Is it a strong department, well supported by the administration?
I’ll take a stab at it. I am a community member, not a student. Music, dance,
theatre and arts are really well supported at CU.
There is opportunity to get exposed to high level theatre in the summers, as Colorado Shakespeare Theatre is a festival in Boulder with its own dedicated outdoor theatre in the round. The set design group is a CU Boulder program, and the sets are outstanding each year. Students can get roles but professional actors come for this festival. Its not quite NYC but better than the average college theatre by far. Also there is another indoor venue, and students have good options to get parts during the school year. Its a very art and music oriented community, see Colorado Music Festival and the Eklund Opera program at CU too. The music school is conservatory level, ranked well in many different instruments, but not very top conservatory rank.
See this website for photo of one outdoor theatre:
https://cupresents.org/series/shakespeare-festival/
Inside the Colorado public system CU Boulder is the very top theatre, music and fine arts/cermaics school.
Fort Collins, Colorado State is more focused on health sciences, engineering, agricultural sciences.
U of Denver, a private option is ranked lower than CU Boulder in the theatre/arts/music but also strong.
For the area, CU is the pinnacle, but of course no where near as good as U of Michigan, U of Cincinnati, or NYU
for musical theatre. CU does not offer musical theatre as a combined degree.
The very top talented theatre kids from Colorado, who have money, tend to try for the very top ranked musical theatre programs out of state.