- Percent of students active in campus music, theatre, and dance groups
- 25
- Percent of students who participate in theatrical and musical performances who are not theatre and music majors
- 90
- Number of Williams alums with careers in art, music, theatre, or dance
- 640+
- Theatrical and musical performances staged annually by Williams students, faculty, and visiting artists
- 200+
- Number of coeducational theatre productions mounted last year
- 16
- Percent of female roles acted by male students in Williams theatrical productions in 1884
- 100
- Size of the newly built '62 Center for Theatre & Dance
- 126,000 sq. ft.
- Maximum seating in the MainStage proscenium theatre
- 550
- Seating in the CenterStage flat-floor studio theatre, described as the “workhorse” of the Theatre department
- 150
- Seating available in the newly renovated Adams Memorial Theatre
- 200
- Annual attendance during the Williamstown Theatre Festival
- 45,000
- Number of productions the student-run Cap and Bells company produce every season
- 3
- Number of musicals written and staged by Stephen Sondheim ’50 during his time at Williams
- 2
- Number of major best actor nominations David Strathairn ’70 received for his portrayal of Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
- 10+
- Number of times Williamstown Theatre Festival actors Eric Stoltz, David Schwimmer, Stephen Collins, and Scott Wolfe, respectively, have eaten their namesake sandwiches at Pappa Charlie's during the past few summers
- 13/12/20/9
- Year the Williams College Dance Program was founded (also the year women first came to the college)
- 1970
- Number of major performances by Ghanaian and southern African inspired dance and music ensemble, Kusika and Zambezi Marimba Band, put on each year
- 2 to 3
- Number of members in the Elizabethans, Williams College’s only co-educational, non-pop a cappella group that performs in Renaissance garb
- 8 to 16
- Attendance at the spring Choral Society and Berkshire Symphony performance of Brahm's German Requiem
- 1,000+
The '62 Center is also the summer home of the Tony Award-Winning Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), which annually attracts many of the finest actors and actresses from Broadway, film, and television to town. Students are able to intern with the WTF and many more usher for and watch the dozen or more shows during a summer on campus.
Play - Student Theatre
Theatre
Students participate on a variety of levels within the Theatre Department. They come from all corners of the campus, regardless of their academic majors, to perform and provide technical support for department productions. Theatre majors pursue a highly academic program that emphasizes the cultural contexts and collaborative nature of the discipline. The Theatre Department teaches acting, directing, playwriting, design, literature, history, and all aspects of technical and production work. Majors enroll in nine courses, including literature, art or music offerings, and are required to contribute to at least eight productions over four years.
The new ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance provides a state-of-the-art and picturesque backdrop for study, rehearsal and performance. The Center, opened in 2005, houses the 550-seat proscenium MainStage Theatre, the 200-seat renovated Adams Memorial Theatre, and the 200-seat adaptable CenterStage. The Center contains state-of-the-art technical and support facilities for each theatre, along with classroom and studio space for all levels of student activity. Williams is also affiliated with the National Theatre Institute for intensive theatre study off-campus.
The Department of Theatre at Williams works to develop in each student an understanding of theatre that is both deep and broad. Here, in our classrooms and on our stages, we examine tradition and explore new forms in the context of dramatic theory, history and literature.
Our primary concern in choosing each season is to allow our students to experience a broad range of dramatic literature and theatrical style. In this liberal arts setting, new styles can be invented, new stagings attempted and new techniques discovered. We are a laboratory for our profession, exposing students to theatre of the highest level, and inspiring them to continue shaping the future life of the art form.
Williamstheatre is the production arm of the Theatre Department, and all members of the Williams community are encouraged to participate as actors or on the staff and stage crew. Although faculty normally direct and supervise Williamstheatre’s major productions, students also direct and design productions as independent study and honors projects throughout the year. In addition, our productions are augmented with professional directors, actors and designers.
Resident artists enhance the educational mission of the Department both in the classroom and on stage. The CenterSeries brings performers from around the globe to perform for, and interact with, the Williams community. Master classes, workshops and other forms of artist-student interaction will be the hallmark of this series. In addition, the Theatre Department regularly employs working artists to help shape productions and programs.
Cap’n Bells is an entirely student-run group that brings theatre to all parts of the campus. They have recently produced “Betrayal” and “A Slight Ache” (Pinter), “Glengarry Glen Ross” (Mamet), “The Real Inspector Hound” (Stoppard), Stephen Sondheim’s musicals “Into the Woods” and "Assassins," and several student written and directed musicals, plus the annual “Frosh Revue.”
Theatre majors also can spend the summer participating in the Williams Summer Theatre Lab, where a dozen students spend six weeks work with 18 Williams alumni as a working theatre company. The alumni, representing professional actors, writers, directors, musicians, producers, and lighting and set designers collaborate with the students to create experimental dramatic pieces.
Dance
At Williams, the study of Dance is based on the understanding that it is both an ancient and contemporary tradition, a universal form rooted in the foundation of all art. In the context of a liberal arts college, faculty provide Williams students and the community with opportunities to participate in dance through the study of technique, performance, experimentation, production, history, and research. This active process is essential to understanding the use of the body as a vehicle for human expression across history and cultures.
"Faculty provide Williams students and the community with opportunities to participate in dance through the study of technique, performance, experimentation, production, history, and research."
The Department of Dance annually sponsors professional artists in concerts, workshops, master classes, and residences in an effort to bring the participants together for unique cultural experiences in a wide variety of dance forms. In addition, Dance maintains an active outreach program that brings dance, music, and storytelling into schools in the surrounding area.
Though not an academic major at Williams, Dance is an essential component of the cultural life of the college. Technique classes are currently offered in ballet, modern, African dance and music, and Pilates-based Method Matwork for physical education credit. Also, Williams students may study dance history, composition, and/or design tutorials that focus on research and performance for academic credit. Our students benefit from the use of local resources such as Mass MoCA, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and Bennington College.
The Dance Program was founded in 1970, when women first came to the College. Joy Anne Dewey, the program’s first coordinator, established the program in the old basketball courts of the Lasell Gymnasium. In the tiny studio that was connected to the basketball courts, Joy offered Williams students and community members opportunities in dance technique, choreography, performance, and culture. Joy founded the Williams College Dance Society and brought in residencies by artists like Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, and Meredith Monk.
The Dance Society evolved into Dance Company, a group primarily focused on Modern Dance. It is the oldest of the four performing ensembles presently in the Dance Program family. In 1989, Kusika: African Dance, Music & Storytelling Ensemble was created in a collaboration between the Dance Program and Music Department.
In 1992 the Zambezi Marimba Band was founded to explore Zimbabwean and Ghanaian marimba-playing. Kusika and Zambezi have performed jointly in concert ever since. In 2000, Sankofa was welcomed into the family. Founded in 1996 by five female freshmen, Sankofa is the first and only Step Team at Williams. The department also supports dance styles as varied as Chinese martial arts and Irish folk dance.
Hip-hop dance group Nothin’ But Cuties, break dance group Sol Ka Fe, the Swing Club, and Dancesport and Ritmo Latino ballroom clubs round out the many opportunities for those interested in dance and movement.
Dancers find an abundance of versatile space in the new ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. In addition to using the 550 seat MainStage Theatre as its performance home, the Dance Department rehearses in a breathtaking studio with full-length glass walls that provide panoramic views of campus.