Once every four years, a group of exceptionally talented students is selected for admission to the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) for three years of conservatory training leading to the Master of Fine Arts degree. This group is carefully selected through an extensive search conducted throughout the United States in the year between the graduation of one class and the beginning of the next class.
Because there is only one class enrolled at any one time, the faculty is able to focus its full energies – as well as the program’s entire time, space and budget – toward fulfilling the potential of each member of this select group.
The PTTP is specifically designed to train for the stage, where human, rather than electronic, energy is the medium of communication.
Training is focused on plays from the classic repertoire and the PTTP seeks students with a particular commitment to, and appetite for, the classics.
The Acting curriculum combines rigorous studio classwork with extensive rehearsal and performance experience to develop:
- An extraordinary level of skill in the craft of acting for the
stage;
- The habits of discipline which support these skills;
- A reliable access to creativity, imagination, and self-expression;
- The strength and stamina necessary to fulfill the demands of
classic plays within even the most challenging of circumstances;
- The business knowledge and contacts necessary to begin a career
in the professional theatre.
Throughout the training:
- Students are engaged in rehearsal or performance at virtually all times, and each student is always at work on a substantial role in a current or upcoming production. Over the course of the three years of training, students play a wide variety of substantial roles in classic and modern plays.
- Specialty areas such as make-up, period dance, dialects, singing,
and acrobatics are offered by prominent guest artists and teachers.
- Ample opportunities are provided for each student to audition
for professional employment. (In years one and two, this is directed
toward summer employment).
- Actors develop the capacity to function effectively as ensemble
members, which supports their working with others, regardless
of training and background, in ways which elicit cooperation
and bring forth community.
Three Year Curriculum
