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The Acting Program At...

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Campus has a lot to offer our students.   For Theater majors and minors, our busy production schedule gives you the chance to really do live theater. Whether you write the play, direct it, design it, build it, or act in it, opportunities abound.

SIUC's Theater Program offers you opportunities in acting, directing, playwriting, and designing or theatrical productions.

SIUC offers course work in more than 125 undergraduate majors, specializations, and minors with which you can supplement your program.

SIUC's Theater Department has a student-to-faculty ratio of seven to one.

SIUC offers a Masters Degree inTheater and a doctor's degree in Speech Communication with an emphasis on Theater.

In the McLeod Theater. Our 488-seat main stage, a fully equipped performance space, is busy all year long. During the regular academic year, we present four major productions that draw from the range of dramatic literature: The Greeks, Shakespeare, The Moderns, Comedies, Dramas, Musicals and Opera. And then in the summer, our Summer Playhouse program brings in professional actors, directors, and choreographers to work with students on two musicals, a major comedy, and three or four original scripts. In sum: you'll get a taste of it all.

In the Christian H. Moe Laboratory Theater. Our intimate and flexible black box space becomes almost whatever we want it to be and is never idle. Every Monday afternoon, there's a showcase in which students try out whatever they're interested in. Every Summer, there's a three-play season of student-written full-lengths. Every Spring, there's a fully mounted bill of student-written (and directed and designed) short plays. And once or twice a semester, there's another major production as well.

Practical experience is only a small part of what goes into theater. As an art form, theater reflects ideas and traditions of society at large. Therefore, to get the best education possible, it's vital that you understand and study theater in its broad, liberal arts context. The more you know, the better you work.

All the Bachelor's degree programs at SIUC share a common core of courses. About a third of your time will be spent satisfying these Core Curriculum requirements in science, humanities, fine arts, human health, social science, communication and mathematics.

In addition, about a quarter of your time will be devoted to our Theater Core classes, covering the essentials: theater history, play analysis, acting, stagecraft, introduction to directing, stage makeup. Also, to provide a well-rounded experience, you will work as a technician on at least one major project each semester up to four semesters.

Once you have tasted this broad-based comprehensive program, you decide on those elective courses that appeal to your special area of interest.