Theatre Courses

Exploring Theatre introduces students to theatre as a collaborative art form. Students investigate how plays are created, how performance spaces shape a story, and how theatre reflects the cultures and communities around it. They explore the roles of playwrights, directors, actors, designers, producers, critics, and audiences.

Students learn through discussion, writing, creative projects, and performance. Acting is an important part of the course, and every student will rehearse and perform. The class also goes beyond acting to examine storytelling, design, theatre history, and production. No prior theatre experience is required.

The course invites students to ask questions they might encounter in a college humanities class: What does a play reveal about its time and place? How do artists shape an audience’s experience? Why do we tell stories together?

Intermediate Acting is an acting studio for students with substantial theatre experience who are ready to deepen their craft. Where Exploring Theatre introduces the full world of theatre, this course concentrates on the work of the actor. Students develop characters, rehearse scenes and monologues, respond to direction, and make deliberate choices with their voice, body, and relationships onstage.

Regular rehearsal and performance are central to the course. Students study live and recorded performances, analyze plays, and use research and reflection to strengthen their work. The class calls for consistent preparation, collaboration, creative risk-taking, and a strong commitment to growth as a performer.

Beginning Technical Theatre introduces students to the work that happens behind the scenes. Students explore set and prop design and construction, lighting, costumes, makeup, and the teamwork required to bring a production from an idea to the stage. Through hands-on projects, they learn to plan, build, solve problems, and make design choices that support a story.

Exploring Theatre is recommended because it gives students a broad understanding of how a production works, but it is not required. Beginning Technical Theatre focuses on design and production. Students will do some acting and performance so the class has stories and scenes to design for, but performing is a smaller part of this course than it is in Exploring Theatre or Intermediate Acting.

This course builds a foundation for further technical theatre study and a possible future Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathway.