Undergraduate Catalog

Theatre Arts

Phone: (845) 257-3865
Location: College Theatre Room 102
Web address: www.newpaltz.edu/theatre

The Department of Theatre Arts is dedicated to engaging New Paltz students in a dynamic, experiential, and diverse educational experience. The program offers students a unique combination of contemporary theory and practice within the context of a broad-based and humanistic liberal arts tradition. The faculty of teachers, artists, and scholars provides students with models of excellence in our classrooms, on our stages, in major theatre centers in the United States, and in the global performing arts community.

The department offers a Bachelor of Arts degree with concentrations in Design & Technology, Performance, and Theatre Studies. Our program is grounded in the history, literature, theory, and applied practice of theatre, giving relevance and meaning to a student's artistic endeavors. In addition, we offer General Education courses that present Theatre Arts as a humanistic endeavor within multiple historical and cultural landscapes.

Student Learning Outcomes

By the time they graduate, Theatre Arts majors will:

  1. Articulate self-reflection and respond as a member of the local community and global society; to continually evaluate and motivate one's actions—connecting work as artists and as global citizens to sustainability in all of its forms - social, environmental and economic; 
  2. Develop the ability to articulate the importance of storytelling to the ​arts, ​humanities, broader social development​, and evolution of society through​/by ​connecting interdisciplinary studies from General Education and minor courses to their work as Theatre Artists;
  3. Demonstrate (in written, visual, aural and oral forms) an understanding of a play, musical, live performance or production in terms of its (local, national, global) social, political, cultural, aesthetic and historical context;
  4. Evaluate a theatrical work for its context and clearly articulate an understanding of that work through a discipline specific interpretation or response—applying theatre practices and developing various techniques, skills and methods for creating works of live performance.