Undergraduate FAQ

Our discipline has changed as an artistic practice and as an academic field in the last two decades. Our Department changed its name in 1999 in order to reflect our commitment to offering the best mix of our field’s traditional history and its contemporary innovations.

The term “Theater” marks all of our efforts to support the study and practice of the theatrical event, not only as a form of dramatic literature, but also as an imagistic, gestural, auditory, spatial, and technically complex project. While we have had a dance program for much of our history, the term “Dance” was only recently added to the official name, foregrounding dance practice and dance history as a central player in our Department’s self-definition. And finally, the term “Performance Studies” signals our relationship to one of the most fundamental alterations in the way scholars have re-imagined the “interdisciplinary” nature of performance.

As artists increasingly draw from a range of media—crossing dance and theater, film and dance, theater and new technology—performance studies reflects a commitment to exposing our students to a range of artistic genres. As artists and scholars increasingly imagine themselves in relation to a variety of global and popular performance forms—thinking about the social role of carnivals and festivals, of television and rock concerts, of protests and raves—performance studies reflects our commitment to asking students to see their work in relation to a variety of performance forms in our culture and around the world.

We feel that today’s artistic climate requires a range of artistic skills and a facility between and amongst genres. Additionally, our requirements in history, literature, culture, and theory offer a chance for performers in different sub-fields to see themselves in relation to longer and wider traditions of performance experiment, an experience that reflects on the work of both theater and dance practitioners.

No. Once you are accepted for admission to UC Berkeley, you may study in any department. You are required to take some pre-requisites (a dance/theater course and a performance studies course) before declaring your major. This is to reassure you (and the Department) that you will be able to handle the technical and intellectual work of the coursework. You do audition for individual acting or dance classes each semester, and you do audition to be cast in specific productions.

Our Department is most noted for its critical studies, its cross-disciplinary experimental stage work, and its productions related to social action. It is also known for housing a leading doctoral program in our field and for placing undergraduates in leading M.F.A. programs.

Beyond that, there are no standard rankings for theater/dance programs at American universities. In part, this has to do with the relatively small sizes of most programs and the difficulty of standardizing quality. Even word-of-mouth reputation can be outdated since so many university acting programs that began in the 1960s no longer have the faculty or exact fields of study that established their fame. We are proud to promote cross-disciplinary performance practice and scholarship at one of the leading research universities in the world.

Approximately 300 total majors and minors:

• 100 Theater Majors and 100 Theater Minors
• 50 Dance Majors and 50 Dance Minors

Yes, our courses are open to non-majors, though many fill quite quickly. Some practical classes do require auditions; other over-subscribed courses do give preference to majors.

No. You can fulfill the requirements for the Dance and Performance Studies Major or the Theater and Performance Studies Major in four semesters. To make a plan of study, contact our Undergraduate Advisor at tdpsugadvisor@berkeley.edu

Most all of the units you have taken will transfer into UC Berkeley into your degree from the College of Letters and Science. The only course that regularly transfers into the major, however, is your beginning acting course, taken at a community college or 4-year college. If you took other courses in a 4-year college or abroad, you may transfer into the major up to 8 units of elective credit with courses that are comparable to or complementary to the courses offered here at TDPS. These courses will need to be approved by the Undergraduate Advisor, Faculty Advisor, or the Faculty Member teaching the comparable course.

Some go directly into M.F.A. programs, such as Yale School of Drama, NYU, or Northwestern University; others decide to enter a Theater Studies Ph.D. Program, such as those found at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Northwestern, NYU, or many others throughout the world. Some move to New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco to work as actors, dancers, directors, designers, technicians, or by starting their own group or production company. Others move to Hollywood to work in the film and television community in front of or behind the camera. Still others go into a variety of professions in the social, corporate, legal, and arts sectors.

We are proud of the ways our graduates have used their critical and expressive skills toward successful careers as professional artists in dance, theater, and experimental performance as well as in law, advertising, human resources, publishing, radio, technology, social work, and in all aspects of non-profit and business administration. For a snap-shot of the recent work of our alumni, we invite you to take a look out our annual newsletter and the alumni section of our website.

TDPS students receive regular email updates from the Department with the most current information on auditions, course enrollments, productions, special events and lectures, ticket offers, internships, career opportunities, and more. If you would like to be on the mailing list, please subscribe here.