Minor in Theatre

The mission of the Theatre Program is to empower students to form and bring to life artistic visions in concert with their peers and to prepare students to lead lives distinguished by self-awareness, open communication, and making a difference. In the context of a well-rounded liberal arts education, students expand their intellectual, emotional, and practical capacities by learning a broad range of skills needed to create theatre and by investigating the purpose of theatre as a collaborative art form.The goals of the Theatre Program are the following: To ensure that students develop their ability to recognize and articulate the purpose, value, and effectiveness of their own and others' artistic work. To develop in students the fundamental skills necessary to participate in the effective implementation of a theatrical vision, and to extend that development as far as possible while they are in the program.To foster in students an appreciation of the importance of a good collaborative process as they develop an ever-greater sense of personal responsibility for that process and for its artistic result. To provide theatrical contexts in which students may integrate their academic, service, work, and international experiences.The Theatre Program actively involves students in the study and practice of theatre as a literary and performing art with roots in the past and innovative possibilities for the future. It offers a minor in Theatre as a focus for liberal arts studies, and, as part of the English major, it offers an Intentional Plan of Study in Theatre as a focus for liberal arts studies.Theatre students take courses spanning a range of plays, historical styles, and theatrical arts. They apply their classroom learning in productions and projects staged by the Warren Wilson Theatre, the department's performance laboratory. Here, in collaboration with faculty and staff, they explore contemporary staging techniques as applied to texts from various periods and cultures, as well as contemporary dramatic and postdramatic texts, musical comedy, original, and devised work.Warren Wilson Theatre is open to participation by all students and members of the community and offers opportunities for educational, creative, and personal development. Warren Wilson Theatre aims to enrich the cultural life of the college and its neighboring communities by presenting theatre events that are artistically and intellectually stimulating.