Students learn to participate in current critical discourse while engaging with the theory, history and material conditions of performance, and broaden their personal horizons as they encounter a range of ideas and issues–political, social, and aesthetic–through the unique art form that is theatre. The program thus creates a rigorous intellectual environment firmly rooted in the theatrical art form. 

From this broad-based grounding in the fundamentals of the medium, students can then opt to specialize in one of the component subfields: history and theory, dramaturgy, playwriting, acting, directing, production, and design. In addition these fundamentals will also prepare students who so wish to specialize in theater education with the goal of obtaining a North Carolina teaching license.