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Theatre Program
From Shakespeare to Sondheim, from "In the Heights," to "...and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi" we stage productions that challenge our performers, thrill audiences and showcase the brilliance of our faculty, and we have the national honors to prove it.
The Theatre Program at Saint Mary’s provides conservatory-caliber training in a uniquely student-centered Liberal Arts setting.
We believe that the theatre is a force that can wake us up and spark ethical action in the world.Through theatre training - whether as actors, directors, designers, playwrights, technicians, or stage managers – we can find greater freedom, generosity, and courage, in our creative work and in our relationships with others.
The Saint Mary’s Theatre Program is a close-knit community, fostering a collaborative (not competitive) environment; yet we are located within striking distance of the Bay Area’s vibrant performance scene. Thus we offer the best of both worlds: individualized attention and mentoring, alongside unique opportunities to engage with working professionals. Our students are challenged, and inspired, by an array of master classes, guest speakers, theatre-going excursions, internships, and more.
The Theatre Program offers two separate degree tracks:
Our curriculum integrates practical and technical coursework with performance and production opportunities, and with the study of theatre history, theory, and dramatic literature, producing deep thinkers and dynamic theatre-makers.
Auditions
No audition is required to major or minor in Theatre at Saint Mary’s College. Auditions are required for most productions. The Saint Mary’s Theatre Program practices culturally inclusive casting, and we welcome first-years, transfers and beginners in our productions. All roles are open.
Welcome Daniel Larlham
Performing Arts welcomes Daniel Larlham, 2019-20 Visiting Professor in Theatre.
Larlham is a performance-maker and scholar with a Ph.D. from Columbia University and an M.F.A. from New York University’s graduate acting program. He taught for five years at Yale University's Theater Studies Program. At Saint Mary's (2014-17), Daniel taught acting, comedy, voice, and Collegiate Seminar, and directed Lysistrata, Twelfth Night, and The Good Person of Setzuan. In Spring 2020, he will direct School for Lies, a zany update on Molière's The Misanthrope.
Jiwon Chung is a professional actor, director, educator and a key theorist of Theatre of the Oppressed. Grounded in the work of Augusto Boal. with whom he studied extensively, Chung's focus is on theatre as a tool for social and political change. Through Boal's Interactive Theatre, Chung empowers others to challenge, resist, and transform systemic oppression, structural violence and injustice. He is the Artistic Director of Kairos Theater Ensemble and past President of the national organization for Theater of the Oppressed. Chung is also a Visiting Associate Professor of Art and Social Justice at Starr King School/GTU and a Teaching Artist at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre School, though his work as an educator often takes him around the country and across the globe.
Julie Douglas is an actor, theater-maker, teaching artist and clown. She has trained and performed internationally in Italy, Russia, and Bali, as well as with Bay Area companies such as Impact Theatre, SF Shakespeare, Shotgun Players, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. Julie also gets silly on a regular basis as a hospital clown with The Medical Clown Project. A regular faculty member of ACT’s MFA and Studio programs, Julie teaches students of all ages for a range of theatre companies, schools, and community groups, from San Francisco Shakespeare and Cal Performances to Stanford Live and Contra Costa Civic Theatre. She holds an M.F.A. in Ensemble Based Physical Theatre from Dell'Arte International School, and she is a certified instructor of the Michael Chekhov Technique.
Award-winning theatre maker Susannah Martin has worked as a director and teaching artists with companies across the Bay Area, among them Shotgun Players (where she is a company member), California Shakespeare Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, and Marin Theatre Company. For five years, she was Joint Artistic Director of Paducah Mining Co., an acclaimed San Francisco-based ensemble that produced devised original pieces on domestic terrorism, spousal abuse, and poverty in America. Susannah received her BFA in Theatre from NYU, and her MFA in Directing from UC Davis. 
Matt Stines is a San Francisco-based soundman whose creative work extends to theatre, music, performance art, sketch comedy, and self-storage management. He began at Shotgun Players in 2009 with Mark Jackson's Faust Pt. 1 and has continued to source recycled equipment for the Ashby Stage ever since. Others with the company include The Coast of Utopia, Bonnie and Clyde, Eurydice, Hawkmoon, and Caught. Additionally to theatre, his work has also been seen and heard with the Prague Quadrennial 2011, Soundwave ((5)), KQED, and SF Sketchfest. He has taught theatre sound at SF State (BA, 2009) and currently teaches the same at St Mary's College.