Theatre Arts, Dance Option, B.A.

Program Description

The Department of Theatre and Dance provides comprehensive pre-professional training in the areas of acting, directing, dance, design, theatre technology, and musical theatre. The primary goal of the program is to develop artists whose performance skills and creativity are supported by a firm background in history, literature, and aesthetics. In an environment designed to encourage creativity and self-expression, each student has opportunities to participate in various specializations within the major-acting, costuming, dance, directing, scenery, lighting, sound, creative vision, or management. Students perform regularly in a variety of theatre and dance productions.

Theatre Arts graduates acquire a range of skills. This enables them to pursue different professional options. Many have entered advanced studies in nationally recognized universities and conservatories. Some have chosen careers in teaching, while others have gone directly into theatre or dance performance. Alumni perform on professional stages around the world, including Broadway and Hollywood. Some have been nominated for Tonys, Emmys, and Oscars; and, one designer won an Emmy and Art Directors Guild award. Employers in other professions desire Theatre Arts graduates for their team skills, their imaginative approach to problems, and their ability to communicate creatively.

Student Learning Outcomes

Students graduating with a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Cal State East Bay will be able to:

1. communicate in writing, orally, non-verbally, and visually in their area of emphasis.
2. conduct background research, evaluate scripts, and analyze performance for use in scholarly and performance applications.
3. employ historical, contemporary, and cultural performance techniques, as well as production technology appropriate to their area of emphasis.
4. reflect on performance techniques and concepts of other performers and apply high standards of reflection to their own production work.
5. solve problems of production by creating roles, dancing, designing, managing, building, directing, or choreographing performances that address issues of life in striking and remarkable ways.

Career Opportunities

• Actor/Actress
• Broadcast Technician
• Business Agent
• Choreographer
• College Student Services
• Comedian
• Corporate Officer
• Costume Designer
• Costume Technician
• Dancer
• Director
• Drama or Dance Teacher/Professor
• Dramaturg
• Lighting Technician
• Make-Up Artist/Specialist
• Non-profit Manager
• Performing Arts Fundraiser
• Playwright
• Producer
• Recreation Supervisor
• Sales Manager
• Set Decorator
• Set Designer
• Sound Technician
• Stage Manager
• Theatre Critic
• Theatre Technician
• Theatre Manager

Features

The Department of Theatre and Dance produces approximately 5-8 plays and dance concerts during the year. The selection of plays exposes students to design, acting, dance, singing, directing, stage management, and technical theatre suitable to a wide variety of styles, periods, and genres from Shakespeare to American Realism and from Greek Tragedy to Modern Drama.

The department has several ensemble groups, including Musical Theatre, Dance, Acting, Inclusive Interdisciplinary, and Design/Technology, that add to a varied and challenging performance schedule. Since 1990, sixteen department productions have toured to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland and three other countries as part of the summer program.

The Theatre and Dance Department is fortunate to have excellent facilities including the 460 seat University Theatre, scene shop, costume shop, a sixteen-station design/drafting studio with a separate digital lab, two studio classrooms, green room, make-up room, dressing rooms with lockers and showers, and a spacious Dance Studio.

Major Requirements (B.A.)

The Theatre Arts major consists of 75-106 units, depending upon whether or not students choose an option. The Theatre Arts major without an option consists of 75 units. The B.A. degree requires a total of 180 units.

Options (13-31 units)

An Option is not required. Options provide the opportunity to explore a specialized mode of theatre arts beyond the level of the basic emphasis required to graduate. Options allow sufficient depth of study to prepare for graduate school or entry-level work in a semi-professional company and involve additional work beyond the major requirements listed above. The department’s graduates have found work in professional nonprofit companies after completing an internship as part of their CSUEB program. The additional work required for an option will prove useful in obtaining a quality internship or graduate school placement, so we recommend that students complete most of their option before seeking an internship. Acceptable courses are listed in the Subject Area Course List.

Dance Option (15-30 units)

Total major units with this option: 90-105.

Other Degree Requirements

In addition to major requirements, every student must also complete the University requirements for graduation which are described in the Baccalaureate Degree Requirements chapter in the front of this catalog. These include the General Education-Breadth requirements; the second composition (ENGL 1002 ) requirement; the cultural groups/women requirement; the performing arts/activities requirement; the U.S. history, U.S. Constitution, and California state and local government requirement; the University Writing Skills Requirement; and the residence, unit, and grade point average requirements.

Subject Area Course Lists (SACL)

Common Core-acceptable Lower Division Courses

Four-year CSUEB students should take any THEA or DANC course in a First Year General Education Cluster. Transfer students may petition the Chair to substitute a course with the following types of content: a theatre literature and history course with required reading of at least six plays, a performance appreciation course that required attendance and a review of at least four shows, a script analysis course, or a creative methods course (specifically any course that articulates with DANC 1200). Transfer students may also meet the requirement with one of the courses approved for four-year students. Substitutes require advanced approval of the Chair.