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The Acting Program At...

Within the context of the College the Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) and University Theater (UT) strive to create a place to explore questions of expression and communication of values through the study of performance. Since its founding in 1898, University Theater has been a place where intellectual discourse leads to theatrical experimentation. We believe that’s because of the unique perspective we bring to our work. The symbiosis of practical and theoretical coursework with student-driven productions has created a thriving program that is unique to the University of Chicago. Currently University Theater productions involve approximately 500 students, including actors, designers, directors, and production staffs with a yearly audience approaching 6,500.

Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) seeks to animate the intersection of theory and practice in the arts. The program is comparative in multiple ways, requiring its students to acquire facility in the practice of two media (e.g., theater, film, video, dance, music, creative writing) while gaining fluency in the critical analysis of those media. To this end, students receive training in both performance practice and analysis, acquiring the fundamental tools for artistic creation while developing a nuanced and sophisticated vocabulary with which to analyze creativity. In this way, the program aims to contest the ready separation of academic theory and artistic practice or, for that matter, theorists and practitioners.

The program is designed to be flexible (to afford students as much latitude as possible in pursuing their particular interests) and exacting (to guarantee the development of comparative practical skills and rigorous analytic capacities). Students should work closely with the Director of Undergraduate Studies and with the preceptor assigned to the program in order to shape an individual course of study that reflects the student’s interests while fulfilling the program’s interdisciplinary and comparative requirements.