Performance Emphasis

Benefits

Choosing to major in Theatre with a Performance emphasis offers you many benefits, including the following:

• You will be prepared for dramatic performance as an actor, director, or other performing artist through intensive work in sensory awareness, observation skills, and selective imagination. 
• You will grow in your mastery of stage movement through work in physical flexibility, balancing, circus techniques, hand-to-hand combat, and use of theatrical masks for performance. 
• You will develop vocal skills of support, projection, and articulation.
• Through your studies and your participation in theatre productions, you will be exposed to a wide range of theatrical forms and styles.

Major Courses and Degree Requirements

In addition to your core Theatre major courses, with a Performance emphasis you will take courses that provide you with a focused and integrative approach to Theatre performance. Courses include “Stage Movement,” “Theatre Voice,” “Playwriting,” and “Auditioning.” You will study aspects of acting that include creating character and performance techniques for plays of specialized historic and stylistic genres. 

The minimum total credits required for a Theatre major emphasis is 80 quarter credits, including 30 upper-division credits. The minimum total credits required for a degree is 180 quarter credits.

View the major courses and degree requirements

Entering the Major

You may enter this major during your first quarter at SPU. Entrance after your first quarter requires only good academic standing (2.0 or higher SPU cumulative GPA). Consult the undergraduate catalog for complete information on how and when to enter and what you must do to complete the program.  

Career Opportunities

Faculty Contact

Candace Vance

Associate Professor of Theatre; Chair of Theatre; Head of Performance
MA, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (London)

Email: vancec@spu.edu
Phone: 206-281-2934
Office: McKinley 102