A Message from the Department Chair

The UWSP Department of Theatre & Dance looks toward the future with excitement, optimism, and a keen awareness of the world it prepares its students to enter. With a healthy respect for history and tradition, the department provides its students with a solid foundation from which new ideas and approaches to creative expression are vigorously encouraged and nurtured. In each of its five programs, students are empowered to take charge of their own futures by using the tools provided and the practical knowledge gained to create a lifetime of opportunity. UWSP Theatre & Dance graduates know how to take control of their careers and, therefore, embrace the future with determination and confidence. That’s a bold statement for any performing arts program to make, but the proof can be found in the success of our graduates. As dancers, choreographers, actors, writers, designers, and producers, UWSP Theatre & Dance graduates have firmly established themselves in major markets from coast to coast.

With the opening of the Noel Fine Arts Center in 2005, the department has gained a physical plant that compliments the forward looking theatre and dance programs it houses. New dance studios, rehearsal spaces, a state of the art studio theatre and design lab, as well as fully equipped costume and prop construction spaces have been added to the already existing Jenkins proscenium theatre and scene shop. Theatre & Dance students mix with faculty and students from the Departments of Art & Design, Music, and the Suzuki Institute, all located in the Noel Fine Arts Center, a facility that not only serves as the cultural center for the university, community, and central Wisconsin area, but encourages a healthy respect for all of the arts.

Admission to each of the Theatre and Dance programs is by audition and/or interview and prospective students must apply to both the university and the department (see Audition Information). This selectivity is designed to insure that talented and highly motivated students receive the personal attention they need in a challenging and competitive environment that can prepare them for the world they will eventually encounter.

Education in the arts is an investment and a risk. We strive to make that investment a partnership so that your investment in us is fully matched by our investment in you. Since your future success is a reflection of the preparation we provide, your risk is also ours. This partnership is what feeds our excitement and optimism.

We encourage you to visit us, talk to the students and faculty, and experience for yourself the creative energy that flows through the UWSP Department of Theatre and Dance and the Noel Fine Arts Center.

The mission of the Department of Theatre and Dance is to serve

• Its majors and minors through curricular offerings and performance/production activities that heighten intellectual, artistic, cultural, and humane sensitivities

• The general student population through curricular offerings and stage productions that engender an appreciation and understanding of the performing arts and their contribution to the cultural and aesthetic enrichment of life

• The university community and general central Wisconsin population through the production of quality stage performances

- Click Here to View the Theatre & Dance Department's Handbook