Department of Performing Arts
Theatre Studies (BA)
You will structure your course of study in the Theatre Studies BA program around an educational plan that must include work beyond the Performing Arts core curriculum. You must identify a primary area of training from among:
- Acting
- Production and Stage Management
- Design/Technology
- Playwriting
- Dramaturgy
- Directing
You may choose actor training work only if you have successfully auditioned to do so, but may freely select further coursework in other areas of theater, in related fields of communication and the arts, and in the liberal arts and sciences.
Electives may be taken in Performing Arts beyond the total PA credits noted below. BA Theatre Studies majors with an emphasis in Acting may take only one Advanced Acting class (TH 421) in each semester of their junior and senior years. They may also take the intensive 16-credit course of study at the Los Angeles Center in their senior year.
Program Requirements
| PA 101 | Languages of the Stage |
| TH 149 | Emerson Stage Production Crew |
| TH 215 | World Drama in Its Context I |
| TH 216 | World Drama in Its Context II |
Choose two of the following:
| TH 141 | Stagecraft: Special Topics |
| TH 142 | Stagecraft: Electrics |
| TH 143 | Stagecraft: Properties Construction |
| TH 144 | Stagecraft: Costume Construction |
| TH 145 | Stagecraft: Scenic Construction |
| TH 146 | Stagecraft: Scene Painting |
| TH 147 | Stagecraft: Costume Crafts |
| TH 148 | Stagecraft: Masks |
Also choose one of the following:
| TH 121 | Introduction to Acting I |
| TH 123 | Acting I: Movement |
| Advanced Drama (4 credits) | |
| Concentration (20 credits) | |
Total credits: 44
Students talk about adapting the Pulitzer Prize-winning account Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, about the desegregation of the public schools via forced busing in the 1970s. They used the account for investigative theater, which uses words and mannerisms of interview subjects on the stage. Watch video »
Emerson's Sheryl Kaller ’82 was a 2010 Tony nominee for best director of the Broadway play Next Fall.
