<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I'm a prospective Northwestern transfer student and I just had a couple questions. What's the theatre program like at NU for non-majors? I'm just curious if non-theatre students can participate in the productions, and how all that works.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help.</p>
<p>The truth is that unless you’re a drop dead amazing talent, it’s really hard to be cast. You could work your way in through crewing shows maybe, I’m not sure. The problem is that there are more than enough students who know each other from the major and, all things being equal, a known entity (friend) will be cast before an unknown. That’s the situation many freshman have who are theatre majors also, they have to become known to the directors/upper classmen.</p>
<p>Northwestern University theatre production auditions are open to all students regardless of major according to what I have read. Good directors look for talent & types; even the best actors can be bypassed in a particular production if they are not the right type for the character in the mind of the director. Productions led by a student director may be a bit more inclined to cast known quantities in the theatre dept. as they have to have dependable cast & crew members. As a top theatre program, NU has many talented students so competition should be substantial, but there should also be enough productions each school year to ensure ample participation for talented actors.</p>
<p>Thanks for the honest answers. That helps a lot.</p>
<p>My D is a theater major at NU. She knows of several non-theater majors who were cast in student run shows. There are other students in theater related majors – performance studies and comm studies – who get cast in both mainstage and student run shows. That being said, theater majors have a definite advantage when they actually take classes when many of the professors that are casting. And as was mentioned above, the theater department is rather tight and most student directors have a good sense of their fellow students’ talents.</p>