SPECIAL NOTE: Because of the pandemic, we have made the following changes to music theater certificate requirements to make life easier for the Classes of 2021-2024:
CLASS OF 2021: Please get in touch with Program Director Jane Cox at janecox@princeton.edu if you are concerned about completing your tech credits or your senior year independent work.
CLASS OF 2022: We understand that many things have been disrupted for your year in particular. We will work with all juniors to complete their tech credits over the remainder of this academic year, and if necessary, into your senior year, in a way that doesn’t unduly complicate your life. If you are confused about the requirements for completing a certificate or for proposing a project, please reach out to Program Director Jane Cox at janecox@princeton.edu or Program Associate Joe Fonseca at jfonseca@princeton.edu.
CLASS OF 2023: Although the program information states that THR 402, the junior seminar, is mandatory in order to propose a project, we have decided NOT to make the junior seminar mandatory going forward. In the 2021-22 year only, we will be offering the junior seminar in the spring in the 2021-22 year, not in the fall, to be certain that it can happen entirely in person. Students who plan to propose a show for our season are encouraged to participate in the spring THR 402 class, but you are not required to do so in order to propose a project for our season. Stay tuned for a meeting after mid-terms to talk more about the junior and senior year of a certificate student.
CLASS OF 2024: Although the program information states that THR 402, the junior seminar, is mandatory in order to propose a project, we have decided NOT to make the junior seminar mandatory going forward. Students who plan to propose a show for our season are encouraged to participate in the fall junior THR 402 class, but you are not required to do so in order to propose a project for our season. We suggest that students take THR/MTD 101, which will become mandatory for the class of 2025; and starting in the 2021-22 year, will be offered in both semesters. Since this is not currently in the program requirements, this will not be mandatory for the class of 2024, but the course is encouraged as a good basis for an education in theater.
From opera to Broadway musicals to experimental music theater, the many hybrids of singing, acting, and movement are among the most historically significant, socially relevant, and artistically adventurous forms of performance. With a liberal arts education as its base, Princeton’s Certificate Program in Music Theater encourages students to explore music theater as an intensely collaborative art form, as a key component of world cultures, and as an entertainment genre that shapes and is shaped by history, economics, politics, and technology.
The Program in Music Theater encompasses Princeton’s curricular tripartite of creation, performance, and study. Students in the Program take courses in Music, Theater, and Dance, as well as related courses in other departments, taught by faculty across the university who compose, write, create, perform, and research music theater’s various forms that combine music, dance, text, and design. Additional classes are taught by visiting guest artists. Students can create new music theater work, participate in music theater production, and/or produce new scholarship in music theater history, theory, and criticism.