A Place Where Lives Are Changed

For nearly thirty-five years, the Department of Theater at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has been a center for vibrant teaching and exceptional theater training. The Department is a place where excellence is pursued, where mentorship matters, where quality counts. It's a place where lives are changed.

On the undergraduate level, the Department offers a B.A. in Theater. Students pursue a multi-faceted course of study divided into 1) dramaturgy 2) performance (acting and directing), and 3) design, technology, and management. Students take courses in all these areas within a flexible program that allows them to take additional classes in areas of individual interest. Currently, the Department counts about 200 majors. No audition is required for the major.

On the graduate level, the Department offers the M.F.A. in Directing, Dramaturgy, Costume Design, Lighting Design, or Scenic Design. The program values personal mentorship, with the production season serving as a teaching laboratory. Students are able to tailor their programs of study to individual interests as a complement to the rigorous core curriculum. Most graduate students receive full tuition-waivers and assistantships during their three years.

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Hands-on and Face-to-Face

On both levels, the Department is strongly grounded in small classes for maximum interaction between students and a world-class faculty. Professors on a first-name basis with students transform lives with their dedication to teaching and commitment to the highest professional standards, in a season that is, in effect, an extension of the classroom. At the heart of it all, our superb student body makes the Department a community brimming with creative energy.

The Department has two major performance venues: The Rand (a 560-seat proscenium space, below left) and The Curtain (a 100-seat black box, below right). These theaters, along with our classrooms and studios, bustle throughout the year. We produce 4-5 fully mounted “main stage” shows annually, plus a number of special presentations and co-productions. Additionally, we host dozens of more informal lab offerings as part of our “Studio 204” series, along with many other classroom- or student-generated projects.

HOUSE OF DESIRES, Rand Theater

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Alumni

Because of our reputation as one of the outstanding teaching departments at the university; because theater offers a chance for community, for coming together in our often impersonal world; because students recognize that the skills and values we teach— discipline, teamwork, communication, creative expression, collective problem-solving—are more important today than ever. These skills and values change lives and define careers, whether students choose to work on stage, film, or TV, or to go on to pursue successful careers in law, broadcasting, management, advertising, arts administration, teaching, and social work.

Former students include actors Bill Pullman, Jeffrey Donovan, Richard Gere, Marissa Matrone, & Rob Corddry; playwrights Constance Congdon and David Mark Cohen; director Greg Leaming & Cal McLean; designers David Korins & Ben Stanton; Tony-award winning producer Lawrence Wilker; NY Shakespeare Festival dramaturg John Dias; screenwriter Peter Tolan, and many more.

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