Theatre Design

BUILDING WORLDS

Sets, costumes, lighting, projections, sound, stage management… all contribute to the creative world of a production or project. The Design track of Virginia Tech’s Theatre major offers the training you need to develop and refine your skills in creating such elements.

Courses such as Stage and Lighting Technology, Costume Design, and Sound Design, among others, will build your foundational knowledge, alongside hands-on work backstage and in costume and scene shops. Advanced courses such as Scene Painting & Sculpting and Special Effects Makeup, as well as opportunities to work on theatre, cinema, and dance productions, allow you to go deep and bring your envisioned designs to life.

In this track, you're not just learning design, you're learning how a project comes together among its many elements to become holistic and impactful. Requirements in the Design track are complemented by courses in script analysis, directing, acting, and run crew opportunities, so you’ll leave knowing how to work with directors, performers, and technicians. These are the capabilities and diverse experiences that theatre companies, film productions, and live events producers look for.

Learn more about Theatre Design

A close community at a big school

We're a close-knit theatre program in a huge university; this will give you the best of both worlds. Your professors will know you by name and provide you with real hands-on time in our shops and on our productions, not just a seat in the back of a big lecture hall. At the same time, Virginia Tech's size opens doors to professional opportunities that small arts schools can't. Theatre students do undergraduate research, work on transdisciplinary projects with students in engineering, architecture, and creative technologies, and build double majors that pair design with fashion, computer science with theatre technology, business with arts leadership, or anything else that interests them. If you want to double major, we'll help you make it happen.

Our faculty are working designers and technicians who will guide you in the design studio, coach you as you build your portfolio, and advocate for you in the working world well after graduation. As history has taught us in the Theatre program, the people you share the shop and the production table with could become the partners you collaborate with for years to come.

WHY VIRGINIA TECH?

Virginia Tech's Theatre Program is a creative home built on collaboration, community, and hands-on training.

Here, you're part of an ensemble of actors, directors, designers, technicians, managers, and community-builders who support each other’s growth and live out Virginia Tech's motto Ut Prosim (“That I May Serve”) every day.

From your first semester, you'll learn by doing in your courses, rehearsals, shops, and performances. Add the flexibility to double major in theatre and other programs at VT, and you'll build a skill set that creates opportunities across the arts and entertainment world, in commercial and nonprofit settings alike. Think professional theatre, film and television, live events, arts administration, community-based organizations, entrepreneurial endeavors, or whatever your VT education enables you to imagine.

You’re a performer. Take creative risks, hone your craft, and graduate ready for a career onstage, backstage, and beyond.

Where we create