Theatre Track

UIndy Theatre is an experiential training ground, allowing students to be involved as professionals in the running of a vibrant theatre company, while balancing academic work that strengthens their focus as practitioners of theatre.

View UIndy Theatre Productions

cabaret production

Program Strengths

  • The program presents a variety of productions including professional productions, artist showcases, senior capstones, musicals, and full-length plays.

  • Every show includes student designers, dramaturgs, actors, and crew to provide students numerous opportunities to be onstage and gain experience backstage.

  • Courses are designed to give students credit for acting, working crew, or designing for a show. In addition, the curriculum will teach you how to be a dramaturg, playwright, director, as well engaging with historical styles of acting, from Shakespeare to commedia.

  • We regularly hold workshops in technical theatre, employ theatre professionals from the Indianapolis area that mentor students, and put the business of making theatre into the hands of the students and student managers.
  • Students can apply to be student employees or interview to be a student manager and get paid for their experience.

  • The experiential class in Theatre is tied to our plays. Students can gain experience and course credit for being in shows. Upperclass students can interview to become the student managers for the experientials and take a leadership role. Those who gain enough experience can even run the UIndy Student Theatre Collective professional production who often stage shows at Indy Fringe.

 

students working as stage crew, designers, and actors

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Alum Story
Audrey Panyard
Theatre, Class of 2022

The theatre [program] at UIndy provided me with opportunities and experiences that propelled me in my preparation for a professional career as an actor. The dedication and heart that the professor's put into each and every student, sets you up to achieve any goals you desire. With the combination of their guidance and my determination, I was able to achieve and learn more than I ever imagined. Not only have my skills as an actor grown, but so has my confidence, allowing me to step into the "real world" with my head held high.

Hands-on Experiences

Each year, the student-run theatre company, operated by the UIndy student managers, puts on its own show staged in a professional setting. For the past few years, this has been a staged play put on at the Indy Fringe Theatre Festival, run entirely by the students. This is an excellent opportunity to build connections with artists in the local theatre community.

Each February, UIndy Theatre hosts an Artists’ Showcase, highlighting scenes from acting and directing classes, monologues, songs, dances, stand-up routines. Designed as a showcase, this event is open to any student in the University and gives opportunities for all students to show off their talent and for students to put on and run a show right out of the Studio Theatre.

student on a microphone, presenting her showcase

Students are encouraged to be a part of our productions their very first semester. Students can act, design, direct, be a member of the crew, or fun front-of-house operations for all of our shows, providing invaluable experience that can go on their theatrical resumes. By taking an active role in all four productions per year, students will be exposed to a variety of genres and theatre jobs. Faculty and staff, as well as professionals from the Indy theatre community will provide mentorship and guidance as students grow into theatre artists. It’s this type of mentoring that makes a theatre focus at UIndy so invaluable. In your time at UIndy, you will be able to be involved in almost all of the jobs within the theatre world. As your skills and knowledge increase, you will be given more and more responsibilities of supervising your peers and seeing your own ideas realized in our productions.

Two actors on stage

For more info about our current season, visit the Theatre events page.

For more information about past productions, visit the UIndy Theatre Archives, where we have carefully maintained records for the over 130 productions UIndy Theatre has put on since 1967.

actor holding an umbrella on stage

All UIndy Theatre students are part of the UIndy Theatre Student Collective (UTSC), which is run entirely by the students. As a recognized student organization on campus, UTSC receives University funding to run its own events and mixers. For new students to Theatre, UTSC can be an invaluable experience in finding your way through the theatre program and UIndy. Mentorship is a big feature of this organization.

The UIndy Theatre Student Collective (UTSC) hosts its own events designed to be social engagements for the students of theatre. Some of the events done in the past have been:

  • Movie nights
  • Holiday party
  • End-of-the-year event
  • Participating in UIndy Pride's Drag Show
  • Hosting an annual Rocky Horror Picture Show Shadowcast in Ransburg Auditorium
  • Professional production in the Indianapolis theatre community

Curriculum Guides

These curriculum guides outline the classes you'll need to take in this program. The general education curriculum guide lists your class options and requirements to fulfill UIndy's general education requirements, while the communication curriculum guide lists the classes needed for the communication core and your concentration area. You'll need to look at both guides to get a complete picture of what classes you'll take at UIndy.

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