Senior Projects

The senior project is an activity that integrates four years of the student's theatrical experiences and studies at Earlham College. The project should be of great interest to the student and should provide sufficient comprehensiveness and rigor to help guide the student to the next professional or academic step after Earlham College.

Examples of previous senior projects are: the direction of a small play, the design of a production (lighting, sets or costumes), acting in a major role in a mainstage production, the translation of a play from a foreign language to English with an accompanying analysis of the challenges of translation, a project working with public school students, a small touring production to local schools, and a research project in theatre history.

Each senior project is designed with the guidance of the theatre arts faculty and must be approved. Criteria for approval are:

1. the faculty members' confidence in the student's ability to successfully complete the proposed project, based on the student's past academic and performance achievements and on the faculty's perception of the student's potential;

2. the faculty members' confidence in the potential for successful achievement by and well-being of other students who would be involved in the project;

3. the completeness of the proposal in addressing the academic goals of the project; and

4. the availability of resources for the project (time, venue, presentation date, personnel, and funding).

The specific requirements for each senior project are developed with the faculty advisor's guidance. Each senior project must have a research/exploratory component and a presentational component. The senior project concludes with a scheduled review with the student, theatre arts faculty, and other advisors that combines an evaluation of the project with the oral comprehensive examination.

Grading Criteria

The grade for the senior project is based on both the final product (the quality of the presentation, aesthetic unity, and coherence) and the process by which it was created (the quality, depth and thoughtfulness exhibited in the process of the research and development of the content of the project). Evaluation is also based on the faculty members' perception of the degree of achievement related to the student's original goal and intent. This is the grade reported to the registrar for Theatre 83: Senior Project.

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This page last updated: Mar. 20, 2004