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Welcome to Theatre Arts at Dordt College!

Dordt's small but very active theatre program serves our community with two fully mounted mainstage shows each year, as well as numerous smaller student-directed or classroom-based projects.

There's plenty of opportunity for you here, as all our auditions are fully open. Our faculty and staff are seasoned professionals, and our award-winning productions are well integrated with our curriculum. We offer many exciting off-campus programs such as our Repertory Theatre group, which tours for two weeks to the U.S. and Canada. Our faith is at the heart of our work; join us for a meaningful, memorable experience!

Overview of Theatre Arts at Dordt...

Theater is a vibrant, demanding, exciting part of life at Dordt. This discipline serves artists and audience communally, enriching our view of who we are, who we have been, and who we might become. We celebrate all of God’s gifts as we discover and cultivate the talents and callings he has given us. Theater opens us to the human experience in a way no other art form can.

Dordt’s theatre arts department offers an approach to the work that is both biblically grounded and thoroughly familiar with current trends in drama. Our faculty consists of committed Christians and active professionals with many years of experience. Talented guest artists invited to Dordt also share their skills, directly benefitting your theatrical education.

Our faculty and staff serve the community through our association with the Sioux Center Recreation and Arts Council, offering matinee performances to local schools. We also work to integrate our performances with the academic life of the college. Our commitment to community service complements our commitment to excellence.

As a theater student at Dordt, you will quickly become an integral part of the stage production process, developing strong ties with faculty and students, and being mentored as you learn the fundamentals of theater. You will be part of a collaborative team that prays and works together to create exciting performance art. You will learn to care for the art form as a gift from God that engages its community, critically examines our culture, affirms our humanity, and clarifies our beliefs.

Because auditions are open to all the student body, you will have the opportunity to work closely with people whose backgrounds and interests may differ from your own. Our students consistently appreciate this aspect of our approach; in the intensity of the work a new community is forged with each production, making links that may last a lifetime.

Theatre Department Mission Statement

The Theatre Arts Department at Dordt college works out of a scripturally-based Reformed Christian worldview in order to offer a curriculum leading to a major, and a co-curricular program which supports that curriculum and gives the communities we serve an opportunity to participate in our mission.

To obey God's will for creation and to serve others, the Theatre Arts Department seeks to create and sustain an academic context in which faculty, students, and community may collaboratively explore and develop their artistic insights and gifts in the art of theatre.

Theatre Arts Curriculum

Theater is naturally an integrative form of study. The practical crafts of acting, set construction, and stage technology are inseparable from the intellectual and spiritual aspects of the work. Our program integrates the study of theater with the doing of theater. Our faculty and staff use a collaborative, problem-solving style of teaching that emphasizes learning to think critically.

Our core major program prepares each student for more specialized study in one of our many areas of emphasis. Students can focus on acting, directing, design and scenic art, dramaturgy, technical theatre, theatre ministry, or theatre management. Many of these emphases involve extensive study in other departments, serving to integrate theatre studies with other disciplines. For example, the theatre management emphasis is basically a theater core with a business administration minor. We are excited about these new programs; theater is truly a collaborative art form!

We see theater as a service to others, to God’s glory. We offer options for those who wish to prepare for a professional career in the theater, to learn to teach theater skills, or to use their experience of this vital art form to develop their self-confidence and collaborative skills. Whether you wish to be a theater major or minor, or simply to broaden your liberal arts background, we have something for you.

Your preparation in our program may lead to a career in such areas as scenography, directing, acting, theater management, or playwriting. Our program as a part of Dordt’s education major can prepare you to direct plays as a high school teacher. You can use the communication and human relation skills you develop while performing for work in public relations, sales, or journalism.

Our graduates have gone to graduate school, worked in film in Los Angeles, performed on stage and worked in theater management with professional companies, or have become teachers, drama therapists, business persons and designers. Whatever you do with it, your theater work will be a treasured part of your student experience.

Theatre Arts Opportunities

The department offers many opportunities to get involved, with two mainstage plays each year (casts ranging from five to fifty) and student-directed productions at least once a year. A judge and a responder from the American College Theatre Festival adjudicate each performance at Dordt College, giving valuable feedback to performers, directors and production crews and the opportunity to advance to regional and national competition.

