<p>i am totally torn right now. it's between gtown or midd. i love the theatre and participating in productions but i'm not sure how much emphasis is put on theatre at midd - i know about last year's production getting to the kennedy centre - but apart from that there seem to be few plays on and the theatre troupe doesnt seem to serious. also ive heard some things about a lack of social life - im from a big city and go out quite a lot so i'm wondering if this would be too big of a leap.
but, midds camppus is beautiful, very international (im an intl student), and i like the prospect of the more intimate class sizes. also, everyone works hard.</p>
<p>There are several people on my hall who are highly involved in theatre. It seems like I'm going to one of their performances every couple of weeks or so. My neighbor was just Jo (lead) in Little Women. Wright memorial theatre is right next to my dorm, there's performance space in the Center for the Arts, and there's at least one black box theatre that I've gone to. This means that there are up to three plays in production at any one time, usually in addition to the main, long-term productions.
The social life is what you make of it. There's not much outside of campus unless you drive 45 minutes north to Burlington, but there's always stuff happening on campus. For example, Xanadu, a student-run night club, just opened up last weekend.
And yes, most people work very hard. Classes are small, but usually intense.
Hope that helped.</p>
<p>I'm a student at Midd, and the theater department here is very impressive and serious. It's one of the best you'll find at a college this size, and a lot of theater majors have gone on to be involved in theater professionally. Usually, the department does around 2 shows per semester, in addition to several senior independent projects supported by the department. The music department usually does a musical each year and a student group on campus usually does one musical each semester. Some of the theater professors here also founded an run a professional summer theater called the Potomac Theatre Project, which gives several students each year the opportunity to participate in a professional theater. Check out this link about PTP: <a href="http://community.middlebury.edu/%7Eptp/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://community.middlebury.edu/~ptp/index.html</a>.
Also, this second link is to a theater department news letter - it's a couple years old, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what the department does. If you scroll down, you can also see what Midd theater alumni are doing now in the theater world: <a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ump/majors/theatre/about/alumni_news.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ump/majors/theatre/about/alumni_news.htm</a>
Good luck!</p>