Theatre

At Lewis & Clark College, theatre and dance students are artists, scholars, choreographers, designers, technicians, writers, and critics!

Fir Acres Theatre hums with activity and creative enterprise from the first morning classes to rehearsals late into the evening. From department mainstage productions to dance concerts to student driven festivals, our students have many opportunities to make theatre and put theory into practice.

The Lewis & Clark Theatre Department production program is dedicated to nurturing a dynamic and diverse artistic and scholarly community.  Our productions include new works as well as contemporary, modern, pre-modern, and classical plays.  The Department honors the diversity of our community, and students can fully participate in our productions regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, socio-economic status, or disability.  The Department seeks to represent a diversity of voices on our stages, to practice open, non-traditional casting, and to respect – particularly with regard to new and contemporary plays – the playwright’s vision.

Collaboration, critical thinking, and creative expression are our core principles.

Our goal is to nurture artist-scholars who are well read in dramatic literature, who understand the social and historical contexts of that literature, who appreciate contemporary performance and dance, who think critically, and who translate this knowledge into compelling artistic choices on stage. 

• Our classes are open to all students, do not require an audition, and emphasize theatre and dance as an integral part of a liberal arts education.

• Our productions are open to all students, majors and non-majors alike, and incorporate opportunities in acting, dance, playwriting, dramaturgy, design and stage tech.

• Our major exposes students to the full variety of the theatre arts with concentrations in Performance, Dramatic Literature/Theatre History or Design/Technical Theatre. 

• Each senior theatre major completes a thesis in their final semester, which normally includes both a significant creative project and a substantial written essay.

• We offer minors in both Theatre Studies and Dance. 

• Other opportunities include theatre-centered Overseas/Off Campus programs in London, Ireland, and New York, as well as internships with companies in Portland and beyond. 

• Our majors go on to pursue a broad spectrum of careers from graduate school in various disciplines or find professional jobs in the theatre, education, non-profit administration, business or international relations.

The outlook and the habits of mind we foster prepare our students for the future, but not a future narrowly defined.  We want our students to go in whatever direction and however far their talents might take them.