THEATRE ASSESSMENT SITE

Introduction to the Theatre Program

The theatre arts programs at Seaver College have been ranked by OnStage as #2 in the nation's B.A. in Theatre Programs. Our theatre arts majors become prepared for careers in acting, directing, media production, music, and production design by teaching students the professional skills needed for real-world application. Our students help shape the cultural environment at Seaver College by participating in University productions in our state-of-the-art facilities.

About the Theatre Program

We offer a bachelor of arts in theatre arts, a bachelor of arts in theatre and media production, a bachelor of arts in theatre and music, and a secondary teaching credential.

Our theatre program faculty are committed to training, encouraging, testing, and ultimately challenging our students to achieve a higher level of artistry. We do so because we understand the potential for live theatre to serve as an agent of social change. Our students leave Pepperdine aware of their purpose as theatre artists, ready to serve their communities through meaningful, high-caliber performances, and prepared to lead their peers in creating art that has the power to change lives, hearts, and minds.

Our focus is undergraduate training. Through a rigorous audition and interview process, we enroll approximately 75 theatre majors across the program's three degree offerings and five subject specializations: acting; directing; technical production and design; theatre and music; and theatre and media production.

History of the Theatre Program

Pepperdine University’s first theatre program was part of the Department of Speech and Drama on the original Los Angeles campus. With the opening of the Malibu campus in 1972, the department was dissolved, and the theatre program was incorporated into the Communication Division, where it remained until the creation of the Fine Arts Division in 1990. Today, the Fine Arts Division includes programs in studio art, art history, music, and theatre. Although it is now separate from the Communication Division, the theatre program maintains a connection with its former home through the joint Theatre and Media Production major, which was first offered in the fall of 2002. 

In the early days on the Malibu campus, the theatre program produced plays in a variety of spaces including the cafeteria and the amphitheatre. Smothers Theatre opened in 1980, providing the itinerant program a permanent home. The inaugural production in the four hundred fifty-seat, proscenium arch venue was West Side Story, and for more than a decade, the theatre program would mount four productions per year in Smothers Theatre. With the completion of the Helen E. Lindhurst Theatre, a flexible space with seating for one hundred spectators, in 1991, the production schedule was divided between the two venues. The fall musical and the spring play are now produced in Smothers Theatre, while two smaller productions are mounted in October and January in the Lindhurst Theatre. In recent years, a fifth production – a fully-mounted opera produced in conjunction with the music program – has been added to the regular production season on the Smothers stage. A third venue, the Mini Theatre, is located in the Pendleton Learning Center (PLC) and can accommodate an audience of fifty. Renovated in 2001, the Mini Theatre is used for classes in acting and directing and is the main venue for student directed productions.

Quality Assurance: Each degree program should employ sufficient faculty such that there is a capacity to design and deliver the curriculum (CFR 2.5). Curriculum design and implementation should involve evaluation, improvement, and promotion of student learning and success (CFR 2.5). Thus, faculty are responsible to exercise effective academic leadership on a consistent basis to ensure that the program's quality and educational purposes are upheld (CFR 2.6). Student support and co-curricular programs and services of sufficient nature, scope, and capacity go hand-in-hand with the degree programs for promoting students' academic, personal, and professional development (CFR 2.13).  - WSCUC 2023 Handbook, Standard 2