About The Department

The Department of Dramatic Arts (DART) at Brock University’s Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts is home to one of the most comprehensive and innovative programs for theatre studies in the country. With high calibre instruction by award-winning faculty, students experience intensive studio training from their first year in the program. This studio training is combined with a progressive core curriculum in the cultural histories and theories of theatre and performance, production and design practices, and applied theatre and drama in education approaches. Students benefit from one-on-one instruction in a small, supportive community modeled on the collaborative nature of theatre creation and production.

Two main stage productions each year in the grand Sean O’ Sullivan theatre, in addition to a variety of class outcomes, independent productions, student-driven festivals, showcases, and internships with professional companies, provide ample opportunity for students to test and expand their studies and take creative risks with audiences drawn from the broader professional theatre and the surrounding St Catharine's and Niagara communities.

With its signature emphasis on “praxis,” an approach that integrates theory and practice, the program fosters future artist-scholars and educators with a diverse skill set. Students develop the creative and critical capacities that make them equally comfortable in a rehearsal hall, lecture hall, or classroom. In the DART program, these do not represent distinct rooms with divergent approaches to theatre; instead the work in each is cross-pollinated and synthesized, fuelling thoughtful, creative devising and intellectual inquiry.

DART’s praxis-oriented students move fluidly and confidently through a range of disciplines, preparing them for a variety of fields. Graduates have gone on to pursue successful professional careers in acting, directing, playwriting, arts administration, design and production, and education as exceptionally trained secondary and post-secondary school teachers. Our alumni have also won scholarships to continue their studies in graduate theatre and performance studies programs.

Students can choose from a variety of concentrations of study:

• Applied Theatre and Drama in Education
• Performance
• Production and Design
• Theatre Praxis

The program offers a four-year Honours Bachelor of Arts degree with a chosen concentration of study, a four-year Honours B.A. degree without a specific concentration of study, as well as a three-year BA or pass degree. Non-majors can acquire a Minor in Dramatic Arts or receive a Certificate in Drama in Education. There are also concurrent BA /Bachelor of Education, Combined Major (Dramatic Arts and another subject), and Co-op Honours degree programs.

Admissions Process: please see the How to Apply page for important information.