Students are helped to develop sensitivity to the needs of directors, performers, choreographers, producers, stage managers, writers, and shop personnel with whom they must work in a collaborative effort. Training is accomplished through a combination of studio work and production experience. Under the tutelage of the design faculty, students advance over the course of three years with studio classes culminating in a thesis project and portfolio presentation. We expect each student who enters the program to complete their degree. Every effort is made for the classes to overlap and support each other over the three year journey of the graduate student.
Special attention is paid to the process of design.
The student is taught the importance of being able to develop a project from the initial idea and presentation of that idea, to putting it into a shop and making it a reality, and finally moving it onto the stage as part of a cohesive production. The development of the set designer begins immediately with using 2D and 3D skills to respond to a text. These studio classes with weekly critiques develop over the three years with larger and more complex texts. Costume classes focus on the developing idea of character and clothing design in connection to a text. Students are required to explore many texts from the classics to musicals.