Theater and Performance

Bard College’s Theater and Performance Program offers an interdisciplinary, liberal arts-based approach to the making and study of theater and performance. The title, Theater and Performance, signals the program’s embrace of a wide range of dramatic, theatrical, and performance practices, from live art and interactive installation to classical theater from around the globe. Theater and performance are intrinsically collaborative, and collaboration is at the heart of students’ work, which emphasizes process, cohort-building, and dialogue between theatrical work and the social, cultural, and political contexts. Students study, create, and perform in the landmark Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry.

The practice of integrity and respect for the form, self, and the community are central to our work as faculty and students. We strive to deepen and strengthen these commitments through analytical study, rehearsal and creation processes. Invested in a culture of responsibility, we reject white supremacy and work against the exclusionary ways that Eurocentrism and patriarchy have shaped theater education. We aim to explore and celebrate the diversity of the U.S. and the world. We encourage ongoing self-inquiry, exploration of form and content, originality, imagination, and dedication to hard work in pursuit of excellence.

Theater and Performance News

The Bard Theater & Performance Program now includes Theater and Performance as a Second Focus:

Second Focus in Theater and Performance (five courses total):
- One of the following courses from the "Context" section of the Theater & Performance course list:
Introduction to Contemporary Performance
Introduction to World Theater Traditions

- Two of the three following courses from the "Technique" section of the Theater & Performance course list:
Introduction to Acting: The Actor and the Moment
Introduction to Playwriting
Introduction to Directing

- Two additional 200 or 300-level classes from any part of the Theater & Performance course list*

*Please note that Theater Making is the only course we cannot open to students who are not planning to moderate in T&P since it is the course directly linked to moderation.

The Tragedy of Coriolanus
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Ash K. Tata

February 3rd through March 6th, 2026

This semester, four Theater & Performance classes will take a field trip to see The Tragedy of Coriolanus, directed by Professer Ash K. Tata.
"This field trip has been generously supported by a donation from Rozanna Leo-Fields and Greg Fields, parents of Caelan Leo-Fields ’26.”

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Theater in Action

The Bard College Theater & Performance Program Presents:
2025 SPROJ Work-In-Progress Festival
Program A
November 21st, 7:30pm
November 22nd, 1:00pm

Program B
November 22nd, 6:00pm
November 23rd, 1:00pm

Fall 2025 Mainstage Production | LUMA Theater | Fisher Center at Bard
Program A
Chloe Desautels
Trudy Poux
Asher Cass
Caelan Leo-Fields
Intermission
Yadier Pérez Pagán
Atticus Belmonte
Eric Wang
Azalea Rusillon

Program B
Frances -Ronning
Anthony Leo
William Axelrod
Brendan Paholak
Intermission
Lucy Gerston
Ethan Mapica-Santiago
Max Hopkins
Rose Albert
The Bard College Theater & Performance Program Presents:
Puntila and Matti, His Hired Man

by Bertolt Brecht
Based on stories by Hella Wuolijoki
Translated by Ralph Manheim
Directed by Rebecca Wright
Oct. 24th 7:30pm
Oct. 25th - 2pm & 7:30pm
Oct. 26th - 4pm
Fall 2025 Mainstage Production | LU
Workshop Performance
By Lucas Baisch, directed by Kedian Keohan '16, with a team of student collaborators
Saturday, September 20, 2025, 2pm,
Resnick Studio, Fisher Center for the Performing Arts

Untitled E-Waste Play charts the Silicon Valley’s electronics industry by plunging back into California’s timeline of extraction. Through the supernatural and the strange, missionaries, gold miners, farmers, and programmers all converge on one rhyming idea: “history” is forever speculative.
The Bard College Theater & Performance Program Presents:

Urinetown, the Musical
Book and Lyrics by Greg Kotis
Music and Lyrics by Mark Hollmann
Directed by Liz Peterson
Music Direction by David Sytkowski

Photo by Vera Yung

Bard Summer Theater Intensive in Berlin

The essence of the program is the creative engagement between our students and a wide variety of multidisciplinary artists working in theater and performance in Berlin. Students explore and develop a vocabulary of creation as each artist approaches the theme from a unique perspective consistent with his/her own artistic practice. Each week will culminate in devised work that will be critiqued in a rigorous but constructive way. Students will also work in groups to create a larger scale project over the four weeks of the program that will incorporate the discoveries made each week.

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A Place for Bold, Exciting Work by Students

Bard College students have a long history of creating fresh, original productions on campus. The Bard Musical Theater Company, POC Theater Ensemble, and Bard Bards are just a few of the student clubs dedicated to theater and performance. The Old Gym is Bard's student-run performance space, used by theater artists, dancers, musicians, and visual artists.
Students perform Sophocles' Electra at Blithewood on the Bard campus. Directed by Francis Karagodins. Photo by Alex Lopez

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