Baylor University

The Baylor University Theatre Arts Department is recognized as one of the top-tier undergraduate theatre programs in the country, blending a rigorous liberal arts foundation with intensive creative training. Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre, the department enrolls around 130 undergraduate majors and graduate directing students, ensuring personalized instruction and strong faculty–student collaboration. Baylor offers a range of degrees including a BA in Theatre Arts, BFAs in Theatre Performance (including a Musical Theatre concentration) and Design & Technology, as well as graduate degrees such as an MA and MFA in Directing.

Academically, students take courses in acting, theatre history and dramatic literature, directing, design technology, audition preparation, and theatre business practices. Specialized offerings include playwriting, stage combat, tap dance, and acting for camera. Both BFA in Performance and Design tracks emphasize professional-level skills—actors receive training in Shakespeare, realism, voice, movement, and audition technique, while designers gain hands‑on experience in lighting, scenery, costume, and props from concept to execution.

Students are deeply engaged in production from their first semester, joining technical crews and auditioning for multiple weekly workshop performances. The department mounts approximately eight fully staged main productions per year, covering a mix of Shakespeare, contemporary theatre, and musicals, most of which are entirely produced and executed by students. A unique highlight is the biennial Baylor New Play Initiative, a playwright-focused festival providing workshops, presentations, panels, and a $15,000 Kirk Prize to support emerging voices in theatre.

Baylor’s facilities are state-of-the-art and include the Bill Cook and Pat Cook Annex within the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Complex. The department features three performance spaces: the 356-seat Jones Theatre (proscenium), 246-seat Mabee Theatre (thrust stage), and the flexible Theatre 11 black-box/multi-form venue. These are supported by dedicated costume and scenic shops, a design/computer lab, rehearsal studios, classrooms, and a box office—offering students real-world training in environments that support both intimate and grand-scale production values