Theatre (General Studies)

Every production or project–on stage, screen, or in the community–needs those who understand how all the pieces fit. Artists like that carry diverse knowledge and the skills to speak across fields to unify a creative team. If you want to be that person, Virginia Tech's General Theatre option gives you the foundation to do it.

You'll build a grounding across the art form: script analysis, acting, production design, directing, and the history of theatre and cinema. From there, you shape the degree around your goals with courses such as Stage and Lighting Technology, Cinema Production, and many more.

Along the way, you're learning by doing. You'll work in our scene and costume shops, crew productions, and collaborate with actors, directors, designers, and technicians the way professionals do. And with room in your electives, you can easily add a second major or minor in whatever field beyond the theatre that you’re drawn to. Theatre General graduates leave with a broad understanding of how and why theatre and film are made, and with the leadership and collaborative experience necessary to guide that work.

Learn more about Theatre (General Studies)

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.