The Theatre Program

PROGRAM

Our Theatre program is designed to involve our majors, faculty, and campus in a community learning experience. The program is designed in three parts to provide opportunities for students to learn, practice, and perform.


First, we have a strong classroom experience that emphasizes theatre history, appreciation, and technical skills. We look at the role played by theatre as a part of our community and discuss how an understanding of theatre arts can be used in a variety of vocations and to build our community. Second, we use our theatre studios to put into practice the concepts, techniques, and skills developed in the classroom setting. Our theatre studios are next to faculty offices where teachers and students work together to refine skills and extend student abilities. Finally, we offer many types of public performance and outreach, from our five mainstage productions each year to internships in the local arts community to outreach to area schools and community centers.


The Theatre program at PLU is intended to help bridge our liberal arts education with community outreach to provide a means for our students and audiences to engage the arts.


Learning Objectives

In any of the roles as creator, scholar, arts professional, or teacher, theatre professionals must function as practitioners who exhibit both technical competence and broad knowledge of theatre, sensitivity to artistic style, and an insight into the role of theatre in the life of humankind.


Therefore, theatre students should master the following:

  1. 1.Oral and Written Expression. Students should be able to think, speak, and write clearly and effectively. Students must be able to communicate with precision, cogency, and force.

   2.  Critical and Reflective Thinking.

  1. a.Content Abilities. Students should have an informed acquaintance with the main forms of analysis and the historical and quantitative techniques needed for investigating the workings and developments of modern society and the natural world. They should be able to investigate questions and discover connections and relationships.

  2. b.Analytic Abilities. Students should be able to synthesize answers based on systematic and rigorous inquiry. They should have the capacity to explain and defend their views effectively and rationally.

  3. 3.Valuing Multiple Perspectives.

  4. a.Alternative cultures and understandings. Students should have an awareness of other cultures and other times.

  5. b.Ethical approaches. Students should have some understanding of, and experience in thinking about, moral and ethical problems.

  6. c.Understanding differing views and value sets. Students should begin to develop value judgments and the ability to perceive and expose fallacious reasoning.

  7. 4.Group Interaction. Students need to develop the principles for teamwork, collaborative learning, conflict management, leadership, and decision-making.


The focus of a Theatre degree is the development of student competence through collaborative and participatory learning. It involves the inclusion of the skills and abilities associated with the Bachelor of Arts as well as the following:

  1. 1.Performance. Performance experiences are of prime importance in the preparation of students for careers in theatre. Skill in at least one major area of performance must be progressively developed to the highest appropriate level.

  2. 2.Repertory. Students should have opportunities through performance, academic study, and attendance at productions to become familiar with theatre, to comprehend the quality of productions through comparative exposure, and to be familiar with theatre literature of various historical periods, cultural sources, and modes of presentation.

  3. 3.Theoretical Studies. Through comprehensive courses in theatre studies, students should learn to analyze plays perceptively and to evaluate them critically. They should be able to place works of theatre in historical and stylistic contexts and have some understanding of the cultural milieu in which they were created.

PROGRAM  .  HISTORY  .  FACULTY  .  EVENTS  .  ORGANIZATIONS

Art  ::  Communication  ::  Music  :: Theatre