Actor Training Program (BFA)

View the Actor Training Program Application and Audition Information

Admission to the Actor Training Program is by audition only. We are looking for talented individual with commitment, stamina, a passion to perform, and the desire and willingness to learn.

About the Actor Training Program

The prestigious Actor Training Program (ATP) is a conservatory-style training program for students who seek careers as professional actors. Designed to prepare students for performance of classical and contemporary theatre, the curriculum is fundamentally craft-based and offers rich, diverse and intensive training in voice and speech, movement and acting. Rigorous instruction is also provided in verse drama, acting styles, audition technique, singing and dialects. The faculty is comprised of nationally and internationally recognized working professionals who bring their talents, skills and experience to the classroom. We also have a commitment to bringing in guest artists and other visiting professionals to complement our existing curriculum.

Graduates from our program regularly perform on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and with major regional theatre companies including the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Arena Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse In the Park, Circle Repertory Company, the Guthrie, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Pioneer Theatre Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre. Many pursue advanced training at leading institutions such as American Conservatory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre at Harvard, Circle in the Square, Juilliard, the National Conservatory at the Denver Center, New York University, the University of Delaware, and Yale. Students from the ATP are regularly seen on stage, in film, and on television in the United States and abroad.

Students must demonstrate continued progress and development and pass ongoing faculty evaluation in order to remain in the program.

Performance Opportunities

Our performance facilities include the Babcock Theatre, our main stage, which is home to a season of four plays each year, and Studio 115, our flexible black box space which produces a minimum of four experimental productions each year.

The ATP program enjoys a healthy working relationship with the celebrated Pioneer Theatre Company, a professional repertory Lort-B theatre located on the campus of the University of Utah. In their junior year of study, ATP students are eligible to audition for acting internships with PTC where they perform and understudy roles in the theatre’s productions. In their senior year, students may participate in another internship class, led by the Artistic Director of PTC, where practicalities of professional theatre are taught through seminars and master classes with visiting professional directors and actors, agents and casting directors, and local casting agents. Seniors may also participate in a Senior Show, directed by a professional LORT director brought to campus by PTC.

Performance and teaching opportunities are also available to students with the University of Utah Youth Theatre, a nationally recognized performance and training program for young people ages 5-18, and a Department of Theatre producing partner. Students may audition for the company’s multi-generational theatre-for-young-audiences productions which are mounted at Kingsbury Hall, an historic and beautifully renovated center for the performing arts located on the campus of the University of Utah. Students may also apply for summer teaching positions with the program.

Salt Lake City is also home to many excellent theater companies including Plan B Theatre Company, Pygmalion Productions, The Salt Lake Acting Company, Salt Lake Shakespeare (also a Department of Theatre producing partner), The Sundance Institute Theatre Program and Sundance Summer Theatre, and The Grand Theatre.

Suggested Plan of Study

Program Head
Sarah Shippobotham
801-587-9088
s.shippobotham@utah.edu

Interim Program Head
Sandra Shotwell
801-556-2244
sandra.shotwell@utah.edu