Humans are storytellers, and the arts of theatre and dance provide creative means for storytelling. We see ourselves in our histories and offer stories that raise essential questions. We create fantasies that explore human potential, and we focus our attention on the tragedies that allow us to grieve. Elmhurst’s Department of Theatre and Dance offers majors and minors that allow you to explore your role as a storyteller - and story maker. Each path provides a curriculum exploring the foundations of these storytelling arts. Skills and technique are partnered with analysis, history and design.

The department offers three majors: Theatre Arts Education, Musical Theatre, and Theatre major with a variety of concentrations. Our minors in Dance and Theatre complement a wide range of majors in other disciplines. Our minors in Dance Education and Theatre Arts Education can support endorsement for those seeking teacher licensure in other areas.

Collaboration, analysis and communication are also at the heart of our fields. Often referred to as “soft skills,” these practices are highly valued in businesses and disciplines across private and public sectors.

Our graduates go on to direct, to design, to build, and to perform. They teach and lead, bringing stories to life in schools, with arts organizations and in a variety of other settings. Whether they run their own company or “gig” from one to another, these artists, teachers and artisans create amazing stories. They make lives that are part of the art of theatre and dance.

Departmental Learning Outcomes

Elmhurst University Theatre and Dance student will be able to:

• Demonstrate a fundamental knowledge of the theatre or dance medium and their terminologies, in the areas of history, literature, performance, and technical production.

• Demonstrate a measure of competency in the application of skills either in performance, design, directing, construction, dance or choreography.

• Apply the process of research and analysis necessary to creation of theatre or dance productions.

• Develop one’s personal creative voice in the exploration of the storytelling nature of the performing arts and their exploration of the human condition.

• Demonstrate accumulated knowledge and competencies and apply it in a collaborative way as reflected in the creation of theatre or dance projects involving directing, performance, design or choreography.

Chair: Janice Pohl

Faculty: Alan W. Weiger, Richard Arnold Jr., Amy Lyn McDonald