About
Created in the 1930’s by English Professor and Designer Ralph Pendleton, Wesleyan’s Theater Department now carries on its long tradition of examining performance on both creative and critical levels, in both theatrical and civic spheres.
As an essential component of the liberal arts ecosystem, our faculty’s interdisciplinary interests and specialties draw students into a range of conversations and embodied practices that bridge from our rehearsal rooms, seminar circles, and stages out into the world. Our current faculty brings particular attention to forms and schools of theater making and thinking in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through a primarily Americanist lens.
Our pedagogy is grounded in an intersectional perspective: we believe continual and collaborative exchange between the disciplines of theater is necessary to both rigorous scholarship and applied creative practice. As such, our students do not focus in one area within theatrical production but rather learn as "theater makers," becoming skilled in interrelated theater practices: devising, production design, directing, theater history, critical and performative writing, acting, voice and movement, playwriting, stage management and technical theater. Our productions range from adaptations of classical texts to contemporary scripts, to movement or visually based performance installations.
Theater Department productions are staged in The Center for the Arts Theater, the Patricelli '92 Theater, and across campus in alternative locations. In addition to full time theater faculty, we often host visiting artists for guest lectures, unique courses, and workshops. Recent visitors include Pulitzer Prize winner and playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes; Broadway performers Crystal Dickinson and Brandon J. Dirden; the acclaimed performance company Elevator Repair Service; 2022 USA Artist Fellow and queer artist/costumer Machine Dazzle; and 2021 Guggenheim winner and Wesleyan Theater alum, choreographer Kaneza Schaal.
Our Alumni
Both our faculty and our alumni are notably active in the professional world. They appear on international and national stages, on, off, and off-off Broadway. Many are the recipients of prestigious awards: “Bessie” Award designers Chloe Brown and Roderick Murray, Emmy Award recipients Dana Delany and Bradley Whitford, Tony Award winners Frank Wood and Lin-Manuel Miranda are just a few examples. Collectively, our faculty have won Creative Capital and Obie Awards, been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, have performed and directed on and off Broadway, and are internationally respected scholars and leaders in the field. Many alumni have joined renowned theater companies, while others are founding members of cutting-edge collaborative ensembles, acclaimed solo performers, and community activists. Theater alumni hold graduate degrees in acting, arts management, design, directing, theater history, education, and performance studies from the nation’s most reputable programs.
