Current Season – Theatre & Dance
2025-26 Performance Season
- Play-In-A-Day, 24-hour new work showcase, Oct. 4, 2025
- The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Nov. 6-Nov. 9, 2025. Directed by Lindsay Kennedy
- Student Directing 10-minute Play Showcase, Dec. 5-7, 2025
- 厂辞辫丑辞肠濒别蝉鈥� Electra, Feb. 19-22, 2026. Translated with Music and Direction by Nathan Bowman
- Her Own Devices by Lindsay Kennedy, April 23-26, 2026. Directed by Amanda Kibler 鈥�02 (Executive Director-What If Puppets)
- Dance Showcase, May 1, 2026. Choreographed by Megan Chiles
Want information about an upcoming performance? Contact us!
Department Overview
The Department of Theatre and Dance serves the entire College community by offering curricular and co-curricular theatre activities that are open to the entire student body. Our degree programs are designed to prepare students for professional careers in theatre, non-profit administration, or entrance into graduate study. This pre-professional training is rooted in dramatic classics along with the best works by contemporary dramatists providing students with a well-rounded production experience. Our faculty consists of award-winning theatre professionals and nationally and internationally working academics who work to prepare students for careers in theatre and related fields, as well as provide life-affirming experiences for both the practitioner and audiences, revealing truths about the human experience in a dynamic way. Our aim is to provide a nurturing and challenging educational environment through a rich diversity of theatre and dance disciplines, techniques, technologies, and productions. Central to our focus as a department is hands-on production-based learning, and personalized mentoring; our classroom encompasses the studio, the stage, and the technical laboratory.
Our students are encouraged to seek summer employment in theatrical endeavors according to their interests, to participate in professional organizations, to attend conferences and workshops (such as the American College Theatre Festival in which the department participates yearly), to work on Discovery projects, and to take on lead assignments in the mounting of departmental productions.
Our Mission Statement
The Department of Theatre & Dance is dedicated to creating 鈥渢otal theatre-makers鈥�. We believe that the performing arts provide the indispensable social functions of Entertainment, Enlightenment, and Education. For the theatre artist, performing arts teaches practical skills including collaboration, creative problem solving, communicative clarity, organizational prowess, ethics, and time management skills, just to name a few. We are artists, but we are also engaged in the practical application of an entertainment business. To that end, students will learn, both in the classroom and in the theatre 鈥渓aboratory鈥�, every aspect of theatre production. We believe that the performing arts can provide life-affirming experiences for both the practitioner and the consumer, and reveal truths about the human experience in a dynamic way.
Our mission is to provide a nurturing and challenging educational environment through a rich diversity of theatre and dance disciplines, techniques, technologies and productions. Central to our focus as a department is superior teaching, hands-on production-based learning, and personalized mentoring; our classroom encompasses the studio, the stage, and the technical laboratory.
Department Goals
The Department of Theatre & Dance aims to:
- Foster academic excellence through development of programs that meet national standards
- Promote quality personnel with expertise in their areas of teaching.
- Enhance the cultural and aesthetic experience of our campus, community and region through quality productions, leadership, and service learning.
- Embrace a standard of artistic excellence, which is enhanced by aggressive pursuit of summer internships and other professional development opportunities.
- Create widespread visibility through our active participation with the KCACTF, USITT, URTA, ATHE, UTA and other professional/educational organizations.
- Prepare students for successful transfer to graduate or conservatory programs or to pursue professional careers in the theatre and dance performance, theatre and dance education, or allied fields.
Extra-Curricular Opportunities
- The Department of Theatre & Dance produces at least five main stage productions every season, giving the students many opportunities to hone their skills on and off stage. We strive to offer a variety of styles to best prepare our students for the professional world. Every season we seek to produce at least one musical, one classical work, something experimental, something heavy, and something that is fun, and funny, for all.
- The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival 鈥� we enter all main stage productions for participation and attend the week-long regional festival every January. It provides opportunities to network, a variety of workshops, scholarship competitions, professional auditions, interviews, performances, and countless ways for students to expand their creative horizons.