Department Handbook

Being a major in the Department of Theater and Dance is an exciting challenge on many levels. To help each major move towards making the most of this challenge, our department created a handbook for our majors in the 1990s. It was printed out each summer to be handed to each major in the beginning of the Fall semester. Majors were encouraged to keep track of their handbook as a major reference tool serving both their academic and production lives in the department and looking towards their futures in theater.

Piecemeal updates were provided from year to year to keep the handbook up to date. Every second or third year, an entirely updated handbook would be created, printed, and circulated to all majors. With the enhancement of our university and department webpages, we have decided to save a few trees—and more efficiently update the handbook on a month-to-month basis by putting it fully on line.

We hope that you will regularly “visit” our handbook—every time that you have a question about your course progression or a production assignment or figuring out how to go about getting that first theater job. There is a wealth of information and advice here to help you out in many ways. Of course, this is only one resource towards your move through our majors. You also have your faculty advisor, your upper-class mentor, your teachers—and, of course, our department chair, to help to guide you through this four years together. Please take advantage of all these resources!

Below is list of topics available in our Department Handbook. Just click on whatever topic you want to pursue below.