The theater major at Transylvania encourages experience-based class work and participation in productions in our highly flexible and well-equipped Lucille C. Little Theater, even for students who don’t pursue a theater degree.
We offer beginning and advanced courses in acting, directing, technical theater and design, costume design and construction, theater history and dramatic literature and playwriting. In all our courses, we emphasize both theory and practice and offer students hands-on training through acting, constructing scenery and props, building costumes, writing plays, directing and attending plays in production.
Transylvania University Theater stages two to three major productions each year, representing a wide range of theatrical styles and literary genres, in addition to a number of student-directed plays. Recent productions include “Beware Wolf and Other Nightmares” “She Kills Monsters,” “Dying City” and “Lawrence Booth’s Books of Visions,” adapted from professor Maurice Manning’s award-winning book of poems. Casting is open to all Transylvania students with no pre-casting, putting first-year students on an equal plane with other students.
The Transy Theater Mentorship Program allows students to assume major responsibilities—directing, stage management, producing and costuming, set and lighting design—while working in a supportive environment with highly individualized faculty guidance. This is a rare opportunity for students to put into practice ideas and skills that they have studied, focus on an area of special interest and collaborate with other students and faculty on creative production.
Where Our Graduates Have Worked
Arkansas Children’s Theatre
Artistic director, Pandora’s Box Productions
Artistic director, Electricity Project
Assistant director, Folger Shakespeare Library
Development, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park
Director, Source Theater, Washington, D.C.
Disney Entertainment
Lexington Ballet
Technical director, Downtown Arts Center, Lexington
Internships Our Students Have Completed
New York Stage and Film
Commonwealth Theatre Company
SITI Company Workshop in Saratoga Springs
Woodford Theater
Athens West Theatre
Courses of Special Interest
Advanced Design: Lighting
Building a Character
Costume Design and Construction
Imagining the Production
Modern Drama and Theater
Fundamentals of Play Directing
Special Topics: Laughing Matters
Spectator as a Critic
Theatrical Creatures
Where Our Graduates Have Studied
Atlantic Theater Company
Auburn University
Florida State University
Savannah College of Art and Design
Lexington Children’s Theater
The New School
University of Louisville
University of Miami
University of Pittsburgh
Opportunities in the Major
Actor in productions
Designer
Director
Playwright
Stage Manager
Technical crew member
Semester Study Abroad Opportunities
Australia I
Australia II
England I
Greece
Ireland
New Zealand
Scotland
These GlobalTransy programs have at least two courses related to the major.
Interested in studying abroad for a summer? Take a look at our summer study abroad opportunities.
Contacts
Tosha Fowler, Chair of Theater; Director of Theater Program
Phone: 233-8514
Office: Mitchell Fine Arts 107
Address:
Transylvania University
300 North Broadway
Lexington, KY 40508-1797