Drama and Theatre Arts (BA)

About this programme

The undergraduate theatre major is housed in the Barnard College Department of Theatre, and is offered to all undergraduate Barnard College, Columbia College, and General Studies students (the Columbia major is designated “Drama and Theatre Arts”). The major program engages the disciplines of drama, theatre, and performance studies as a distinctive mode of intellectual and artistic inquiry. While Barnard and Columbia students fulfill the overall graduation requirements at their respective institutions (the Core at Columbia, Foundations at Barnard), major requirements are the same for all majors, who take foundational coursework in the literary, cultural, and embodied traditions of western and non-Western performance as well as courses in the practices of acting, directing, design, dramaturgy, playwriting, and management and technical theatre. All majors then specialize in a specific area and undertake advanced thesis work, leading either to a formal essay of original research, or to an artistic project (in acting, design, directing, dramaturgy, playwriting, solo performance, or stage and production management) that combines the practices of research and artistic creation. Barnard and Columbia students receive their degrees from their respective colleges of Columbia University.