<p>D (HS 2011) plans to visit Chicago this spring. Her primary academic interests are English and History. She is also passionate about theater. Although Chicago’s website lists a Theater major and minor, how many students actually pursue these? Looking at statistics posted on the NCES College Navigator site, it doesn’t look like Chicago has many students pursuing Theater degrees, as compared to peer universities and liberal arts colleges. Also, how active is the extracurricular undergraduate theater scene? Are there lots of opportunities for participation - would a student who lives for the next show find plenty to do at Chicago?</p>
<p>I have no first hand knowledge, but I thought these links may be helpful if you have not yet seen them:</p>
<p>[Get</a> Involved | The University of Chicago](<a href=“http://ut.uchicago.edu/getinvolved/index.shtml]Get”>http://ut.uchicago.edu/getinvolved/index.shtml)
[Theater</a> and Performance Studies](<a href=“http://humanities.uchicago.edu/depts/ishu/programdescription.shtml]Theater”>http://humanities.uchicago.edu/depts/ishu/programdescription.shtml)
[arts.uchicago.edu</a> | The Reva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts](<a href=“Arts Institutions & Programs | University of Chicago”>Arts Institutions & Programs | University of Chicago)
[Smart</a> comedy built Second City success | The University of Chicago](<a href=“http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20091207_sahlins.shtml]Smart”>http://www.uchicago.edu/features/20091207_sahlins.shtml)</p>
<p>bump … anyone have first-hand experience of undergraduate theater opportunities at Chicago?</p>
<p>While waiting for replies here, you might also try searching or posting a thread over at the CC forum on College Majors: Theater/Drama.</p>
<p>To find: click top left of this page, “Discussion Home.”
Scroll down below all the named unis/colleges etc. to the forum called “College Majors”
and see the category underneath that for “Theater/Drama”</p>
<p>It’s a combination of general talk about that major, and on occasion, mentions how that major works at a particular individual university (try the Search This Forum thread with Chicago as keyword; choose between showing results in Threads or Posts).</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>University Theatre is the largest student organization on campus and they have fantastic performances each quarter that are highly attended. Your daughter will definitely be able to perform in numerous shows each year if she’s interested. There are also sketch comedy and improv groups she might be interested in joining. </p>
<p>I’ve taken a few Theatre and Performance Studies (TAPS) classes and have been really pleased with the quality of instruction. If you or your daughter would like, you can head over to timeschedules.uchicago.edu and check out the available courses in her chosen field.</p>
<p>One hopes unalove will notice this and post, since I know she is very involved with the University Theater, and may even have a TAPS (Theater and Performance Studies) major or minor.</p>
<p>My information is definitely third-hand, but not terrible. Both of my kids have been involved with University Theater. Neither was a TAPS major, but both have friends who were/are.</p>
<p>My impression is that there are probably something like 8-12 TAPS majors per year, some of whom are double-majors. I have no idea how many minors there are; from what I remember picking up the minor would be pretty easy if you cared to do that. </p>
<p>You should recognize that an important implication of the relatively small number of TAPS majors is that the University’s theater groups are heavily dependent on non-majors. Theater majors are important to the theater community at Chicago, but they don’t necessarily dominate it at all, and you don’t have to be a theater major to be very involved in theater at any level and in any capacity.</p>
<p>In the context of the University of Chicago undergraduate student body, I think the TAPS majors are mostly bohemian outliers, part of a thin hipster fringe. In the context of the world at large, however, they are very much University of Chicago students – intellectual, driven, hardworking, broad interests in a number of fields. Except for the few who unexpectedly fell in love with theater in college, most of them chose Chicago over places like Northwestern with more professionally-oriented, practical theater programs because they affirmatively valued Chicago’s approach to general education and the intellectual community at the University of Chicago. (Which is not to say that they don’t grouse frequently about the econ majors and pre-somethings in their class.) They run the gamut from people whose main interest is writing plays and screenplays, to actors, to people who are principally interested in theater tech. So there aren’t a lot of people in any category in the major at any particular time.</p>
<p>My daughter took at TAPS history of theater class with some TAPS friends. For their midterm, they were given a choice between writing an academic paper and collaborating to produce a 10-minute scene from one of the plays they were reading. My daughter did the scene with four friends, and afterwards swore that she would never do something like that again, since the amount of work involved – all of her collaborators turned out to be highly motivated perfectionists about every aspect of what they were doing: sets, costumes, lighting, sound AND literary interpretation – had been several times what it would have taken to write a paper herself.</p>
<p>Chicago is a great place for theater, behind only New York and maybe Los Angeles. Most of the TAPS majors are actively engaged in theater outside the walls of the University, furiously trying to network their way into some kind of sustainable theater career. There are lots of ways to do that, both formal internships with big-brand companies like Steppenwolf, and pitching in on one-off, let’s-put-on-a-show experimental projects in empty warehouse space. Most TAPS classes are not necessarily difficult by comparison with other classes, but the TAPS majors are often working themselves to the bone – on their classes, on UT productions, on productions outside the University, and of course on little things like jobs to earn money. The BA projects required of TAPS majors are a big deal, too, especially since they almost always require more than a little help from one’s friends to pull off.</p>
<p>The UChicago theater alumni network is nowhere near as extensive as Northwestern’s, or Carnegie-Mellon’s, or Michigan’s, or NYU’s, or even Yale’s, but it definitely exists, especially around Chicago.</p>