Utah State Theatre

Mission Statement:
The Theatre Arts Department subscribes to the concept that the theatre represents one of the most humanizing disciplines of the arts in as much as its practice requires a committed, integrated effort which expands the mind, the heart, and the spirit. The intense, problem solving nature of this process in the theatre gives it a value which cannot be overstressed. We do not recognize the limited category of "educational theatre," but, on the contrary, believe with Vera Mowry Roberts in an essay of that title that "All Theatre is Educational." With the ability to touch in some way upon every other subject taught on the university campus and to emphasize the value of life itself, the theatre can counter the materiality brought about by the technologies and strictly linear thinking of the contemporary world. As Oscar Brockett has admitted, while the theatre may never be valued for its pragmatic utility, it can, however, be embraced for its capacity to enhance the quality of life by honing our perception of the world around us. Now routinely included in programs of higher education training, the theatre is also perhaps the most challenging of artistic disciplines, involving young people vulnerable to artistic suggestion at its most fundamental level: the re creation of "realities" which explore and integrate, as Prof. David Kolb has put it, every human condition in the broadest sense - thinking, feeling, perceiving, and behaving.