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Visual & Performing Arts Creativity Opportunities at Worcester State
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.
Art
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:
- Open Art Calls – Professors keep on top of open art calls and encourage students to enter.
- Mary Cosgrove Dolphin Gallery – The on-campus gallery exhibits the work of students, faculty, and renowned artists.
- Open Studios – Students exhibit work during open studio events at Sagamore Studios.
Music
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:
- Private music lessons (applied music) in all instruments and voice. Students perform at fall and spring mosaics and other opportunities as they arise. Contact VPAMusic@worcester.edu.
- Choral programs offer a Chorus and a capella Chorale group that perform at Mechanics Hall Holiday Pops and WSU Concerts. Contact cnigro@worcester.edu.
- WSU offers ensembles in jazz, winds, guitar, brass, voice, strings, African drumming, and Musica!, Worcester State’s Latin American Music ensemble. Students perform at fall and spring mosaics and other opportunities as they arise.
Theatre
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.
Performance opportunities include:
- Productions – Students audition for productions. Students participate in costume, set design, light and sound tech, and more.
- Almost Off Book – This student club offers opportunities to write, create, and act, and serve the WSU community.



Visual & Performing Arts News

Visual and Performing Arts “Extreme Artery” initiative pays tribute to founding faculty and presents chorale, jazz and musical mosaic concerts, theater production & art exhibition April 26, 2022

Student Art Exhibition showcases imagination, artistic vision and a skull made of teeth. March 8, 2022

Annual ArtsWorcester College Show showcases work of three Worcester State students in juried exhibition, Feb. 25, 2022

VPA Department’s Steve Gagliastro to Appear in Star-Studded Film and TV Projects, Sept. 15, 2021


Visual and Performing Arts Department and students recognized for excellence by regional Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Feb. 14, 2022
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.”



Visual and Performing Arts Department Offers New Theater Major. March 16, 2021
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.

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