About the Program
Once every four years, a group of exceptionally talented students is selected for admission to the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) for three years of conservatory training leading to the Master of Fine Arts degree. This group is carefully selected through an extensive search conducted throughout the United States in the year between the graduation of one class and the beginning of the next class.
Students are trained in one of three areas: acting, stage management, technical production.
Because there is only one class enrolled at any one
time, the faculty is able to focus its full energies – as well as the program’s entire time, space and budget – toward fulfilling the potential of each member of this select group. This unique structure allows extraordinary flexibility and affords the opportunity to respond quickly to individual needs. Small class sections and an emphasis on tutorial work further ensure that each student’s development is fully and powerfully addressed.
While PTTP graduates have distinguished themselves in many styles and mediums, the PTTP is specifically
designed to train for the stage, where human, rather than electronic, energy is the medium of communication.
Training is focused on plays from the classic repertoire and the PTTP seeks students with a particular commitment to, and appetite for, the classics. Each season’s productions are chosen primarily from the great plays of our dramatic heritage.
These productions also provide the surrounding community with the opportunity to attend high quality, reasonably priced performances of masterpieces by such playwrights as Shakespeare, Shaw, Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov, Williams, and Wilde, among many others.
