A Theatre for the Whole Campus
The theatre department provides all interested students the
opportunity to pursue their goals in the theatre, whether those
goals are vocational or avocational. The curriculum and production
program furnishes a strong undergraduate background in practical
experience in the theatre and in the study of dramatic literature
and history. The department meets the needs of the campus by
providing all students, regardless of major, access to production
and classroom/studio experiences. Students are challenged to
develop into responsible theater workers/artists who are able
to participate in the collaboration which characterizes theatre.
Creative Team Makes Unique Environment for Student
Learning
The featured quality of the department is the emphasis on creative
responses to playscripts by the production team of Professors
Hill and Amsden. Both professors direct and design, and they alternate
production responsibilities from one show to the next -- a situation
which is unique regionally and perhaps nationally. In the past
few years, creative stagings of plays by Shakespeare, Moliere
and Duerrenmatt have characterized the department as one of high
imagination and quality. The collaboration between artists
which quality theatre demands is not just talked about in departmental
classes, but modeled through the production process by the faculty.
Students who are part of the production team as stage managers
or assistant designers experience the collaborative process first-hand at departmental production meetings.
Benstead Theatre Shines
The theatre department is located in Rodman Center for the Arts,
one of the college’s finest buildings, which houses theatre,
music and the fine arts. Benstead Theatre is an excellent flexible-space
facility which is readily configured into arena, thrust, environmental
or traditional proscenium staging depending upon the staging
demands and the creative vision for a specific play. The facility
is not shared with other departments or tied up by campus events,
but rather is dedicated to theatre productions.
The newly equipped theatre offers a concert quality sound mixing
board, a complete fly system, a well-equipped scene shop adjacent
to the stage, a state-of-the-art computerized lighting control
system (installed spring 1998) and a newly furnished scenery
and costume design studio. First-year students who have experienced
only proscenium staging in high school find Benstead Theatre
an exciting place to perform and work.
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