Drama Program: Production & Design

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The design and production area offers students an informed synthesis of fine arts disciplines with a liberal arts education. Operating within the Department of Drama and Dance, design and production provides significant learning opportunities both in the classroom and on fully staged productions.

The Department of Design and Production has a faculty of working professional designers and artisans with resumes ranging from academic theatre to leading regional theatres throughout the country and large-scale commercial productions on Broadway. Students will work closely with faculty members in small classrooms designed to provide one-on-one guidance in a studio setting. Design classes are structured to help students become keen visual observers, developing a vocabulary for describing colors, textures, shapes and compositions. Along with an ability to communicate ideas about a written script students will develop artistic presentation skills pertinent to the current state of theatrical design. Combining learned skilled sets with cultural and historical research young designers will produce their own personal and original interpretation of a dramatics work's visual world.

Production-oriented classes develop skills ranging from construction, welding and drafting, to costume construction, painting, electrics and programming, and emphasize creative problem solving. Working with a wide variety of industry standard construction materials and equipment, students will learn what is involved in seeing a production through to a performance ready show.

The Department of Drama and Dance produces three faculty directed shows a year. Each show is heavily dependent on student involvement. In addition, the department sponsors several student theatre groups which produce their own shows under the tutelage of the faculty. Several of these shows appear in our Arena Theatre and students have the chance to see their own work come to fruition in fully-mounted stage productions.

After graduation many alumni have pursued successful careers in theatre and entertainment. Some have gone on to outstanding graduate programs while others have found work in theatre, television or film.