<p>We just got back from a campus visit to Macalester. They do two faculty-directed productions and four student-directed productions each year, which is the fewest of any of the schools we visited. They had an interesting theater as their main stage – instead of a traditional stage with seats spreading out from the front of the stage, the stage was essentially a raised square in the middle of the room, and the seats projected out from three sides of the square (with stairs coming off the corners, so the three seating areas were distinct). So the performers are surrounded on three sides by the audience and are much more in the middle of things and there is no curtain to be opened and closed between scenes or acts.</p>