Theater at Bread Loaf

Virtually since its beginning, the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont has put a major emphasis upon the theater arts. The Program in Theater provides formal and informal instruction in acting, directing, playwriting, stagecraft, and design. While the program is not structured as a professional training school, it is oriented toward bringing students into contact with theater professionals in all fields. A major aspect of theater study at the Bread Loaf program in Vermont is the presentation of a wide variety of performance projects.

Bread Loaf each year brings professional actors to the Vermont campus to assist in mounting the summer’s major production, produced in Bread Loaf's Burgess Meredith Little Theater; these actors constitute the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble. The Ensemble is intimately involved in many of the classrooms—not only classes in dramatic literature, but also classes in other forms of literary study and in the teaching of writing.

In recent years, major productions at Bread Loaf have included Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's The Changeling. The 2012 production will be William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

New plays written by Bread Loaf students are occasionally produced in the theater on the Vermont campus, as are one-acts directed by advanced directing students. Opportunities also exist for acting students to explore and present longer scenes and for all interested students to act in informal presentations in the directing or playwriting workshops.

At all four Bread Loaf campuses, there are many courses in theatrical literature.

Theater in Oxford

Bread Loaf's Oxford campus offers a rare opportunity to see some of the best theater in the world. London is about an hour and a half from Oxford by train or bus and Stratford-upon-Avon is just a little farther. Each summer, the whole school makes excursions to see two Royal Shakespeare Company productions (the cost of tickets is part of student tuition). In most summers this means one trip to London and one to Stratford.

There is a lively summer theater scene in Oxford itself, and in past summers Bread Loaf students have enjoyed both professional and Oxford student productions.

Each summer the course "Shakespeare: On the Page and on the Stage" brings Bread Loaf students into contact with theater professionals—directors, costume designers, actors, and others—as they study plays in production in London and Stratford.

Theater in Santa Fe

The curriculum this summer features an acting course that helps teachers incorporate acting techniques into the teaching of a wide range of literary forms. Some summers, we also offer "Opera at 7,000 Feet," which takes advantage of the Santa Fe Opera's summer season, in full swing during our own session.