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Theatre at Colorado State University!

CSU School of the Arts...
The Colorado State University School of the Arts in Fort Collins, Colorado comprises the Department of Art and the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance. The School of the Arts brings together dynamic faculty and committed students in a vibrant learning environment that fosters and supports creativity and growth. The state-of-the-art University Center for the Arts, located in the renovated old Fort Collins High School, is an exquisite performance venue for music and theatre, with the new University Art Museum, additional music recital halls, and the University Dance Theatre currently under construction and opening in Fall 2008.

Theatre at CSU...
The Theatre Program at Colorado State University offers a curriculum that allows students numerous opportunities to study, train, and explore theatre in all performance and design/technical fields culminating in a Bachelor of Arts degree. Students of Theatre at CSU can expect a theatrical education with a broad scope. As underclassmen all students attend classes in acting, directing, theatrical design and technical theatre. Upper division classes allow students to select advanced study in their individual interest areas. In addition to class time students may gain valuable experience in acting, design and technical work via the program’s mainstage and experimental productions.

Course of Study
Theatre students may take classes in a wide range of theatrical emphasis including theatre history, acting, directing, technical theatre, graphic expression for theatre, and design. Classes focus on the fundamentals of theatre as a collaborative art form. Students are encouraged to keep their education broad throughout their time at CSU but upper division classes do give students an opportunity to pursue more specific interests. There are two emphases that students may choose from although many students pursue both simultaneously.

Emphasis in Acting/Directing
Those students pursuing acting as a focus have a number of upper division credit opportunities available to them. Advanced acting classes include comedic acting, classical acting, and advanced modern acting. Building on the basics of acting these classes allow students to expand their range and technique. Through interactive and demonstrative coursework students hone their acting talents. Also available to upper division students are classes in advanced directing. The directing classes are geared to giving the student director in class opportunities to direct other students in small scenes or one-act plays. Students are able to develop their directing skills in a safe, constructive environment.

Emphasis in Technical Theatre/Design
Students interested in pursuing the technical and design fields of theatre will find an array of classes available to them. Upper division students may choose from a range of design and technical courses to enhance their skills. Classes in Advanced Technical Theatre, Advanced Costume and Makeup, Advanced Design, Scenic Painting and Applied Theatre Production in Design are offered to allow the student to build their design and technical skills. These courses give students opportunities to delve more specifically into their areas of interest. There are also many occasions for students to hone their talents outside of the classroom.

Additional Areas of Study
Students also have the option of pursuing theatre research as an emphasis. Classes in theatre history as well as Study abroad help students understand the origins, evolution, and modern day applications of theatre as an art form in the United States and internationally. Interest in these areas may lead to an emphasis in theatre research or dramaturgy. Classes in playwriting and page-to-stage analysis are also offered and provide the student with additional tools to aid them in their theatrical education. The Page-to-stage analysis course exposes the student to the process involved with taking a written manuscript and transforming it into a production. Actors, Directors, Designers and Technicians alike find this type of analysis to be very valuable.

Co-curricular Training
In addition to coursework four primary opportunities for hands-on and advanced learning are available practicum / independent study credits The Theatre Program strongly encourages students to get involved with the many theatrical opportunities available outside of the classroom. A student may receive credit for many of these. This allows students to gain practical experience and expand their interests while fulfilling the academic requirements of their major. All students are required to obtain a set number of practicum credits, however the way in which those credits are obtained is highly variable. The scene shop, costume shop, and paint shop all allow students to work for credit. Class level and experience are factors in determining the kind of credit the student is qualified to receive but there are opportunities for all students. Design practicum credit may be obtained through assisting a faculty designer or through designing for the experimental theatre. Acting practicum credit may be obtained through acting in a CSU Theatre Program sponsored production. Directing practicum is obtained through assisting a faculty director or directing a production in The Studio Theatre. Working in a shop is one method by which students may obtain technical practicum credit. Another method is to work on production crews. Lighting, sound, running, prop and wardrobe crew members can all obtain practicum credit for their work. Crew positions tend to require less experience and are great ways for new students to get involved in the program.

The second type of extracurricular credited work available to students is Independent Study. This type of credit is offered to allow students to expand their learning opportunities within the theatrical arts. Independent study credit can be obtained in any theatrical field and allows students to seek further instruction beyond what they learn in the classroom. These credits are geared toward upper classmen, are coordinated through the student’s advisor and are awarded on a case-by-case basis. Independent study may be given for work done within the theatre program or without.

Senior Thesis
The senior thesis is the culmination of a student’s work in the Theatre Program. In order to graduate from the CSU Theatre Program each student is required to complete a senior thesis. The design of the senior thesis is to allow the student to showcase his or her individual skills and is therefore flexible. Possibilities for a senior thesis include writing an essay or play, performing in a mainstage or experimental production or in an acting recital under faculty supervision, creating a major design project, working at a professional theatre, or directing a full length play in the Studio Theatre. Each student is advised on their senior thesis early in their academic career in order to give them ample time and guidance to choose a thesis that fits their individual talents and interests.

Center for Studies in Beckett and Contemporary Theatre Practice

The motive for this center arises from the emergence of the newly created School of the Arts and the opportunities afforded by the University’s commitment to the building of its new Center for the Arts with enlarged and enhanced facilities for performance and artistic collaborations. The Center will promote the creation and documentation of practice and performance of the work of Samuel Beckett and also of new work that seeks to expand or challenge the boundaries of contemporary theatre practice. The Center will encourage interdisciplinary partnerships and artistic collaborations and will actively seek to develop a national and international presence and reputation. It will operate as an academic support service in terms of research, teaching, and outreach in accordance with the overall mission of the University.

Walton Jones, Professor, Theatre Divison Director

Walt Jones joined the CSU Theatre program in 2006 as the director of the program. Mr. Jones is a 1975 graduate of The Yale School of Drama. As a teacher of acting and directing he has served on the faculty at Yale School of Drama, and, for the last two decades, at University of California, San Diego where he also served as Department Chair from 1997 to 2005. He has directed twice on Broadway (the Drama Desk Award nominated musical, The 1940's Radio Hour, which he also wrote, and John Pielmeier's thriller, Sleight of Hand); six plays off-Broadway, including the American premiere of Howard Barker's No End of Blame at Manhattan Theatre Club, and over sixty plays in more than twenty regional theatres from Cambridge to Fairbanks. He directed the world premiere productions of plays by Thomas Babe, Lanford Wilson, Naomi Iizuka, José Rivera, Arthur Kopit, and Jim Yoshimura, as well as the premier productions of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights Sam Shepard (Suicide in B-Flat) and David Mamet (Reunion and Dark Pony), the world premieres of John Pielmeier's Agnes of God, Derek Walcott's Beef, No Chicken, many plays by Chris Durang, including The Marriage of Bette and Boo, The Vietnamization of New Jersey, and The Idiots Karamazov, for which he also wrote the score. Walt also wrote several songs for Chris Durang and Sigourney Weaver's Das Lucitania Songspeil. He also directed the world premiere productions of Bob Auletta's Walk the Dog, Willie, John PiRoman's The Palace of Amateurs, starring Mariel Hemingway and John Goodman (and the Alaskan premiere of A Midsummer Night's Dream).

Mr. Jones was a staff director at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference from 1980 until 1990 and directed regularly for Yale Rep's WinterFest where he directed the premieres of Bill Snowden's Rust and Ruin. Six months after its American premier, this production was remounted in Soviet Russia with Russian actors in Schelykova, near Kostroma on the Volga River. Also at Yale Rep, Walt directed Charles Evered's The Size of the World starring Liev Schreiber and productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Tartuffe, and the revival of S.J. Perleman's The Beauty Part with a cast of twelve actors playing over sixty roles. At UC San Diego, he directed premiere productions of Naomi Iizuka's Marie Why (and the China Thing), Critical Darling by Barry Levey, and The Distance From Here by Neil LaBute.

Email Walton Jones at  Walt.Jones@ColoState.EDU

Recent Faculty Achievements...

  Laura Jones, Associate Professor of Theatre, and Wendy Ishii, Artistic Director of Bas Bleu Theatre Company and adjunct professor of acting, were invited to present a special lecture demonstration for the International Federation of Theatre Research. Long-time members of the Samuel Beckett Working Group of IFTR, Jones and Ishii addressed the challenges of performing Beckett’s female characters on stage at the University of Stellenbosch near Capetown South Africa in July. Known for their unique abilities to “show” and “tell” how the Nobel-Prize-winning playwright’s words are interpreted in performance, Jones and Ishii’s work has been commissioned by Beckett scholars worldwide.

 Eric Prince was appointed Chair of the Kennedy Center - American College Theater Festival National Playwriting Program (Region VII). He presented a paper for a UK conference dedicated to the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, in Pinter's presence, and also assisted Sir Tom Stoppard in hosting the government repressed Theatre of Belarus in one of its rare overseas visits. He is currently in collaboration with Professor Jose Luis Suarez Garcia on a College of Liberal supported project: a Spanish and English dual language short play/performance--event of Nobel prize-winner Samuel Beckett's political play "Catastrophe" on a theme of authoritarianism and resistance. The project will be the first staging of Beckett’s work for Hispanic audiences in Colorado and is probably the first bi-lingual staging of Catastrophe world-wide. Future plans include staging the play in local and regional schools and at an International University Theatre Festival to be hosted in Mexico.

Facilities...
Students in all fields of theatrical study are encouraged to get involved with the many productions staged in the Studio Theatre and the University Theatre. These venues offer a wide range of exciting participation possibilities and extracurricular opportunities. Although participation is not required, it is highly recommended that students get involved with these productions.

University Theatre
The 317-seat University Theatre is a thrust theatre similar to the famous Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. The design creates the intimacy between actor and audience with its three-quarter-round arrangement of stadium seating.

Studio Theatre
The Studio is a flexible, experimental space that features works directed and designed, produced and performed by our faculty and talented theatre students.

University Center for the Arts
These theatres, which opened in 2005, are located in the new, multi-million dollar University Center for the Arts, a state-of-the-art facility that will be completed in Fall 2008/Spring 2009. When complete, the UCA will bring performing and visual artists together in one place and provide them with the spaces, facilities, and tools they need to learn, teach, create, collaborate, display, perform, and excel. The UCA will improve opportunities for integrated and interdisciplinary learning by housing the academic units of Music, Theatre, and Dance in the same home for the first time in university history. In addition, the UCA will provide a visual arts gallery and museum to accommodate modest-sized traveling exhibitions and storage and exhibition space for at least a portion of the university’s permanent collection (about 1,700 individual pieces).

Contact Us:

Mailing Address: School of the Arts, University Center for the Arts, 1779 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1779

Physical Location: University Center for the Arts, 1400 Remington Street, Fort Collins, Colorado

CALL US AT 970-491-1589 OR EMAIL Walt.Jones@ColoState.EDU

VISIT US IN THE WEB AT COLORADO STATE THEATRE DEPARTMENT!

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