As a Visual and Performing Arts major, your arts education takes place within the classroom and expands beyond its walls. You’ll take the knowledge and techniques you learn in class and apply them to a unique array of exhibits, concerts, and productions on campus and beyond. Check out what our students have done on VPA’s Instagram Page and YouTube channel.
VPA’s art classes take place at Worcester State’s Sagamore Studios (transportation provided by a shuttle service), where we offer courses in drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking as well as topics like the history of American art, modern art, and museum studies. Plus, special topics courses convey a unique insight into a specific art form.
Exhibit opportunities include:
VPA offers opportunities to study music through applied instrumental and vocal lessons and through coursework in composition, theory and history. Students compose music in Sagamore Studios, perform on and off campus, and prepare for lessons and performances in practice rooms.
For information about instrumental and voice lessons contact Professor of Music Kyle Martin at kmartin@worcester.edu and for choral programs contact Professor of Music Christie Nigro at cnigro@worcester.edu.
Performance opportunities include:
VPA offers a wide variety of theatre courses including acting, stage and costume design, stagecraft, directing, stage combat, lighting and sound design, history and more. VPA’s Worcester State Theatre produces three fully-realized productions each academic year and offers students opportunities in front of and behind the curtain. Selected students also attend the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region 1 each year for a week of workshops, discussions, and performances.
The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 1, a district spanning eastern New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, recognized Worcester State University’s Visual and Performing Arts Department for excellence in theatre production with a special invitation to stream its Spring 2021 presentation of “Dancing with Demons.”
Students will soon be able to major in theater through the Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA). The new Bachelor of Arts in Theater will provide interdisciplinary and specialized artistic education that prepares students for professional lives in the arts.
