Theatre Degrees

The Acting/ Directing program is constructed to help students meet the rigorous demands of a professional career in acting and provide a strong foundation and practical experience for future directors. From your first semester on you will be in performance classes taught by academically and professionally experienced faculty. Unlike huge and impersonal schools, acting opportunities in all productions at Mesa State College are open to motivated and talented freshmen.

In our array of Acting classes you will be exposed to techniques and approaches that are industry standards today. Training is grounded in Stanislavski, Meisner, Cohen, Spolin, and Epstein and Harrop for Period work. Voice and movement classes are complimented by individual vocal lessons and performance opportunities in student and faculty choreographed Dance Concerts.

Acting students also audition for one act plays directed by the Directing classes each year. The Department's new  experimental black-box theatre allows for a second season of experimental and other challenging productions.

Mesa State is strategically located at the hub of a circle of important entertainment centers such as Aspen, Telluride, Moab, and Park City, Utah. There are Regional Theaters of international repute within driving distance such as the Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. The Moss Performing Arts Center, which houses the Theatre and Music departments and all of their seasonal concert, play, theatrical, and dance offerings is the largest arts and cultural facility between Denver and Salt Lake City.

At Mesa State, we are committed to the philosophy of training theatrical entrepreneurs. And we do it in an environment of low teacher to student ratios so that personal attention and mentoring are possible. Our many graduates who are working in the business from New York City to Los Angeles, Chicago, and Tokyo have informed us that Mesa´s approach was invaluable.

Dance at Mesa State College is thriving with an array of dance styles, performance opportunities and travel. Modern, jazz, ballet and tap are offered from beginning to professional levels. Other courses include composition, improvisation, repertory performance, pedagogy, history, lighting, critical analysis, rythmic analysis and the healthy dancer.

The faculty members have professional backgrounds in all forms of dance and music theatre. With two formal concerts and two informal concerts each year, Mesa State College provides students with a chance to choreograph original works and to dance for and with visiting guest artists from the professional dance world.

Mesa State dance students travel throughout the United States to share the art of dance with other universities and colleges. Dance at Mesa State College features classes with a strong emphasis on positive reinforcement from challenging professors. It is a place where dancers can establish lifelong relationships as they strive for excellence in the art of dance.

The Dance program at Mesa State College has experienced explosive growth both in interest and participation in recent years. The progam receives immense support from the community and is complemented by several brand new facilities in the college's performing arts complex, including a beautiful, state-of-the-art dance studio to be completed in time for the Fall semester 2009.

The new dance degree at Mesa State College is designed to prepare students in a wide range of dance disciplines. While maintaining the foundation training of ballet and modern, the program emphasizes the many styles of jazz and tap for those with an eye on a career in the professional world of dance.

Curriculum provides courses in the background and understanding of dance forms, the creative process and the application at performance level.

Dance at Mesa State College is truly on the rise!

Mesa's Technical Theatre training is the number one college Tech/Design program in Colorado.
-The Denver Post, 2002

The Design/ Technical Theatre degree and recommended course of study exposes students to multiple areas of the visual and technical aspects of Theatre including Costume Design, Lighting Design, and Theatre Technology.

The first year is centered around courses that develop aesthetic sensitivity and technical proficiency. Subsequent years are devoted to specialized studio work in the students chosen area of concentration.

Course work focuses on functional, expressive, and compositional aspects of design. This foundation is supported by a series of skill related classes in drafting, drawing, and rendering techniques, model making, projection aesthetics, lighting console operation, and related technologies. Costume skills classes include costume construction and fitting, fabric painting and fabric dyeing. The program culminates in a final design project during the fourth year.

Students are always involved in the many Theatre Department shows and this production work allows for a controlled, supervised application of course work. The Design faculty emphasizes performance labs to apply and refine the Tech students skills in planning and executing production design in a variety of styles and performance spaces.

Personalized instruction and supervised "hands-on" design experiences that stretch from designs on paper to fully realized productions provide the Mesa State Design/ Technical major with exciting challenges and skills that will be a basis for success in Graduate studies or the professional Theatre workplace.

The Music Theatre Program at Mesa State College represents one of the most unique performance degrees offered in Colorado. Our degree has been carefully constructed, stressing strong technical foundations in Music, Theatre, and Dance. This approach is to create "triple threats" and enhance the young performers potential for an exciting career in Musical Theatre.

Students begin their training with music theory and ear training, private voice instruction, choir and class piano. Acting I and II, Ballet and Tap are also included to complete first year academic requirements.

To compliment these technical classes, freshman also participate in a wide variety of performance related assignments which include two Mainstage productions, choral ensembles, dance concerts, student directed one-acts, and technical crew assignments.

Upper-class majors are members of a capstone class called Music Theatre Performance Workshop. In this seminar style class students study audition techniques, resume writing, style, as well as preparing and performing Vocal/Acting auditions and specialty performance assignments.

Our Music Theatre Program offers beginning students an extra benefit that results from our moderate size- department, highly personalized instruction provided by skilled professors who are themselves seasoned performers, coaches, directors, teachers and technicians. Working graduates cite this as one of the prime reasons for their success in gaining employment in both local and national venues. Mesa State Music Theatre graduates currently work in National Broadway tours such as "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Showboat", European tours of "The Phantom of the Opera", Regional and National Dinner Theatres, cruise ships, and with Disney and Universal Studios. One graduate owns his own production company which mounts multi-million dollar corporate theatrical productions and one grad is the head of the largest theatrical producing agency in the world, The United States Army Theatre Wing.

Our Music Theatre degree worked for these grads. It is working for our current students. Join us and let it work for you.