Performances & Events
Enjoy the Creativity of DU Theatre Students
Each quarter, the DU Department of Theatre puts on two productions, built and acted by our theatre majors. The department collaborates with professional guest artists who bring their outside expertise and experience to help students grow creatively.
Shows are performed at DU's JMAC Studios, Byron Flexible Theatre and Byron Studio. Spring quarter is dedicated to the Short Play Festival, which features one-act plays directed by graduating theatre majors.
Current Season
September 28, 2024
Defying Gravity, staged reading
by Jane Anderson
This free-structured look at the 1986 Challenger disaster, in which a teacher and six others died as they hurtled into space, explores our need to reach beyond ourselves and dare the universe.
Directed by Erin Kubat
This is a free show. No ticket required.
- 7:30pm
- Williams Recital Salon
October 5, 2024
The Grown-Ups, staged reading by Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques
Following a group of camp counselors trying to mold the leaders of tomorrow when tomorrow is looking bleaker and bleaker, The Grown-Ups explores the traditions that change us, what it takes for us to change them, and how to change yourself when you’re hopelessly, tragically not prepared for this.
Directed by Kate Hebert
This is a free show. No ticket required.
- 7:30pm
- Hamilton Hall
October 16 – 19, 2024
Macbitches
by Sophie McIntosh
When a first-year college student is unexpectedly given the coveted role of Lady Macbeth, a few classmates have her over to celebrate her casting and reassert their positions at the top of the theatre department’s hierarchy. As the party develops, the students unleash their inhibitions while discovering the power structures that have shaped their theatrical education.
Directed by Greg Ungar
- Byron Theatre
November 7 – 10, 2024
Shakespeare's R & J
by Joe Calarco
A bold reinterpretation of Shakespeare's classic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Set in a strict Catholic boarding school, the play follows four students who secretly perform the forbidden text of Romeo and Juliet. Initially, the students take turns reading the play aloud and soon they are swept away, enmeshed in the emotion so much that they break school rules in order to continue their readings. Perceptions and understanding are turned upside-down as the fun of play-acting turns serious, and the words and meanings begin to hit home and universal truths emerge. The four students grapple with their own emerging identities and desires, challenging societal norms and authority figures in the process
Directed by Kelly Van Oosbree
- Byron Theatre
February 13 – 16, 2025
The Moors
by Jen Silverman
A hopeful governess arrives at a remote mansion on the English Moors after exchanging romantic correspondence with the compelling Mr. Branwell. But when she enters, the only residents appear to be Branwell's two spinster sisters, a maid (or is it two maids?), and a despondent dog. No man to be found, nor child to be cared for. A wild story which simultaneously embraces and satirizes the Gothic lit genre, honors the enduring legacy of the Bronte Sisters, feels contemporary and historic all at once, and most important, explores the terrifying human desire to be intimately seen and known.
Directed by Anne Penner
- Byron Theatre
March 6 – 9, 2025
Great Expectations
Written Charles Dickens
Adapted by Gale Childs Daly
Pip, an orphan boy, has a life-changing encounter one day which starts him on a journey to adulthood full of adventure, excitement, humor, horror, obsession, and passion. It's a bittersweet story of ambition and becoming... falsehoods and misperceptions... devotion and heartbreak... loyalty and forgiveness... surprises and epiphanies... loss and redemption... and of learning what it takes to come of age in a world far more complicated than imagined.
Directed by Rick Barbour
- Byron Theatre
Audition and Apply
No audition is required to declare a theatre major, but students can apply for departmental scholarships by auditioning or submitting a portfolio for review.
