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A.2.c Stretching your experience.
As in all higher education, the goal of the theatre program
at Seattle Pacific University
is to open you to new experiences and enlarged world views within the context
of endorsed educational practice. A
significant additional goal for the faculty is to get you to examine “inherited” creedal assumptions, to test your spiritual understandings about
self, the nature of art, and the nature of the world around us. The artist speaks from beliefs. An
ongoing examination of your closest precepts allows enhanced skills and
acquired techniques to become useful tools for your true calling: artistic
expression.
In the classroom setting and in the performance schedule,
you will be consciously exposed to significant writings and artistic works
which arise from philosophies oftentimes very different from those of your
background. While we, as faculty
members, will attempt to explain the philosophical bases of the works and will
be free in the expression of our own values, we will make no concerted attempt
to persuade you to anything but an honest examination of your own
viewpoints. A major goal of all liberal education, and certainly one needful for
the serious artist, is the testing of one’s own viewpoint against those of
others and of collective humanity.
To help you achieve enlarged
perspectives, the curriculum employs
several strategies:
1) while you will be taught from standard
university textbooks, the material will be supplemented by open discussion of
appropriate spiritual and Christian perspectives;
2) the performance repertoire will be drawn
from a broad selection of dramatic literature in roughly a three-year cycle,
exposing you to a broad spectrum of theatrical forms and styles;
3)
a variety of guests will be invited from the regional and national theatre
communities to lecture in classes, in special forums and to participate in our
production program,
4)
several courses will require you to view productions in the Seattle theatre community, and
5)
every attempt will be made to expose you to as diverse a view of artistic
community and artistic works as possible.
In creating a
curriculum which will allow honest development in its students, the faculty
endorses standard higher education methodology for theatre training. The curricular program is currently in line
with the standards for liberal arts institutions set out by the National
Association of Schools of Theatre. Next
Section: A3a: Liberation
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