Theater

About us

The Connecticut College Theater Department offers a variety of opportunities in both productions and classes. Our program welcomes actors, technicians, playwrights, majors and non-majors, and our liberal arts setting allows interested students to combine the study of dramatic literature, history and theory with the creative experience of studio work, production and performance. An audition is not necessary for the Connecticut College admission process.

Performances

"Doctor Faustus"

Ten to fourteen shows are produced on campus each year. The Theater Department sponsors four mainstage productions with faculty or guest directing three, and a senior student directing the fourth, as well as a one-act festival produced as the final project of the advanced directing class. The student theater organization, Group Art Attack, produces six to ten shows in a year. In addition, experimental productions often evolve from advanced students' work in playwriting, directing, lighting and stage design.

Any student can audition for virtually any production. The only exceptions are the shows produced as the final showing for a theater class. Freshmen are frequently cast in both Mainstage and Group Art Attack productions. In addition to acting, many become involved in the technical production, including lighting, set-building and painting and costuming.

Recent productions have exposed students to a broad stylistic scope – from Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" to Peirre Corneille’s “The Illusion", Joe Masteroff’s “Last Night of Ballyhoo”, and David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Wonder of the World”. In addition, workshop productions, staged readings of professional and student work and student directing projects expose students to a broader scope of styles and techniques. Productions take place in the Tansill Theater at Hillyer Hall and the more intimate Anthony Francis Nelson Theater Lab as well as many other more informal locations around the campus.

Classes

Freshman-level classes are open to all students at the college through audition and/or permission of the instructor. Higher level classes enroll a limited number of non-majors due to their popularity, limited size and pre-requisites.

Students interested in majoring in theater must complete an audition/interview in the fall of the sophomore year. The major consists of eleven courses which include six courses in the area of "Performance: Acting, Directing and Technical Studies" and five in the area of "Dramatic Literature, Criticism and History". In addition, at least one performance and two major crew assignments are required. The liberal arts setting at Connecticut College enhances the study of the theater: majors take literature, history and art classes that relate to and enhance their dramatic studies.

"Smash"

Students wishing to focus their study of theater may opt for one of the following concentrations: Acting, Directing, or Dramaturgy. These concentrations are more demanding in that they require a semester of study away and a senior year individual study or honors study. It is highly recommended that intention to take a concentration be declared by the November pre-registration period of the sophomore year.

The college accredits two programs as study away semesters. The National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in nearby Waterford and NTI in Moscow. BADA, British American Drama Academy and LAT, London Academy of Theatre, both in London, offer full semesters of theater study. Students majoring in theater often elect to spend one intensive semester away, which provides them with a unique opportunity to experience the rigors and standards of professional theater within the context of their undergraduate experience. Other options are subject to department approval.

Many of Connecticut College's theater majors intend to make theater their career, either as actors, directors, stage-managers, technicians, producers or educators. Our graduates are administrators in New York theaters, stage-managers for professional companies and actors in regional repertory companies, on Off-Off Broadway and on television and in film, as well as other related professions.