Students are accepted to major in performance (acting) or technical design theater arts. Actors study acting technique and text analysis, improvisation, movement and voice. Design students study play analysis, research, drafting, rendering, painting, carpentry and state management. An emphasis is placed on the student's creative problem solving and knowledge of language, ideas and culture. All students participate in daily warm-up exercises.

Students are accepted to major in performance (acting) or technical design theater arts. Actors study acting technique and text analysis, improvisation, movement and voice. Design students study play analysis, research, drafting, rendering, painting, carpentry and state management. An emphasis is placed on the student's creative problem solving and knowledge of language, ideas and culture. All students participate in daily warm-up exercises.

Performance Theater
The PGSA theater department’s goals for performance majors include fostering creative growth, developing interpretive and critical powers, building a knowledge of dramatic literature, and strengthening performance and verbal skills. This is achieved through three areas of instruction and performance activities that integrate the skills and knowledge developed in class.

Acting Technique and Text Analysis
Acting is understood as an active task of doing and responding, not as mere emoting. The Governor’s School applies the fundamentals of the Stanislavskian approach to creating and performing a role. Through “personalization,” actors learn to seek, touch off, and reveal their own genuine experience of life within the context of theatrical expression Students work towards specificity, active choices, and active listening/responding to a scene partner. Through “characterization,” study the outer specifics of behavior arising from cultural and societal demands and the inner dynamics of basic drives and personal objectives. Students study scenes from published plays to improve play-reading skills, and learn rehearsal techniques.

Movement and Voice Training
The actor’s tools are the body and voice functioning together. The Governor’s School strives to develop awareness of the body’s own expressive language and how it is connected to the imagination, spirit and emotional world of the creative performer. Individual and group exercises emphasize technique and improvisation. All students participate in physically vigorous routine warm-up exercises.

Improvisation
Improvisation is the art of creating a story while acting it out. The Governor’s School introduces improvisation as a tool to be used in creation, with or without text. It is not the same type of improvisation associated with comic entertainment. The principles of ensemble work are emphasized as crucial to a scene’s success, and exercises focus on trust, the structure of improvisation, spontaneity, story telling and the creation of character.

Ensemble Practicum, Rehearsals and Performance

Original Work
In the third week of the program, students present a series of original “sight-specific” performances. Working in ensembles, they identify a site on campus and integrate it into the dramatic context of pieces they create based on their experiences and exercises in the three instructional areas: improvisation and masks, movement and storytelling, and improvisation and personal narrative. The audience rotates to the three separate sites to view the performances.

Whole Ensemble Practicum
Drawing on their course work in scene work, movement and voice training, dramaturgical research and text analysis, all acting students working together explore a classic dramatic work and present their own version.

Theater Design/Technical Theory
The PGSA theater design program includes a combination of classroom and production projects aimed at developing design and technical skills. All students pursue set design and lighting. Students use Computer-Assisted Design (CAD) and rendering software, focusing on technology as a design and visualization tool. Design students practice design, technical skills, stage management, set construction, electrician and perform crew work in coordination with the actors’ performance pieces. In addition to learning to adapt to unique, non-traditional site-specific challenges, design students have the opportunity to work in a large, state-of-the-art performing arts center for the traditional text presentation and the interdepartmental and dance department presentations. Together, the design students conceive and build all design elements for the presentation of a classic text in the whole ensemble practicum. Each student has an opportunity to function as stage manager, lighting designer, sound operator, and stage crew during the five weeks.

Schedule and Performances
The PGSA theater major is physically as well as artistically demanding. Students are in warm-ups, class and rehearsals from 8 a.m. until 11:30, Monday through Saturday, and again in afternoon or evening blocks of time, Monday through Friday. Theater students stage two major presentations during the five weeks that run from 9:15 until 10:45 p.m. on their respective nights. They also contribute scenes and monologues to the Friday night interdepartmental programs. Additionally, Technical Theater Design students work on the interdepartmental productions.