About Us
Why Study Theatre Arts and Dance at Sonoma State?
The role of performance in our society is changing radically: at the same time that we live increasingly atomized, digitized lives, the hunger for connection through live performance as a compliment or even antidote, has become acute. Dance and Theatre are a bridge between communities, and are therefore vital to both society at large and to the life of the university.
To book a visit to the Department of Theatre Arts & Dance, contact Department Chair Christine Cali.
You can also book a University Tour, find out about Applying for Admission, Financial Aid, and Scholarships.
The Department of Theatre Arts and Dance:
- Teaches performance and theatrical storytelling as a liberal art, providing a layered skill set with applications to many fields. This provides a unique and for many students new opportunity to integrate the visceral embodiment of experience with the act of intellectual learning.
- Instructs via classroom and performance facilities that include a 475-seat proscenium theatre, 100-seat hybrid classroom/performance space, a 50-seat black box studio theatre, 2 dance studios, and an amphitheater.
- Works in collaboration with the Green Music Center, the campus’s world-class arts presenter, to give students access to workshops and performances with world class artists in dance, theatre, and music.
- Sends students on to regional and national festivals, internships, residencies and careers with renown performing arts institutions including United States Institute of Theatre Technology (USITT), American College Dance Association (ACDA), American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.), Magic Theatre, SF Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, San Francisco Dance Film Fest., Marin Theatre Company, Lincoln Center Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, American Dance Festival, ODC Dance, Bates Dance Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Eugene O’Neill Festival, Glimmerglass Opera Festival, Goodman Theatre, Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival, A Red Orchid Theatre, Disneyworld, Hulu, Orion Pictures, and NBC. Students go on to pursue MFA degrees at top-tier Universities including NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The New School, Mills College, and Shakespeare Theatre Company.
- Students who choose to pursue careers outside of the performing arts capitalize on the training Theatre Arts & Dance gives them in critical thinking, verbal and written expression, group dynamics, organization, and problem-solving. Students can go on to a wide range of careers ranging from sales to law to teaching to management.