Theatre

• Certificates (Not Applicable)

   

• Associate Degrees

  Students completing the Associate of Arts or Sciences in Technical Theatre will be able to demonstrate the following outcomes:

  • 1. Have writing skills and ability to use research tools (library, internet, etc).
  • 2. Be able to present critical thinking through verbal and written presentations regarding the theatre. Specific areas of expertise will include major works, major figures, theory, and history.
  • 3. Have a practical, working knowledge of how to produce a play on stage, including all related performance, script, design, and technical considerations.
  • 4. Be able to critically evaluate what they and others have created.
  • 5. Develop necessary skills to be proficicient in at least one area of theatre (performance, teaching, technical/design-costume, technical/design-scenery, technical/design-lighting, technical/design-sound, directing, theatre management, or playwriting), with the ability to identify, analyze, and resolve specific problems pertaining to that area.
  • 6. Understand the historical context of theatre, drama, and performance including plays, major figures, costumes, scenic innovations, and theoretical approaches, and how these relate to contemporary society and culture.
  • 7. Have experience with individual and collaborative processes needed to produce and understand theatre.
• Bachelor Degrees

  Students completing Bachelor of Arts degrees in Musical Theatre, Theatre Arts, and Theatre Arts Teaching will demonstrate the following outcomes:

  • 1. Have writing skills and ability to use research tools (library, internet, etc).
  • 2. Be able to present critical thinking through verbal and written presentations regarding the theatre. Specific areas of expertise will include major works, major figures, theory, and history.
  • 3. Have a practical, working knowledge of how to produce a play on stage, including all related performance, script, design, and technical considerations.
  • 4. Be able to critically evaluate what they and others have created.
  • 5. Develop necessary skills to be proficicient in at least one area of theatre (performance, teaching, technical/design-costume, technical/design-scenery, technical/design-lighting, technical/design-sound, directing, theatre management, or playwriting), with the ability to identify, analyze, and resolve specific problems pertaining to that area.
  • 6. Understand the historical context of theatre, drama, and performance including plays, major figures, costumes, scenic innovations, and theoretical approaches, and how these relate to contemporary society and culture.
  • 7. Have experience with individual and collaborative processes needed to produce and understand theatre.

Communicating through performance is one of the fundamental human activities. As small children we learn through play, pretending to be someone or something we are not. We make up elaborate games of make believe in order to make sense of the world.

The art form of Theatre has always been asked to teach and to please. Our students take the natural impulse to pretend and refine that into skills. These skills include practical things like movement, voice, character building, theatrical design and construction, writing and analyzing scripts. But they also include higher level thinking skills like executive function, developing discipline and self-control, and metacognition, an awareness of what one is good at and what skills one needs to improve.    

Theatre students must complete a sequence of formal course work that includes University general education, core theatre courses, and focus or specialty courses. Formal course work is complemented by a sequence of experiential learning opportunities in the theatre. Students and faculty develop individualized programs of course work and practical experience, including a junior seminar, annual juries, portfolio preparation, various practica, and opportunities for individual theatre projects.
 

Study of theatre provides students with useful tools to contribute to and make positive changes in society. Theatre students learn about diverse historical eras, communities and technologies. Theatre challenges students to be creative and to translate that creativity into applied processes to think precisely, speak confidently in public, work productively with others, visualize abstract concepts and represent those concepts concretely. Theatre skills are useful in a variety of professions including, but not limited to, business, government, law, journalism, and public relations.

Contact Information:
Dr. Jenny Kokai
Weber State University
1905 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-1905
Browning Center, rm 305
(801) 626-6624

• The plan for courses within the major is current as listed on the website. Data continues to be gathered from Juries thrice yearly (the beginning of the year for new students as a bench mark, and then at the end of each semester) and artifacts are collected from all listed classes and uploaded to a shared Google drive for all other classes.
• We are currently implementing a revised plan for assessment for general education. For each general education class within theatre: Introduction to Theatre, Acting for Non-Majors, Introduction to Film, and Introduction to Musical Theatre, we have selected two assignments. One demonstrates Creative Arts General Education Learning Outcome 1, and the other Learning Outcome 2. Starting in Spring 2016 we are asking instructors to score these assignments with a standard rubric for each assignment designed by the area head that course falls within (so Tracy Callahan for Acting, Jenny Kokai for Introduction to Theatre, Jim Christian for Musical Theatre and Catherine Zublin for Film) and we are collecting data to report. We are also asking instructors to upload artifacts to a shared Google Drive that illustrate an A example, a C example, and an E example of work. This is a totally new assessment plan as the department has recently restructured to have Program Directors with more control over their own programs (so Theatre has a Program Director), where previously the expectation was the Chair of the department would do it. Implementing this assessment plan will take us a few years and cycles of assessment, but we will bring it up to the high standards of assessment we have implemented for the classes within the Theatre Major as rapidly as we are able.

2019-20

2014-15