7 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Theater College in Minnesota
Theater performance is a uniquely embodied storytelling art combining the diverse crafts of voice, movement, sound, writing, design, and often dance and music. If you love theatrical performance or production, consider a theater major in college. Choose a school that offers you the very best in facilities, mentorship, and opportunities as you embark on your path to a professional theater career.
At Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, theater students hone their skills in state-of-the-art studio and shop facilities, collaborating with classmates in visual arts, dance, and music. Each Gustavus theater student receives close faculty mentorship and expert advising to customize their four-year education in theater performance or theater design and technology. Three-four annual full-length mainstage performances and numerous student-led productions provide year-round opportunities to participate in every aspect of theater work. Complete with enriching professional internships, a Gustavus theater degree forms a strong foundation for graduate studies or entry-level work in theater and adjacent fields.
What do you hope to find in a theater college? Here are some things to look for while starting your performing arts education.
1. Does the curriculum support your professional theatre goals?
Whatever your professional goals, your theater education should familiarize you with all aspects of the craft, including acting, sound, lighting, scenery and costume design, choreography, stage direction, and playwriting. Whether you choose a performance, production, administration, or management route, you want to have a deep understanding of how the parts work together to make the whole. Your theater degree should also include a well-rounded liberal arts education that specifically supports your career in the performing arts. This includes the opportunities and expert guidance to tailor your performing arts education with complementary majors, minors, electives, and experiences.
At Gustavus, we offer majors in both theatre performance and theatre design and technology, as well as arts-oriented minors, including arts entrepreneurship, and film and media studies. With our flexible curriculum design, adding minors or a second major to mold your theatre education to your specifications is easy. Around a quarter of Gustavus students double major, often combining a fine arts major with an academic major to gain interdisciplinary skill sets that position them strategically after graduation. Each theatre student fine-tunes their four-year degree path with electives infused with exciting career-oriented activities, including professional internships, immersive community projects, and studies abroad. Expert advising ensures students understand the vast array of options available and are facilitated to pursue both studies and hands-on industry experiences that prepare them for the theatrical avenue they choose.
2. How are the theater and other arts facilities?
A school’s theater facilities say a lot about their commitment to the performing arts. The studio environment deeply affects embodied artistic expressions, such as drama and dance, with the potential to encourage or detract from the creative process. You will spend hundreds of hours over four years in these spaces, so your subjective experience of the environment is essential. If possible, tour the campuses of your prospective Minnesota theater colleges and see what it’s like to be inside their auditorium, studios, and creative production spaces. Ideally, visit when a major production is taking place so you can see and hear the performing arts live.
The Gustavus campus houses the exquisite 270-seat Evan and Evelyn Anderson Theatre, an intimate and luxurious performance venue complete with state-of-the-art sound and lighting. Dance and theatre students explore their craft in the innovative Rob and Judy Gardner Laboratory Theatre, constructed in 2019 to foster collaboration between the performing arts and sciences. The laboratory offers theatre and dance students cutting-edge technology so they can learn with the tools and equipment used in professional performance, design, and production. From costuming to set design to lighting to sound, Gustavus performing art students are well-equipped to test new ideas and manifest their creativity in pursuit of artistic excellence.
3. What is the personality of the college theater community?
Even more than the physical environment and amenities, the social environment of the campus performing arts community matters. Positive and supportive energy is essential to your experience and success as a theater student. The intimately collaborative nature of theater is one of its most satisfying aspects, with actors, producers, technicians, designers, and the director working together to deliver the audience a spectacular show. Your theater school community should be welcoming, encouraging, fun, creative, and energetic, with a strong sense of solidarity among faculty and students.
At Gustavus, we’re passionate about maintaining a friendly, supportive, and inclusive campus community with intentional organizations, events, and programs that bring students together to build friendships and working relationships based on mutual respect. Our theatre and dance department strongly focuses on social justice, with a stated mission to “raise awareness, create community, foster self-expression, challenge stereotypes, evoke compassion, and represent diverse perspectives.” The theater environment at Gustavus is collaborative and enthusiastic, with students coming together to experiment and innovate, including conceptualizing and executing student-led stage productions. Wherever you’re coming from and wherever you plan to go, if you’re passionate about theatre arts, there’s a place for you at Gustavus.
