Theatre
The Hollins theatre program was named as one of the “Great College Theaters” by The Princeton Review, and has won multiple Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Awards, including their highest honor, the Gold Medallion.
In May 2019, OnStage Blog, which covers theatre on an international level, named Hollins Theatre as the top undergraduate theatre program in Virginia.
Hollins’ nationally recognized theatre program allows students to identify and apply their own strengths. We help each student write, design, build, direct, and star in the most important play on the planet: their life.
Tracks
Major
Theatre major students at Hollins take part in every aspect of theatre production. This includes acting, musical theatre, design, directing, stage management, and technical production. The theatre major has a flexible structure allowing students to focus in one of three areas: acting/directing, design/technology, playwriting/history/dramaturgy or any combination of these three. It’s also designed to make it easy to double major.
Minor
The minor is compatible with many other majors. These include business, communication studies, dance, English, film, history, and philosophy.
Facilities
Our charming 550-seat proscenium theatre is remarkably intimate with:
- A flexible front-apron configuration
- Automated rigging system
- Fully equipped scenery and costume shops
- Design studio, makeup studio, and light lab
- A 99-seat black box theatre and acting studio
- Sound, projection, and computer lab
What You'll Learn
Finding One's Voice
[Theatre] alumnae have gone out into the world and done incredible work, and then they get to come back and bring that love of Hollins and love of theatre. For students, that truly has an impact. I hope one day they’ll bring me back as a sound designer.
Anna Johnson, who won the Kennedy Center Award for Excellence in Sound Design, a national honorA Home Away From Home
Decision Height*, a play written by Meredith Dayna Levy, received the Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award, along with numerous citations of excellence by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). Meredith, who graduated from Hollins’ M.F.A. program in playwriting in 2018, has had similar success with her play, Coupler. It won KCACTF’s “Distinguished Production of New Work” award. She Made Space, which Meredith both wrote and performed, was featured at the 2019 North Carolina Women’s Theatre Festival, an event that champions gender parity, diversity, and inclusion in the American theatre. “I could not have asked for a more beautifully supportive and constructive development process than that which [the faculty] and my undergraduate and graduate peers so generously provided,” Meredith says. “I feel really lucky to have had that support so early in my playwriting career.”
Triple Talent
Susanna Young is acting, directing, and choreographing around the country with several companies, including Skypilot Theatre, Creating Arts Company, and the Academic of New Musical Theatre, and teaching theatre and dance in southwest and central Virginia. She regularly returns to Hollins to serve as guest director, choreographer, actor, and acting instructor. Susie holds a B.A. in theatre and a graduate certificate in New Play Directing.
