Designed for students with a literary bent and a love of theatre, drama studies is a rigorous academic program, rather than a professional training program. It provides students with a background in dramatic literature, history, theory, and criticism.
Senior projects are customarily academic essays, original plays or screenplays, or productions.
While the program is structured to help students appreciate theatre rather than create it, every student of drama needs to know what is entailed in making drama into theatre. Experience in making theatre comes through a required production course and through electives in playwriting, directing, and various kinds of performance. For interested and qualified students, there are also tutorials and independent studies in playwriting and directing. The senior project may also encompass aspects of production. The College's commitment to individualized instruction is especially apparent in drama studies, where it is common for majors to devise independent projects as a way to study, write, produce , or perform drama.