Program Overview

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Theatre & Performance Program

The Theatre & Performance program at Simon Fraser University develops artists and thinkers capable of working across a wide range of professional disciplines. Our graduates continue to create new works of theatre and performance seen on stages around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires—as well as lead arts festivals, act in film and television, run high school drama programs, develop video games, practice art therapy, hold political office, and shape the world’s future inside and outside the arts.

Unlike any other program in Canada, ours expands traditional theatre training to include the study of collaborative methods, contemporary performance, original storytelling styles, new media, and creative research. Supporting this vision, our permanent faculty maintain professional practices at the forefront of international touring, scholarly research, and teaching.

Program Information

In addition to taking multiple studio courses and developing public performances for live audiences, students cultivate critical thinking and writing skills, are encouraged to enroll in courses from other faculties (e.g., Sociology, English, Urban Studies, Anthropology), engage in various artistic disciplines (Dance, Film, Visual Art, and Music), and participate in professional work placements with external organizations—all with the intent of creating wide-ranging performance makers and thinkers.

In their fourth year of the Major, each student works with the core faculty to develop a final capstone project that is publicly performed in a festival setting attended by creative leaders from across Vancouver. This unique opportunity allows students to synthesize their four years of advanced training into original works that continue to be programmed in the professional community and beyond.

Our studio and hybrid studio-seminar courses serve eight core-curricular groupings:

Curriculum

• Live Acts: Our Live Acts studio courses offer students a wide variety of experimental, interdisciplinary, topical, and formally specific techniques and concepts rooted in liveness as central to the medium of performance. Past topics: Ordinary Acts, Failure, Queer Acts, Persona Making. CA 151, 152, 251, 252.
• Body: Across these studio courses, the ‘body’ is examined and deployed as a primary material for devising contemporary performance. Past topics: Body Art, Endurance Art, Durational Performance, Butoh, Physical Theatre. CA 254, 255.
• Environments: With a focus on the experiential production of space in and through performance making, students research, experiment, and create original art works in response to specific environments. Past topics: site specificity, immersive forms, staged ecologies. CA 256, 356.
• Social: As two successive courses taken over one year, our Social studio courses provide upper-level students with an introduction to a spectrum of creative strategies and practices that engage a wider public and consider political and social issues. Past topics: Collaboration, Participation, Social Practice, Activist Performance. CA 354, 355.
• Context: These hybrid studio-seminar courses offer students a variety of historical and theoretical topics related to the fields of theatre studies, performance studies, and contemporary art, with a specific focus on research-creation. Past topics: Histories and Theories of Avant Garde Performance, Between Theatre & Performance, The Postmodern Body, Postrdamatic Theatre. CA 257W, 357W.
• Co-Lab: A student-led, hands-on, laboratory for the creation of collaborative and public-facing performances. CA 253.
• Performance as Research: Each year, a faculty member leads students through two courses of creative research as related to their unique artist practice. The first serves as a pure research and creation period, and the second continues that research, then culminates in a public-facing performance and/or event. CA 350, 450.
• Capstone Projects: Over two consecutive courses, fourth-year students review and develop their emergent performance practice into a final Capstone Project. By asking students to integrate research-creation methods and the broad range of techniques from their interdisciplinary studios, this pair of courses provides a platform for final-year students to critically and creatively articulate their individual methodologies for contemporary performance and create a public-facing performance or event. The Capstone Projects are designed to help students develop a professional portfolio of creative work, and to reflect on broader issues of professionalization, before entering any number of creative fields and industries available to contemporary performance makers. CA 451, 452.

Undergraduate Program Options

The Theatre & Performance area offers the following programs:

• Major in Theatre & Performance (BFA)
• Honours in Theatre & Performance (BFA)
• Extended Minor in Theatre & Performance
• Minor in Theatre & Performance

The Extended Minor will follow the first three years of the Theatre & Performance Major and is ideal for students interested in developing a range of theatre and performance-making skills, including acting, writing, and directing, while completing another program of study at SFU. Extended Minor students who become interested in completing the fourth year of the Theatre & Performance program may transfer into the Major program should they choose.

The Minor in Theatre & Performance is an ideal program of study for students from across SFU interested in integrating theatre and performance-making strategies into their own career trajectories as tools for community building and collaboration; creative expression; and innovative thinking. At 30 units, the Minor is also designed for individuals seeking the minimum number of credits needed for a second teachable subject for entry into the Faculty of Education’s Professional Development Program (PDP).

Langara (Studio 58) to SFU Block Transfer Agreement

This custom interschool relationship will allow graduates of Langara's Studio 58 Acting program to transfer 60 credits to SFU, complete an additional 60 credits of primarily third- and fourth-year courses at SFU, and obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree over four semesters (16 months).

Each January, a small cohort of Studio 58 graduates will be admitted into the third year of the Theatre & Performance program to complete a series of studio-based performance classes, including the fourth-year Capstone courses CA 451 and CA 452. Admission to the program is contingent on a written application and interview process.

All applicants must have completed their diploma with a cumulative GPA of 2.6.

FAQs

• What makes this program different from your average theatre program?
  • As a Theatre & Performance program housed within a contemporary art school—and as the only program of its kind in Canada—our curriculum emphasizes experimental performance making over traditional theatre or actor training. Through rigorous studio experimentation and live performance practice, our students gain the practical, technical, conceptual, and professional skills necessary to establish themselves as contemporary artists.
• What can I do with a BFA in Theatre & Performance?
  • BFA graduates from the Theatre & Performance program have gone on to act in film and television; create new contemporary works of performance that have toured around the world; design commercial video games; release music records; publish experimental writing; produce national and international festivals; run not-for-profits; secure teaching positions in universities, colleges, high schools, and elementary schools; establish professional theatre companies—the list goes on and on.
• Will I have opportunities to be on stage?
  • Absolutely. The Theatre & Performance BFA is designed to provide students with opportunities to stage their own work as well as collaborate on productions with faculty and invited artists, both local and international.
• What does being part of an interdisciplinary program actually mean?
  • Being part of an interdisciplinary program means we encourage collaboration across all the disciplines at the SCA. Practically, this means many of our classes are also open to students from the Music, Visual Art, Music and Sound, Film and Art, Performance and Cinema Studies programs.
• Is there financial support available to Theatre & Performance BFA students?
  • Yes! There are a number of scholarships, awards, and bursaries available to all students at the SCA.

Alumni Highlights

• Amanda Sum, T&P BFA ‘20
• Derek Chan, T&P BFA ‘10
• Samantha Walters, T&P BFA ‘22
• Milton Lim, T&P BFA ‘21
• Arthi Chandra, T&P BFA ‘20
• Alexa Fraser, T&P BFA ‘18
• Conor Wylie, T&P BFA ‘13
• Pedro Chamale, T&P BFA ‘10
• Keely O'Brien, T&P BFA ‘16
• Jay Dodge, T&P BFA ‘96
• Andrea Donaldson, T&P BFA ‘02

Events

The Theatre & Performance area develops and presents many events throughout the academic year, from 'black box' experiments to larger 'mainstage' productions.

Fei & Milton Wong Experimental Theatre

Designed as one of Vancouver’s largest black box spaces, the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre is a site for contemporary dance, theatre, concerts, and other performances. The venue features a balcony on three sides with flexible seating below that can be arranged in the round or in a more conventional setup – or even no seating at all. The Assembly Area is connected to the theatre by a retractable guillotine door that can also serve as a stage with a proscenium arch.