General Information

Chair: Edward Isser   (508)793-2494  eisser@holycross.edu

    The Department of Theatre at the College of the Holy Cross is a fully accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Theatre that offers students an integrated, pre-professional training program in a liberal arts environment. Our acting classes combine Western and Eastern techniques for training body and voice while teaching students to interpret dramatic texts. Our dramatic literature and theatre history courses place those texts in historical and thematic contexts and focus on them as a medium for performance. Our dance courses are grounded in an understanding of dance history as well as technique and composition. Our design courses explore visual interpretations of texts in performance. Our directing courses locate performance as an intersection of all of these disciplines and train students to read texts on several levels at once. We also offer students the opportunity to pursue a minor in film studies in conjunction with the Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies (CISS).

    Five full-time professors and a range of part-time performance instructors (see Faculty & Staff) offer courses and tutorials in a wide variety of disciplines, open to both majors and non-majors: acting, dance, voice and mask work; Balinese performance, Shakespearean performance, directing, dramatic literature, theatre history, design, stage management and film. We also regularly import guest artists to give workshops on such topics as baroque dance, Suzuki technique, Alexander technique, and puppetry.

    Our theatrical season provides students with numerous performance and design opportunities. We mount two fully produced, faculty-directed mainstage productions, two student-directed one act festivals in our experimental space, two Balinese performance pieces, an annual film festival and an annual dance concert. (see Calendar) Our seasons include classsical and modern, western and eastern plays. In recent years we have produced plays by Chekhov, Williams, Shakespeare, and a dramatized episode from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, RASA, a contemporary opera. In addition, the department supervises the student theatre organization (ACT) that produces a major musical and a comedy on our mainstage. This intense level of production provides numerous chances for student actors and designers to practice their crafts.

    Students who have passed through the department have fared well beyond the bounds of Holy Cross. Our students have been admitted into highly selective graduate programs in acting at the American Conservatory Theatre, The University of Texas, Austin, the University of Washington, the University of Minnesota, Temple University, and the California School of the Arts; in directing at Southern Methodist University; in lighting design at the University of Illinois, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas, Austin; in film at the University of Southern California and Columbia University; and in stage management at Yale University. Our graduates work as professional actors, directors, designers, and stage managers.

    You are welcome to visit the department, see a production, view our facilities, meet the faculty and interact with the students. Appointment for visits can be arranged by contacting Joan Townsend, the department administrator, at 508-793-3490.