<p>Can anyone tell me how they like the theatre department at Macalester? I'm trying to decide if it would be worth flying all the way from Oregon to attend (or if I would be able o afford it...I hear they don't give a lot of scholarships!). Any help would be grrreat.</p>
<p>I’ll be able to let you know about theatre after this semester, I’m taking a first year course in the theatre department. I saw a student production while I was visiting and it was absolutely great, almost professional quality, and this comes from someone who sees a lot of theatre.</p>
<p>As for scholarships that is true to a certain extent unfortunately. They have great NEED based aid for a school of their size (100% of need met and it’s usually almost all grants), but their academic scholarships are either for national merit recognized people, people who already have financial need, or underrepresented minorities. As someone who is low income and NMF I got an amazing deal from them, the best of any of my schools. Their financial aid is certainly not bad by any measure but for a certain demographic of students it can be lacking unfortunately. I say apply and see when it comes to finaid, but that goes for any school, it can be kind of unpredictable.</p>
<p>We just got back from a campus visit to Macalester. They do two faculty-directed productions and four student-directed productions each year, which is the fewest of any of the schools we visited. They had an interesting theater as their main stage – instead of a traditional stage with seats spreading out from the front of the stage, the stage was essentially a raised square in the middle of the room, and the seats projected out from three sides of the square (with stairs coming off the corners, so the three seating areas were distinct). So the performers are surrounded on three sides by the audience and are much more in the middle of things and there is no curtain to be opened and closed between scenes or acts.</p>
<p>FYI, there are plans to do extensive renovation of the arts buildings, including theater. These are likely to be completed before 2015.</p>
<p>[A</a> New Vision for the Fine Arts - News - Macalester College](<a href=“http://www.macalester.edu/news/features/janetwallace.html]A”>http://www.macalester.edu/news/features/janetwallace.html)</p>