Resources and Opportunities
The Department of Theatre and Dance is committed to supporting students through accessible resources and meaningful opportunities. This page features scholarships, student organizations, and services that foster learning, connection and success.
Scholarships
The Elkind Family Scholarship for Theatre Arts Award provides scholarship awards of $2500 for full-time continuing undergraduate and graduate students studying theatre arts with a GPA of 3.25 or above.
This merit-based scholarship of $1000 is annually provided to continuing Theatre Arts undergraduate and graduate students of promise in Musical Theatre. The scholarship was originally set up in 1986 upon the generous support of a bequest from the estate of the late Professor Clarence Miller. Clarence Miller was the head of the formerly named Drama Department at SF State in the 1960s. During his tenure, he taught numerous students, spearheaded workshops and directed multiple musical theatre productions.
With support from Dance Professor Emerita, Susan Messner-Whipp, the scholarship honors the legacy of the dance program at SFSU with the hopes that honorees continue the rich heritage of artistic excellence, diversity and scholarship in the field that was envisioned at the inception of the Dance B.A. program. Professor Whipp was an active and beloved faculty member in the Dance Program starting in 1982 and served the University for over thirty years. Her support of the scholarship and the legacy of the Dance Program at SF State has helped countless students with their academic and career paths. $1000 awarded to a promising junior dance student for their senior year.
This scholarship in memory of Jules Irving provides financial assistance to Theatre Arts students on an academic path in drama. Student awardees show a high degree of professional promise in theatre. This annual $1000 scholarship is merit-based and open to undergraduates and graduate students continuing their education in the School. Jules Irving (1925 – 1979) was an American actor, director, educator, and producer, who in the 1950s co-founded the San Francisco Actor's Workshop.
$1000 targeted to a promising undergraduate/graduate designer/technician in a theatrical design area.
Student Organizations
Get involved! There are many dance related clubs on campus to check out:
Find more clubs using GatorXperience
Internships
The San Francisco Bay Area has many opportunities to develop internships at local theatre and dance companies. With faculty advisement and off-campus supervision, these internship experiences give you a foothold in the profession before you graduate. In the past our students have held positions at leading regional companies including the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Co. and ODC.
Facilities and Shops
Theater and Dance Spaces
The School of Theatre and Dance is reserving limited space in our classrooms, studios, and theatres on a case-by-case basis.
Scene Shop
The Scene Shop has scenic flats, doors, windows, platforms, acting blocks, etc. This is where you go when you want to build a physical space.
Prop Shop
The Prop Shop has a variety of small/hand props, furniture, soft goods, set decor, etc. This is where you go when you want items for actors to use and to decorate a set.
Costume Shop
The Costume Shop has costumes from a variety of different eras: clothing, sunglasses, jewelry, hats. This is where you go when you want items that are worn by actors.
Costume, Prop and Scenic Rentals
Rentals are available for on-campus projects, including but not limited to: theatre production and workshops, films, dance, fashion, art, as well as local non-profit theatre and K-12 school communities. Rentals are not available for parties or for-profit ventures.
Shops are open by appointment only. We are unable to accommodate walk-ins or classroom tours.
For Your Safety
When entering our shops for an appointment, it is required that renters be dressed appropriately. Closed-toe shoes are REQUIRED in the shops. Ideally, sneakers or boots with low heels with a thick and hearty sole (no ballet flats or heels, for example). If you are not dressed appropriately, you will be asked to change and return later.
Research
To streamline the rental process, please make sure you have done adequate research before you arrive for your appointment. Your pre-production should consider: sample ground plan for scenic, sample props for rental and sample research document for props.
Shop Closures
Rentals are closed when campus is closed.
If you are working on a project that spans a recess (spring or fall), winter break, or summer please send an email to confirm shop availability during these times.
Theater Spaces
McKenna Theatre
This 701-seat theatre features a proscenium stage with an orchestra pit, fly system and film/video projection systems.
Little Theatre
This smaller proscenium stage with 218 seats, a fly system and film/video projection systems.
The Lab
This 49-seat black-box theatre is used for student creative work projects and School of Theatre and Dance productions.
Studio Theatre
Our newly renovated studio is a classroom space for dance, musical theatre, movement and voice classes, as well as recitals, showings and a few faculty/student productions.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Resources
As artists, scholars and educators we must strive to make an intellectual and artistic home for our diverse community of faculty, staff and students. We must do the hard work of decolonizing our curriculum by recognizing when we do and do not acknowledge the work of BIPOC colleagues to ensure that our programming, casting and teaching practices do not further disenfranchise marginalized communities. The first step in this work is decolonizing our own minds and personal practices.
