stage, and Physical Theater.

Playwriting — develops the writer’s craft through playwriting courses alongside literature and creative writing electives in poetry, fiction, speculative fiction, Shakespeare, and hybrid forms. Students in this concentration have opportunities to develop work toward the New Play Festival.

Theater Arts courses

Major map

Minor in theater arts

The theatre arts minor is designed in consultation with a faculty advisor, allowing students to shape a sequence of courses that complements their primary major and reflects their specific interests in performance, design, history, or dramatic literature.

The minor typically consists of five core courses that together provide a genuine foundation in the discipline: The Creative Actor, which introduces the essential tools of performance; Introduction to Technical Theater, which covers the full range of theatrical production; Theatre History 1 and Theatre History 2, tracing the dramatic canon from ancient Greece through the modern stage; and Actor as Thinker, an advanced course that brings critical and philosophical inquiry to bear on the practice of performance. A sixth course, chosen from the 200-level Theatre Arts offerings, allows students to go deeper in an area of particular interest.

All Theatre Arts courses and seminars are open to qualified non-majors, and Theatre Practicum productions — mounted each semester as curriculum courses — are open to all Clark students through audition or application regardless of major.

Full course listings and requirements

Frequently asked questions

What are the three concentrations, and how do I choose?

The three concentrations are acting and directing, technical theater and design, and playwriting. Each has its own required and elective courses and its own professional trajectory. Most students have a sense of their primary interest when they declare the major, but the core courses — taken by all majors — give you a broad foundation before you specialize. Faculty take a proactive role in helping students design their program, and the curriculum allows for a student-initiated area of focus if none of the three concentrations fits your goals exactly.

Is there an honors program in theater arts?

Yes. Students with distinguished academic records can pursue an honors project in their senior year — an independent work at professional standard in their chosen concentration, developed with a faculty mentor and presented to a faculty panel. Interest should be declared in junior year. The honors project can take many forms: a full-length play, a performance, a design project, or another form proposed by the student and approved by faculty.

What awards are available to theater arts students?

Theater arts students are eligible for the Patricia M. Plamondon Undergraduate Award in Visual and Performing Arts, given annually by faculty vote to juniors and seniors who have demonstrated talent and commitment to the arts and for whom the award will support their studies, research, or project-related travel.

Department of Visual and Performing Arts