Theatre

The NMSA Theatre Department offers a diversified and rigorous curriculum that fosters independent thinking in a challenging and creative community to prepare emerging artists for higher education and professions in the theater arts for stage, film and television.

The program focuses on developing the art of storytelling through practice and performance. Students learn their role as artists in creating a narrative, understanding the scope and sequence of developing characters and performances, and their personal expression as part of the larger whole.

Students gain the basic physical, vocal, and mental techniques necessary to develop and maintain believable characters in a variety of styles and genres. They explore movement, vocal styles, and systems of character development, textual analysis, playwriting, directing, theater history, monologues, and college audition preparation. The program focuses on developing the complete performer through exploration, exercises, improvisation, scene study, and performances.

The department follows a conservatory style of cohort training and is on a trimester schedule. Programming is sequenced to begin with the fundamentals of voice, body and mind, and moves towards mastery of a number of skills and techniques over a four-year course of study. By the end of their studies, students will have acquired 1,980 hours of classroom instruction, as well as additional production experience.