Dordt performers also have many opportunities off-campus, where students have choreographed dance concerts, led children’s drama workshops, and organized storytelling sessions. They have taken internships at such places as the Guthrie and CLIMB theatres in Minneapolis, the Santa Fe Opera, the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California; the O’Neill Center in Connecticut; and the Creede Repertory in Colorado

The Dordt Theatre Department has experienced enormous success in recent years, with many one-person shows, sets, costumes and original music compositions receiving awards at regional festivals, and several students advancing to the final round of competition, the Irene Ryan Acting Competition. The 2003 show, All My Sons was invited to Denver for the regional Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival; held for possible invitation in the national festival in Washington, DC; and finally awarded four commendations, including one to faculty and staff for program development and production achievement.

“I think that the commendation to all of us reflects their positive assessment of what we do as a department in a small college,” said director Jeri Schelhaas, who added that the caliber of the department is on par with much larger universities, while the class size offers more opportunities for students to be guided and challenged in their work.

Theatre Arts Facilities

Our theater department utilizes two theaters. The New World Theatre is a black box theatre with full light and sound capacity. It is used for rehearsals, experimental pieces, student productions, and more intimate mainstage shows. The Te Paske Theatre is a 414-seat, modified thrust stage theatre used for most mainstage shows.

We also have a large, well-equipped scene shop where sets are constructed and a busy costume shop where student interns have the opportunity to help custom create character costumes. These costumes are made available to students and the community for a small fee.

Our Gifted Faculty

April Hubbard, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts
Phone: (712) 722-6212
Email: ahubbard@dordt.edu
M.A., Bowling Green State University. Hubbard is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of South Dakota. Hubbard teaches acting, directing, and mask and movements as well as directing productions at Calvin College, Grace Bible College, the University of South Dakota, and Dordt’s mainstage season.

 Jeri Schelhaas, Instructor of Theatre Arts and English
Phone: (712) 722-6434
Email: jschel@dordt.edu
M.A. in Theater, Communication, and English, University of South Dakota. Schelhaas teaches acting, voice, and creative dramatics, as well as directing in our mainstage season. Schelhaas directed and acted in Dordt’s Things We Couldn’t Say, which was performed nearly fifty times across the United States and Canada, and also performed on tour with the production of Our Family Album.

 Teresa Ter Haar, Assoc. Professor of Theatre Arts, Dept. Chair
Phone: (712) 722-6207
Email: tterhaar@dordt.edu
M.A. and Ph.D., Theatre Pedagogy and Performance Studies, Bowling Green State University. TerHaar teaches theatre history, speech communication, and Introduction to the Arts, as well as directing in our mainstage season. Ter Haar has taught at Calvin College and developed a theater program at Trinity Christian College, Chicago, IL.

2007-08 Season

The Winter's Tale
Oct. 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27 at 7:30 PM
Oct. 20 at 2:00 PM
Oct. 25 at 12:00 PM
Te Paske Theatre

High School One-Act Festival
Nov. 16, 17
New World Theatre

Directing Class One-Acts
Dec. 5, 6, 8 at 7:30 PM
Dec. 8 at 2:00 PM
New World Theatre

Dead Man Walking
Feb. 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 at 7:30 PM
Mar. 1 at 7:30 PM
Feb. 28 at 12:00 PM
Te Paske Theatre

Fully Committed
One-man show performed by Jonathon Shaffstall, Senior theatre arts major.
April 2008, dates to be announced
New World Theatre

Proof
Directed and performed by Justine Moelker, Senior theatre arts major.
April 2008, dates to be announced
New World Theatre

Four Greek Scenes
Directed and performed by Melissa Schans, Senior theatre arts major.
April 2008, dates to be announced
New World Theatre

IMPORTANT CONTACT INFORMATION!

Intersted in Applying to the Theatre Department at Dordt? CLICK HERE

Dordt College
498 4th Ave NE
Sioux Center, IA 51250
(712) 722-6000
(800) 343-6738

Visit the Dordt Theatre Program on the web by CLICKING HERE!

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