Theatre Division Home

  The Conservatory's Theatre Division offers undergraduate degree programs in musical theatre, acting, costume design, scenic and lighting design, and theatre for youth. Shenandoah is the school for the serious theatre student seeking superior instruction with artist teachers in an ideal setting — a large conservatory within a small yet comprehensive university near one of the nation's major cultural centers, Washington, DC.

Theatre at Shenandoah is a way of life and a means to a long, successful career. Students are carefully trained to meet their potential and are equally at home in musicals, contemporary pieces and classics whether performed on stage, television or film.  

SPECIAL FEATURES

At Shenandoah Conservatory, theatre, music and dance are not individual schools separated by different philosophies and areas of space, but are allied to benefit student training. This close cooperation and interdependency gives Shenandoah theatre students a unique education.

Vocal training, required of musical theatre students, is an elective for acting and theatre for youth students; all students, no matter what their major, study with the same artist teachers on the Conservatory voice faculty.

Dance classes are also required of musical theatre students and elective for others. These classes are all taught by the artist teachers of the dance faculty, and students are placed in classes with others of similar background and ability.

All theatre performance students have the same Stanislavski-based acting classes, taught by acting professionals.

At Shenandoah, the talented student is continually working, and unlike many other schools, freshmen not only are encouranged to perform during the first year, but are required to audition for the major productions. The faculty members work very closely with each individual student. They believe that observing the student as a performer on stage gives the best opportunity to recognize each student's strengths and weaknesses and allows them to be of greater value as teachers.  

The design programs begin in the freshman year and continue throughout the curriculum carefully balancing classes with extensive production work. 

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

The theatre and musical theatre programs at Shenandoah prepare students for professional careers in theatre. Shenandoah's theatre and musical theatre graduates have won assistantships and fellowships for further study in professional theatre programs and graduate schools; they manage their own successful children's theatre companies; and they have appeared on Broadway, in films, television dramas and commercials, seasonal theatre companies, dinner theatres and major regional theatres in United States and Canada, and in numerous national and international tours.