Drama Program

 The Drama faculty at Washington University believes in the fruitful interaction of practical engagement and critical study.

Our theater arts faculty consists of directors, actors, designers and playwrights who have substantial professional experience and who are devoted to the mission of university teaching. They offer courses in acting (including movement and voice), directing, design (set, costume, lighting, sound), playwriting, dramaturgy, performance art, public speaking, and production management. Many drama majors, in the course of their four years, follow a rigorous and carefully structured sequence of four acting classes, from the 200 to the 400 level. For those wishing to emphasize directing, a two-course directing sequence is joined with coursework in dramaturgy, acting, and either playwriting or design. A path in design and technical theater draws upon a wide array of introductory and upper-level courses in set, costume, lighting, and sound design. Or, students may wish to emphasize playwriting, taking the two-semester playwriting sequence, in addition to dramaturgy, and directing study. Senior honors theses in directing, acting, and design, closely supervised by our faculty, provide opportunities for intense work at the advanced level.

Our theater and performance studies faculty are nationally-recognized scholars who have published books and articles on such topics as Shakespeare, the commedia dell’arte, eighteenth-century theater architecture, modern theories of acting, and modern American drama. We offer an exciting three-semester sequence, entitled “theater culture studies,” that examines both pivotal dramatists and theaters (e.g., Sophocles, Kalidasa, Shakespeare, Noh theater, Molière, Brecht, August Wilson) and performative activity located outside of the traditional theater, such as dance, ritual, and street theater. A special course “Performance and Culture” examines both institutional “performances” and the performances of everyday life in more detail. A rich array of historical and theoretical courses in such topics as ancient drama, Renaissance theater, eighteenth-century theater, dramatic theory, avant-garde drama, modernism and the arts, American drama, African-American drama, and contemporary women playwrights provides many choices at the intermediate and advanced levels.

Theater arts and theater/performance studies faculty work closely together. Our theater arts classes are firmly inscribed in a liberal arts setting: acting courses engage such playwrights as Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Brecht, and directing and design courses are informed by artist-theorists such as Wilson and Kantor. Similarly, theater and performance studies classes continually engage performance and production as in the “Fragment Project” of Theater Culture Studies I for which students are given the task of researching, reconstructing, and performing from a fragment of a lost ancient Greek play.

With our talented faculty, supportive environment and rich panoply of theater arts and theater/performance studies classes, our majors learn richer and more disciplined modes of performance, writing, production, and critical thinking.