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Performing Arts Tom Schnauber, Ph.D. Chair

In addition to exploring the performing arts in classroom courses, the department offers many performance opportunities. The Performing Arts Department produces three to six productions each year, including a main-stage musical and at least one mainstage play. Opportunities to perform are also available through other courses, including singing-acting, dance, and Saints and Singers. Students may also give recitals, direct plays under faculty guidance and are encouraged and supported in the creation of their own original works. Private lessons in voice or piano are also available. Departmental internships are also available. Students have interned at sites such as the Huntington Theatre Company, the Boston Lyric Opera, J Magazine and the Speakeasy Stage Company.

Learning Goals and Outcomes At the completion of an Individualized Major in Performing Arts degree, the student will: • Be able to locate a work within a historical timeline and understand the relationships between that work and the period in which it was created. • Be able to effectively engage and analyze a work on multiple structural and technical levels. • Be able to recognize important stylistic features associated with major writers, composers, and/or performers, both past and present. • Acquire the skills necessary to present a work through appropriate performance and/or production techniques. • Acquire skills and techniques that will enable them to independently and/or collaboratively create new works.

The Capstone Experience All students graduating with an Individualized Major (IM) in Performing Arts must complete a senior “capstone” project. This project, depending on the design of the IM, can be a recital, a theater directing project, a choreography, or a creative project (e.g., composition, playwriting). This project is the equivalent of a senior thesis. Regardless of the nature of the project, a main component is an accompanying paper in which the student places the work being presented in historical and comparative contexts. Projects are usually the end result of a 4000level Directed Study course taken with a full-time faculty member.

2012-2013 Academic Catalog

Programs of Study for Liberal Arts and Sciences

Performing Arts may be selected as an individually designed major with concentrated work in Theater Arts or Music-Theater. Minors in Music, Music-Theater, and Theater Arts are also available. It is also possible to combine Performing Arts with another field to create an individually designed Interdisciplinary major. Course work varies depending on the program and is decided through student-faculty consultation. All Individualized Majors in Performing Arts are required to complete a Senior “Capstone” Project and are also encouraged to apply for Distinction in the Field (see below).