<p>Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend the staged reading of 1776 performed by the faculty of the School of Theater Arts and some selected upper-classmen.The show was put on as part of SOTA’s 25th anniversary celebration and was quite a treat for students to have a chance to see their professors “in action”.</p>
<p>Before the show started, Gene Teruso, the the dean of the School of Theater Arts, announced some plans that are in the works which I thought would be of interest to parents of current students who read this board and to prospective students and their parents. UArts is in the process of developing a masters degree program in the School of Theater Arts and is also forming it’s own “in house” professional theater company. In addition, Charles Gilbert, the head of the MT program, recently spent a couple of months in the UK and Netherlands laying the foundation for an expanded study abroad/exchange program. Add to this the new Skyline Theater that will open shortly, well, there’s just a lot of exciting stuff going on.</p>
<p>to add on to what michael said, we had a sophomore class meeting gene on monday and he explained to us that the graduate program is going to be basically a directing/producing/dramaturgy/playwriting program…and not so much a performing degree. they are planning/hoping for this degree to start fall of 2010…he told us that the resident company will perform mostly in the summer because the goal is not to take away parts from students in the undergrad program during the 4 years…it sounds like a great degree and i’m sure we’ll hear more about it in weeks and months to come.</p>
<p>if anyone is auditioning for UArts and has any questions, feel free to send them to me.</p>
<p>He didn’t specifically mention, but I would assume around the same time as the graduate program since the two things are going hand-in-hand in a way. So we shall see…</p>