- Adrienne Kenedy - Funnyhouse of a Negro; Sleep Deprivation Chamber
- Charles Fuller - A Soldier’s Play; Zooman and the Sign
- Lynn Notage - Ruined; Fabulation, Or the Reeducation of Undine; Sweat
- Suzan-Lori Parks - The America Play; Topdog/Underdog; White Noise; Venus
- Robert O’Hara - Insurrection: Holding History; Bootycandy
- Anna Deveare Smith - Fires in the Mirror; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
- Pearl Cleage - Flyin’ West; Blues for an Alabama Sky
- George C. Wolfe - The Colored Museum
- Marcus Gardley - Love is a Dream House in Lorin; Paradise Square
- James Ijames - White; Kill Move Paradise; Fat Ham
- Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm - Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies
- Lisa Marie Rollins - Token
- August Wilson - Fences; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; The Piano Lesson; Jitney; The Naked Proof; Gem of the Ocean; Two Trains Running; Radio Golf; Seven Guitars; King Hedley II; How I Learned What I Learned
- Stew - Passing Strange
- Langston Hughes - Black Nativity; Mulatto; Jerico-Jim Crow; Mule Bone; Street Scene; Tambourines to Glory
- Lorraine Hansberry - Les Blancs; A Raisin in the Sun, (Raisin’ the Musical by Brittan and Woldin), To Be Young, Gifted, and Black; The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window; The Movement
- Miki Grant - Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
- Alex Bradford - Your Arm’s Too Short to Box with God
- Trevor D. Rhone - Smile Orange; Old Time Story; The Harder They Come
- Ntozake Shange - for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf
- Amiri Baraka - Dutchman and the Slave; The Slave; The Baptism and the Toilet; A Black Mass; Home on the Range and the Police; Four Revolutionary Plays; Slave Ship; The Motion of History
- Jackie Sibblies Drury - We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915
- Danai Gurira - Eclipsed, Familar
- Jocelyn Bioh - School Girls; Or The African Mean Girl Play
- Dominique Morisseau - Detroit 67; Paradise Blue; Skeleton Crew; Blood at the Root
- Christina Anderson - Good Goods; pen/man/ship; the ripple the wave that carried me home
- Zora Neale Hurston - The Great Day (1932)
- Katherine Dunham - L’Ag’Ya (1938)
- Pearl Primus - Strange Fruit (1945), Hard Times Blues (1945)
- Donald McKayle - Rainbow ‘Round my Shoulder Dance Theater of Harlem (1959)
- Alvin Ailey - Revelations (1960), Cry (1971)
- Arthur Mitchell - Creole Giselle (1984)
- Bill T. Jones - Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Dancing to the Promised Land (1990)
- Diane McIntyre - How Long Brethren (1991)
- Jawole Jo Willa Zollar - Shelter (1992)
- Bebe Miller - Going to the Wall (1998)
- Rennie Harris - March of the Antmen (1997), Facing Mekka (2003)
- Ralph Lemon - Come Home Charley Patton, Part 3 in Geography Trilogy (2004)
- Reggie Wilson - The Tale: Npinpee Nckutchie and the Tail of the Golden Dek (2006)
- Robert Battle - No Longer Silent (2007)
- Robert Moses - Biography of Baldwin (2003), The Cinderella Principle (2010)
- Joanna Haigood - Dying While Black and Brown (2011)
- Kyle Abraham - Pavement (2012)
- Camille A. Brown - Mr.TOL E. RAncE (2012), BlACK GIRL: Linguistic Play (2015)
- Jamar Roberts - Cooped (2020)
- Rhodessa Jones - The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women/HIV Circle
- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
- Dance Theater of Harlem
- Cleo Parker Robinson Dance
- Philadanco
- The Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts
- Robert Moses’Kin
- Dallas Black Dance Theatre
- Dayton Contemporary Dance Company
- Lula Washington Dance Theatre
- Deeply Rooted Dance Theatre
- Dimensions Dance Theatre
- Forces of Nature Dance Theatre
- African-American Shakespeare Company
- Black Repertory Group
- Common Ground Theatre
- Image Theatre Company
- Ebony Repertory Theatre (Equity)
- Lower Depths Theatre Ensemble
- Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
- The Robey Theatre Company
- Towne Street Theatre
- Watts Village Theatre Company
- Additional Nationwide Companies listed at Black Theatre Matters
The International Association of Blacks in Dance
- Susan Manning - Modern Dance/Negro Dance
- Thomas DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds - Black Performance Theory
- Thomas DeFrantz and Tara Aisha Willis - “Black Moves: New Research in Black Dance Studies” The Black Scholar.
- Nyama McCarthy-Brown - Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Theory, Research, and Practice.
- Young Jean Lee - The Shipment; Straight White Men
- Luis Alfaro - Oedipus El Rey; Mojada: A Medea In Los Angeles
- Octavio Solis - Santos y Santos; Se Llama Cristina; Quixote Nuevo; Mother Road
- Culture Clash - Sapo; Zorro in Hell; Culture Clash in AmeriCCa
- Marga Gomez - Pound; Latin Standards; The Spanking Machine
- Quiara Alegria Hudes - Water By The Spoonful; In the Heights
- Cherrie Moraga - The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea; Heroes and Saint; Watsonville; Mathematics of Love
- David Henry Hwang - M. Butterfly, FOB, Chinglish, Yellow Face
- Lauren Yee - Cambodian Rock Band; Ching Chong Chinaman;The Great Leap; King of the Yees
- Christopher Chen - The Hundred Flowers Project; Caught; The Headlands;
- Jeffrey Lo - Dealing Dreams; Waiting for Next; Zac and Siah or, Jesus in a Body Bag
- Caridad Svitch - Red Bike, Twelve Ophelias, Wreckage, Eva Luna
- Madhuri Shekar - A Nice Indian Boy; In Love and Warcraft; Queen
- Larissa FastHorse - The Thanksgiving Play; Landless; Cow Pie Bingo
- Luis Valdez - Zoot Suit