The Bachelor of Arts with a major or minor in theatre is a comprehensive theatre degree offered in cooperation with the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Candidates for the degree must complete the university general education requirements in addition to the courses in the major prescribed by the School of Theatre. A total of 128 units is required for completion of the degree.

The university’s general education program provides a coherent, integrated introduction to the breadth of knowledge you will need to consider yourself (and to be considered by other people) a generally well-educated person. This new program requires six courses in different categories, plus writing, foreign language and diversity requirements, which are described in detail in General Education.

Students who choose the school major are required to complete a minimum of 52 units in theatre as specified:

The Bachelor of Fine Arts provides four years of intensive training at the undergraduate level in performance studies including acting, design, stage management and technical production. A total of 128 units of course work is required for this degree, including a minimum range of 75-84 theatre units depending on the requirements of each program.

All B.F.A. Theatre majors are required to earn a grade point average of 2.75 (A = 4.0) in their theatre courses each semester. B.F.A. students who fail to earn a GPA of 2.75 in their theatre courses will be placed on probation the following semester. Students who remain on probation for a consecutive second semester will be disqualified from the B.F.A. program.

A student disqualified from continued study in the B.F.A. program for failing to meet the GPA standards outlined above will be given the option of transferring into the B.A. program.

The university’s general education program provides a coherent, integrated introduction to the breadth of knowledge you will need to consider yourself (and to be considered by other people) a generally well-educated person. This new program requires six courses in different categories, plus writing and diversity requirements, which are described in detail in General Education.

This general minor in theatre invites students to explore the many facets of this exciting field. Students have the opportunity to take a variety of classes in acting, playwriting, literature, state management, directing, costume design and production. The curriculum is very flexible and encourages students to develop a primary interest for upper-division course work. All minor students are eligible to participate in performance and production projects.

The minor in musical theatre, interdisciplinary in nature, is a 27-unit program incorporating the study of acting, dance or movement, vocal arts and related musical subjects. Admission to the minor requires an audition for music but not for theatre. See the Thornton School of Music, for requirements.

The minor in performing arts provides an interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature and aesthetics of the performing arts. It combines the disciplines of cinema-television, dance, music and theatre. The minor is a unique course of study that looks at how the performing arts contribute to a culturally literate society. The minor in performing arts studies is a 20-unit program

Note for cinema-television, music and theatre majors: cinema majors take 8 units of music and 8 units of theatre; music majors take 8 units of cinema and 8 units of theatre; theatre majors take 8 units of cinema and 8 units of music.

The Master of Fine Arts in theatre allows the choice of an area of emphasis in theatre performance studies including acting, directing, playwriting or theatrical design.

Forty-eight units of study at the 400 or 500 level are required, respective to the particular emphasis of the student. Regardless of the emphasis, at least two-thirds of the units must be at the 500 level or higher. In design, instead of a conventional thesis, the Master of Fine Arts student completes a final project in the area of design and defends it orally before the design faculty. A grade point average of 3.0 must be achieved in all graduate work taken in the School of Theatre. Graduate candidates whose undergraduate degrees are in disciplines other than theatre may be required to satisfy undergraduate prerequisites in theatre as determined by School of Theatre faculty.