4. Do school scheduling and culture accommodate fine arts?
Ideally, your college or university supports theater majors by accommodating scheduling practices and promoting a culture that prioritizes the arts. Theater production and rehearsal commitments are notably demanding, and it’s frustrating to find your performance and academic schedules in conflict. As you consider college and university theater programs, ask how well integrated their theater department is with the academic departments. Do they encourage interdisciplinary learning and allow students to take full advantage of a wide range of college experiences?
In this respect, a small liberal arts school is often more accommodating than a large university because an intimate campus community makes it easier for the college administration, academic departments, and fine arts to coordinate. At Gustavus, we treat fine arts as an integral part of a liberal arts education. We encourage all of our students to explore visual arts, dance, theatre, or music, whether they major in these subjects or not. To facilitate broad arts participation, we design our class schedule to avoid conflicts with rehearsal times so students involved in performances don’t have to choose between key classes and theatre commitments. If other issues arise, our instructors collaborate as necessary across departments to resolve these so students enjoy a diverse and enriching college experience, pursuing their passions as far as possible.
5. Does each student receive close faculty mentorship?
Strong mentorship is foundational to your professional performing arts career. Continuous growth requires timely feedback from dedicated experts who know you personally, understand your goals and challenges, and are deeply invested in your individual success and fulfillment as an artist. Great mentorship identifies your unique talents and growth points and pushes you to explore the fuller range of your creative potential. Artistic mentors offer advice from their own professional experience, steer you away from unproductive practices, and connect you intentionally with relevant resources and opportunities on campus and beyond.
The intimate and supportive culture of the Gustavus Fine Arts community ensures close mentorship and guidance for students throughout their creative journeys. Small class sizes facilitate our theatre and dance faculty to know each student personally, understanding your contributions and skills so they can offer you ideas and experiences that make the most sense for you. Our faculty mentorship culture extends across your fine arts and liberal arts education. Multiple mentorship avenues in different disciplines offer you more perspectives, encouragement, and creative connection opportunities. Whatever captures your interest, your instructors are excited to help you explore and gain experience that builds your theater resume and develops you as an artist, person, and professional.
6. What are the performance and production opportunities?
Whatever your favorite dramatic genre, you benefit from participating in a broad range of productions while in college. A diverse theater resume fosters discovery and cross-pollination in your creative life and bolsters your graduate school or job applications. Check out your prospective school’s past and current performance schedules and inquire about opportunities for student-led projects. See what former students have created and what they have to say about the opportunities that were available to them.
The Gustavus theater department produces four major mainstage shows each school year, spanning a broad range of genres and styles. Many smaller student-directed projects take place throughout the year, often in collaboration with students across the Gustavus fine arts community. Gustavus theater students build strong portfolios through on-campus and off-campus productions, working closely with their faculty advisors to secure professional internships and opportunities aligned with their career goals. Whether reinventing a play so it can go forward under quarantine or producing an American classic for the stage, Gustavus theater students stretch beyond the confines of classic stage production to discover, innovate, and push creative boundaries.
7. How strong is the professional performing arts network?
Your theater education should include diverse performance and production opportunities on campus as well as seamless integration with the wider professional theater community in Minnesota and beyond. Job positions in performing arts are often filled through network connections rather than traditional job listings, so the more relevant industry relationships you form as a student, the better. An excellent college theater program offers student-focused advising tailored to your talents and interests so you’re connected with personally relevant internships aligned to your customized professional development goals. This requires the school to have excellent working relationships with a wide array of performing arts institutions and individuals, both locally and nationally, to ensure you develop the foundational network your career path requires.
Gustavus is located in Saint Peter, Minnesota, an hour from Minneapolis and St. Paul, offering students easy access to a vibrant performing arts scene with world-class theater options. With 40+ years in theater education, our relationships with professional partners and a strong alumni network help us ensure your internships are not merely boxes checked but rich contributions to your creative and professional process. Your theater faculty and advisors are always available and excited to help you make the industry connections that best support your theater goals.
Study theater in Minnesota at Gustavus Adolphus.
Join the vibrant performing arts community at Gustavus, which is committed to creative collaboration and the pursuit of excellence. Hone your artistry and technical skills through rigorous practice under the guidance of experienced professional mentors. Visit our campus and see what makes us one of the premier theatre colleges in Minnesota.
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