Student Opportunities
Theatre Arts Department
The Theatre Arts Department allows each and every student opportunities to actively participate in academics, productions, and student organizations from the first day of the semester. Our students are some of the most involved and active across campus. Our tight-knit group of faculty, students, and staff work together to produce main-stage productions, student performances, and, most importantly, academic assignments and projects.
Student opportunities in theatre range from acting, design, scenic construction, dramatic writing, properties, costume construction, lighting, and stage management. Auditions for acting in productions are open to everyone–Theatre Arts majors, Boise State Students, and the general public.
2024-2025 Production Season
October 18-November 3, 2024
Nightfall with Edgar Allan Poe
By Eric Coble
Edgar Allan Poe stands alone in the flickering darkness of his mind, trying desperately to convince himself — and us — that he’s not mad. The spell he weaves brings us a highly theatrical adaptation of four tales Poe himself considered his best: “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Enter the world of Poe and check your heartbeat at the door.
October 24, 2024
Horoscope
By Rajiv Joseph
Come celebrate the exciting partnership between the Boise State Theatre Program and the Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency with a premiere reading of a new play, “Horoscope,” by Rajiv Joseph. The Theatre Arts Program at Boise State University is thrilled to collaborate with Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency to connect our community with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Rajiv Joseph and director May Adrales, both extraordinarily talented and nationally recognized theatre artists. This unique cross-community collaboration will unite theatre artists and organizations from Boise, the Wood River Valley, and New York City. Free and open to the public, the reading will be generously hosted by Boise Contemporary Theater.
March 7-16, 2025
They Promised Her the Moon
By Laurel Ollstein
The first American woman to test for space flight, Jerrie Cobb, steps into an isolation tank for a record-breaking nine hours. Her memories unfold before her, from learning to fly a plane as a child in Oklahoma to testifying in Congressional hearings about the under-the-radar all-female Mercury 13 space program. A compelling drama about the challenges of sisterhood and fighting for the greater good, “They Promised Her the Moon” is based on a fascinating true story that shines a light on the unknown stories of our space progam.
April 11-27, 2025
The Little Prince
By Rick Cummins and John Scoullar from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Little Prince may have returned to his own tiny planet to tend his Rose and look after his Sheep, but for a short enchanted time he returns to us and comes alive on stage. This play tells the story of a world-weary and disenchanted Aviator whose sputtering plane strands him in the Sahara Desert, and a mysterious, regal “little man” who appears and asks him to “Please, sir, draw me a sheep.” During their two weeks together in the desert, the Little Prince tells the Aviator about his adventures through the galaxy, how he met the Lamplighter and the Businessman and the Geographer, and about his strained relationship with a very special flower on his own tiny planet. The Little Prince talks to everyone he meets: a garden of roses, the Snake, and a Fox who wishes to be tamed. From each he gains a unique insight which he shares with the Aviator: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.” “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” At length, both the “little man” and the Aviator must go home—each with a new understanding of how to laugh, cry, and love again.
Gallery
The Theatre program at Boise State provides theoretical and practical courses in a variety of areas, all within a liberal arts-based environment. The program also produces plays and dance concerts each year that train our majors in every aspect of production.
These performances challenge and educate our students and provide cultural enrichment to the community at large. The program strives to prepare graduates to work in the entertainment industry, to study theatre or dance at the graduate level, or to achieve certification to teach drama. Accredited Institutional Member of the National Association of Schools of Theatre.