|
Department of Theatre and Drama 2550 Frieze Building |
| Phone: (734) 764-5350 |
| Fax: (734) 647-2297 |
| Website: http://www.theatre.music.umich.edu/ |
| email: theatre.info@umich.edu |
Theatre at Michigan
    |
|
Theatre at Michigan
|
Theatre is the most comprehensive of all the arts and can claim also to be the most challenging and exciting. In a single production, there may be brought together the skills of the playwright, the performer, the director, the dramaturg, the designer, the musician, the choreographer, and experts in scene construction and painting, lighting, props, stage management, make-up and other fields.
In other words, theatre is a collective endeavor which offers a remarkable variety of individual challenges, all capable of bringing fulfillment to the participant and joy to the spectator. Its study is therefore of great value in itself. Anyone concentrating in Theatre and Drama should emerge from the experience a more complete human being, more knowledgeable, more confident, more sensitive, and more aware of the gain to be found in cooperating and sharing with others.
A concentration in Theatre and Drama, as part of an A.B. degree at the University of Michigan, is therefore at least as rich a preparation for the business of life as any other liberal arts specialization ñ and is likely to open as many career doors. It can also, of course, bring more specific opportunities. Theatre training may lead the graduate to careers in the professional theatre, educational theatre, community theatre, television, and film. It can also lead to a teaching career at all levels, from primary and secondary schools to colleges universities.
The undergraduate concentration offered by the Department of Theatre and Drama at the University of Michigan is designed to be flexible and adaptable. Those who wish to do so may explore the subject in the most general way possible. Alternatively, students may concentrate their efforts in one or more specific areas.
(The BFA in Performance, the BFA in Design and Production, and the Bachelor of Theatre Arts are offered through the Theatre Department's "home" school, the School of Music. The department also offers an academic minor in African American Theatre and Drama.)
The Theatre Department offers a range of classes in performance. Some of these classes are designed for the student who wants to attain some elementary grasp of the subject, but whose main interest is in other areas of theatre and drama. These courses provide a fundamental acting concentration for the broadbased liberal arts degree. The remaining classes form a carefully planned sequence aimed at serious and dedicated performance students (who will be pursuing the BFA Degree in Performance), including those interested in progressing to graduate schools. Over the years, the department has had considerable success in preparing students for M.F.A. programs at universities and conservatories. Classes in singing and dancing are offered by the University's School of Music, and theatre students may take these for a total of up to 12 credits.
Others may wish to specialize in design, an area in which the department is particularly strong and in which it offers an unusually large number of courses, both practical and theoretical. Classes are taught by professional designers, and advanced students may take some courses along with graduate students. Opportunities exist for some undergraduates to design productions. There are also courses in technical theatre, and performing arts management.
A solid foundation in theatre history and literature is considered essential to this program. The department offers several courses in theatre history, Black theatre, American theatre, and playwriting. A dramatic writing concentration (elected as either an LS&A concentration or through the School of Music) is also offered for students interested in playwriting. In addition, the Residential College and the English Department offer extensive courses in dramatic literature, aspects of theatre history, and theatrical theory.
It is possible for students with an overall GPA of 3.0, and a GPA in Theatre of 3.5, to graduate with honors. The other main requirement is successful completion of a senior honors thesis. This must be researched and written under the supervision of a faculty member of the Department of Theatre and Drama and with permission of the concentration advisor.
Although the Department of Theatre is officially part of the University's School of Music, its A.B. concentration is offered by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Other Theatre degrees (BFA in Performance, BFA in Design & Production, and a Bachelor of Theatre Arts) are offered by the School of Music.
This sounds confusing, but is in fact purely an administrative matter. Theatre students are as free as English, Psychology, Political Science, or other LS&A students when it comes to choosing courses outside their area of concentration, and like them, they finish with an A.B. degree. They are also free to elect a second LS&A concentration, in addition to Theatre.
All theatre students take the same concentration courses, and the same two drama cognates. These carry a total of 34 credits. Students are then free to specialize as much or as little as they wish, subject to two provisos. First, they are required to take a minimum of three electives in theatre and/or drama, to be chosen by them in consultation with a departmental advisor. Second, they must not exceed the maximum of 60 credits permitted in any one department as part of their 120 credit LS&A degree.
The first part of the A.B. concentration is as follows:
Introduction to Theatre and Drama (211); either the more elementary Introduction to Acting I (101) or an approved equivalent or Acting and the Black Experience (233); Introduction to Technical Theatre (250); and a concurrent Production Practicum (251), which is likely to consist of helping to "crew" a university production.
The concentration core consists of:
Acting II (102) or Introduction to Design (240); Theatre History I and II (321) and (322); American Theatre and Drama (323); a second Production Practicum (252); and Ideas of Theatre (402).
The drama cognates are English 367, Shakespeare's Principal Plays, and English 447, Modern Drama, a class which studies the major playwrights from Ibsen to Brecht.
The academic minor in African American Theatre is open to students who wish to complement their major course of study with exposure to the history, literature, and practice of African American theatre. It is designed to foster interdisciplinary thinking and practice among students matriculating in disciplines which naturally lend themselves to interdisciplinarity, using theatre as a matrix.
The Theatre Department has extensive facilities for the teaching and practice of theatre, including the use of four performance spaces. These are the Power Center for the Performing Arts, a 1,400 seat theatre with a thrust stage; the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, a 650 seater with a traditional proscenium arch; the more intimate Trueblood Theatre, where plays can be performed "in the round" or in several other configurations; and the still more informal and adaptable Arena.
In the first three of these theatres the department's own company presents two or three productions each term, directed either by faculty or a guest director, and cast with BFA in Performance majors.
The fourth theatre, the Arena, is a black box space in which students produce and cast productions themselves, with minimal faculty involvement.
The Department also offers programs leading to a Ph.D. degree in Theatre Practice, principally dramaturgy, history, theory and criticism, and an M.F.A. in Design.
If you want more information about these or about any aspect of the undergraduate program, or if you would like to arrange a personal visit, please contact:
University of Michigan
Department of Theatre and Drama
2550 Frieze Building
105 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
Telephone: (734) 764-5350
University of Michigan | College of LS&A | Student Academic Affairs | LS&A Bulletin Index | Office of Undergraduate Admissions
This page maintained by LS&A Academic Information and Publications, 1228 Angell Hall
Copyright © 2001
The Regents of the University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
1.734.764.1817 (University Operator)
Updated 15-Aug-01 17:32 EDT