For Prospective Theatre Arts Students

Within the context of a vibrant education in the liberal arts, the Department of Theatre Arts offers a rich program of classes and productions for majors, minors, and all interested students. Our faculty and staff share a deep commitment to theatre making, teaching, and the liberal arts. They have active professional careers as designers, directors, dramaturgs, production managers, and writers.

Mishka Navarre, our department costumer, designed the costumes you see in these photos. Kurt Walls, our Director of Theatre Production, created the scene designs that shop supervisor Robin Macartney and her student crew constructed. Faculty members current and past (Marilyn Bennett, Sara Freeman, Grace Livingston, Geoff Proehl, John Rindo, Jac Royce, Jess Smith) directed the shows you see here. Professional designers, choreographers, and fight coaches from the Tacoma/Seattle worked with our faculty and staff on almost every production. And students, of course, played key roles in every aspect of the process from running light boards, building costumes, and stage management to dramaturgy, assistant directing, and acting.

We work regularly with other departments on campus: producing musicals with the School of Music (see photos of Spring Awakening and Anything Goes on these pages); collaborating in recent years with African American Studies and Puget Sound's Race and Pedagogy Initiative in the development and performance of two new plays by C. Rosalind Bell: The New Orleans Monologues and 1620 Bank Street (photos also featured on these pages). We have close ties with departments and programs like Classics, English, Honors, and Humanities.

Each year incoming and continuing students receive scholarships that support their work onstage, behind the scenes, and in classes. The Matthew Norton Clapp Endowment for Visiting Artists brings exciting artists and scholars to campus every year. Our students regularly take advantage of study abroad opportunities including the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, two different London programs (London AHA and London IES), and other sites around the world.

Our grads win internships at theatres in the Northwest (e.g. Seattle Rep; Seattle Children's Theatre) and around the country (e.g. Actors Theatre of Louisville; McCarter Theatre); enter MA, MFA and PhD programs in the States and abroad (e.g. Brown University; Columbia University; The New School; University of California, San Diego; University of Washington; University of Wisconsin-Madison, UC Santa Barbara); excel in many different professions from theatre and film to education and business.

For more information on the program, upcoming productions, faculty, staff, scholarships, internships, and alums checkout the links on the main page.

If after exploring these pages, there is information about our program that you cannot find here or through the Office of Admission, please contact our program coordinator, Peggy McCanna, or the Chair directly.

Dr. Sara Freeman, Chair, Theatre Arts