Bachelor of Fine Arts - Professional Actor Training

Study in the concentration that’s right for you. Our program is designed to give you the skills you need to make a living while making a life in the theatre arts. Explore the concentrations below.

Professional Actor Training. Professional actor training is patterned after a world-famous New York studio, offering training for students interested in the performance of serious plays, comedies and musical theatre. Students receive weekly 18-hour dose of actor training, in addition to sessions with our stage-veteran professors. Actors are taught to work in film and television as well as on stage.

Musical Theatre. Musical theatre training prepares students for competitive entry into the field of commercial, Broadway-style musical theatre. Enjoy courses in acting, music and dance essential to the stage.

Theatre Design and Production. When studying theatre design and production, students work in fully equipped scenery and property shops and studios. Focus areas include scenic design, scenic painting, properties, scenic construction, costume design, costume construction, lighting design and electrics. All the school’s indeed the stage, as design and production students are the key to professional quality work supporting five mainstage performances in the state-of-the-art McGinnis Theatre, multiple performances in the flexible studio theatre, and two performances in a nearby auditorium in support of elementary arts education.

Stage Management. Stage management provides students a concentration in which one learns the skills to work as assistant state managers and stage managers on fully produced mainstage productions, as well as workshop experiences. The concentration accommodates majors who wish to also pursue a secondary interest in acting, design and production or dance.

Theatre for Youth. In this concentration, you will gain comprehensive, intensive training including academics, studio training and performance internships. In this concentration, you’ll work with ECU Storybook Theatre to stage two mainstage productions annually for ECU’s successful Arts Smart and Family Fare series, and you’ll likely tour these productions to regional theatres. ECU Storybook Theatre also takes repertory literacy-theatre programming into rural schools across eastern North Carolina, motivating students and enhancing media center usage after every visit. Additionally, Theatre for Youth students participate in the Global Classroom Initiative, partnering with universities in countries including Peru and Russia to extend their understanding of and exposure to children’s theatre and cultures around the world.