The faculty cultivates this vision while supplying the techniques and experience to make it believable. Acting and scene-study classes form the nucleus of the training, which involves all technical aspects of voice and speech, movement, and text analysis. Each semester offers the student a different focus on the literature available to the actor. Students then must apply their accumulating knowledge and experience in rehearsals. In addition, there are workshops and seminars dealing with special skills and career preparation.
Public performances begin in the second year of training.
Plays are chosen for the training opportunities that they present to the students. In the third year, students continue to perform in works of increasing technical complexity as well as participate in the development of new scripts with playwrights and directors. One semester of the third year is spent training at the school's English Theatre Centre in Birmingham, England. Students perform in no less than four plays that are fully staged and costumed. Please refer to curriculum on page 367 of the university catalog.