Major in Theatre Arts (B.A.)

At Clark, your education extends beyond the classroom. Visit the Career Connections Center to learn more about internship opportunities that complement your coursework and put your theater arts knowledge into practice.

Our Department of Visual and Performing Arts sponsors three mainstage shows — both classical and contemporary works — each year in the Michelson Theatre at the Little Center. You also can join on-campus student groups, including Clark Musical Theatre and the Clark University Players’ Society (CUPS), that produce both on the main stage and in the experimental theatre. Many of these are directed by local professionals, while others are directed by students. Visit our Flickr album to view production images.

Participation in these productions is open to majors and non-majors alike. You can:

• Audition for the cast or work as part of the production staff, or as play historian, dramaturge, or director’s assistant on department- and student-sponsored productions
• Write a play for the New Play Festival
• Attend the Tuesday Night Workshop, which presents readings of new works by students and faculty
• Audition for the Peapod Squad, Clark’s award-winning improv troupe, or Shenanigans!, our award-winning improv and sketch comedy group
• Audition for Clark’s dance troupes: Dance Society, Variant Dance Troupe, Ballroom Dance Team, and Hip Hop Collabo.

Other experiential learning opportunities include:

Clark is committed to action-based learning, which means as an undergraduate you can join faculty and graduate students in their research and creative work. Clark’s theatre arts professors — who are often working professionals — are experts in the theatre arts subfields of playwriting, acting, directing, and dramaturgy.

You can also apply for funding to support your own research on a project of your choice during the academic year or during the summer.

Clark’s theatre arts program offers many opportunities for young playwrights to develop their works and eventually see them produced on stage. Clark’s New Play Festival is held every other year in the Michelson Theatre, where new plays — directed by both students and working professionals — are given full productions. (We also engage many working theatre professionals in developing these new works.) The Festival is headed by award-winning playwright and faculty member Gino DiIorio ’83.

Actors, directors, and designers often create and develop independent projects that display their skills and capabilities in their chosen fields. This can take the form of directing or producing a play; performing a role; or designing lights, sets, and/or sound, all with an emphasis on attaining a professional standard of work.

A number of students engage in a new way to develop and create work called Performance Philosophy, a new and exciting academic discipline taught by Professor Raymond Munro. Performance Philosophy is a yearlong project in devised theatre to create original, dynamic work through the ongoing collaboration of actors, dancers, musicians, writers, designers, and directors. It starts with an all-day seminar in the fall semester: In the morning session, students engage with texts from philosophy, literature, and contemporary history to create new performance work, which is then developed in the afternoon studio session. Throughout the second semester, that work is further developed in a rehearsal process that culminates in a full production in the spring.  This approach was used to create the very successful production, “…like sisters.”

At Clark you’ll get more than a great education; you’ll also be prepared for a long, productive career and life of consequence. And once you’ve completed your degree, you can join other Clark alumni who have gone on to work for great organizations and attend some of the best graduate schools in the world.

Graduate School Placement
Graduate schools attended by theatre arts graduates from Clark include:

• Brooklyn College; MFA
• Carnegie Mellon University; MFA
• Long Island University; M.A. in rhetoric and composition
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Ph.D. in linguistics
• Hofstra University; J.D.