Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2020 - 44

change, still slightly down. Growth or
decline in other design or visual fine arts
programs generally parallel that of theatre by these criteria.
Catalog changes and enrollment
trends at individual institutions reveal
some of the innovative strategies adopted
to respond to enrollment or administrative pressures. Stacking classes with
students of varying skill levels is one way
to limit low enrolled sections. This can
also mean combining advanced undergraduates with early graduate coursework. This approach, like many others
indicated in the catalogs examined, presents both accreditation and pedagogical
challenges. Generalized design classes
where subfields (e.g., lighting, scenic and
costume design) are taught together in a
single course are increasing in frequency.
There are also expansions in practicum
course descriptions, which indicate that
former classroom skills instruction is
now being wrapped into production
work. A few programs are inviting partnerships with commercial design or fine
art programming, particularly fashion design with costume and digital art/multimedia and drafting classes that combine
students of a variety of disciplines. These
partnerships are still relatively rare,
though the increase since 2010 is clear.
Only 10 of the 125 programs reviewed did not make curriculum changes
that were readily recognized in the catalogs. Overall, 74 programs increased
design and production courses, credits,
majors, or degree track options and 41
programs reduced curricular options. In
the 25 programs that declined the most,
as measured by completions, 14 made
additions to production/design curricular options and 11 made reductions. All
made some kind of change. For the top
25 programs gaining in annual completions, 17 made additions, five made reductions, and three made no changes, as
measured by the formula. For this subset,
only one of the institutions made more
than very modest reductions, and higher
volume programs were more likely to
make curriculum additions, with their average completions per year increasing by
16 to 22 from 2010 levels.
In general, catalog examinations related to this project support the assertion
that current curriculum is far more theatre-centric than the careers of students
are likely to be. The majority of students

Program Enrollment Trends
520

550

492

453

412.5

515

462

434
358

330

275

243

137.5

THEATRE

Growing Enrollment

DESIGN/VISUAL COMMUNICATION

Stable Enrollment

are not making their living in the theatre.
Yet, the overwhelming majority of the
programs reviewed required no courses
outside of theatre as part of the major.
Although interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary course requirements or options
appear more often in recent catalogs,
these approaches remain decidedly the
exceptions to the rule. Courses required
outside of theatre, most commonly included visual fine arts, communication,
visual/media design, and business. There
were also few instances of literature, engineering, and technical writing courses
identified as requirements specific to the
major or emphasis.
There is also a challenge of volume
to consider. At many institutions, there
are no longer enough visual fine arts majors with which to offer partnered courses. Of the 1,498 institutions that reported
fine arts completions in this time period,
more than one third (513) had five or fewer completions per year. Though this is
better than the theatre rate, where more
than half of all programs produce fewer
than five completions per year, these fine
arts numbers are not enough to support
the perception of long-term viability by
today's commonly applied tests for program health. Even in times of relative
strength, the visual fine arts have historically been a rather passive ally. We share
many values, as well as a tangible creative
kinship, but curricular integration has
not been formalized at most institutions
and did not register to any great extent in
the programs examined. Only one course
per program was required as part of the
theatre major, on average, and only a few
programs showed a significant level of
interdisciplinary requirements. Although
there have been some recent attempts at

44 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | WINTER 2020

VISUAL FINE ART

Declining Enrollment

expanding partnerships, drawing for theatre is clearly treated at most institutions
as a separate skill set than drawing for
the fine arts major.
Significantly moving the dial on
number of majors or completions may
require resources or cooperative endeavors outside the immediate control of departmental faculty. Though most theatre
programs participate directly in recruiting efforts, they may not be in control
of marketing and may have only limited
capacity to incentivize enrollment though
scholarships. Interdisciplinary partnerships can be complicated by traditional
allegiances and internal politics and
competing views of what may or may not
draw students can stall decision making.
However, attempts to increase the number of students enrolled in specific course
sections can be more easily implemented
and there are a number of examples of
curricular innovation (or manipulation)
in evidence in the catalogs examined.

There's No Business Like Show
Business (Annie Get Your Gun,
1946)

We must not let institutional traditions
and degree labeling limit our ability to
imagine interdisciplinary partnerships
or training programs. It would be dangerous to assume that a BFA actor and a
BFA costume designer are completely interchangeable in a professional context.
Yet, they are completely indistinguishable
in the way the degrees are labeled and
reported at most institutions. Although a
BFA costume designer may not be completely interchangeable with a BFA fashion designer in a parallel scenario, it is
considerably more likely that they have
more in common as far as marketable

Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2020

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