The theater major at Transylvania encourages experience-based class work and participation in productions in our highly flexible and well-equipped Lucille C. Little Theater, even for students who don’t pursue a theater degree.
We offer beginning and advanced courses in acting, directing, technical theater and design, costume design and construction, theater history and dramatic literature and playwriting. In all our courses, we emphasize both theory and practice and offer students hands-on training through acting, constructing scenery and props, building costumes, writing plays, directing and attending plays in production.
Transylvania University Theater stages two to three major productions each year, representing a wide range of theatrical styles and literary genres, in addition to a number of student-directed plays. Recent productions include “Beware Wolf and Other Nightmares” “She Kills Monsters,” “Dying City” and “Lawrence Booth’s Books of Visions,” adapted from professor Maurice Manning’s award-winning book of poems. Casting is open to all Transylvania students with no pre-casting, putting first-year students on an equal plane with other students.
The Transy Theater Mentorship Program allows students to assume major responsibilities—directing, stage management, producing and costuming, set and lighting design—while working in a supportive environment with highly individualized faculty guidance. This is a rare opportunity for students to put into practice ideas and skills that they have studied, focus on an area of special interest and collaborate with other students and faculty on creative production.
