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The Acting Program At...

  Dominican University’s theatre arts department offers a distinctive program that provides professional development in the context of a liberal-arts education, hands-on experience with guest artists of varying genres, immediate eligibility for significant roles in student productions, and a faculty committed to individual attention and ongoing mentorship. The aim of this intense and versatile training is to produce able and diverse technicians— who readily combine imagination, compassion and collaboration into both their lives and their lives work.

Theatre arts majors and minors of all class rankings find a wealth of opportunities to participate in the Theatre Arts Lab Series, a season of student productions hosted by the university’s Performing Arts Center. This series imparts production experience and practical application of course material. Many of these shows also provide the opportunity for students to work with outside theatre professionals— actors, directors, designers—who excel in their respective fields.

In addition to the laboratory productions, the Dominican University Performing Arts Center also provides an arena for visiting guest artists of multiple genres: from Wendy Wasserstein to Denyce Graves, River North Dance to Edward Albee, Michael Feinstein to Emmylou Harris. Students are given the opportunity to work hands-on with these high-quality, nationally and internationally known artists.

An additional highlight is the chance to participate in the Dominican-in-London program, a one-semester/six-to-eight-credit-hour tutorial in any aspect of British theatre. Options include working with members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, BBC personnel and other professional artists.

Theatre arts is a concentrated, multidisciplinary major which requires a set of 13 foundational courses, plus the choice of electives in one of five specialized areas: performance, design/ technical, dramaturgy, theatre in education and theatre studies.