Drama & Theatre Studies Major

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About the Major

The drama and theatre studies major at Elon offers students a program that combines textual and historical analysis of theater with hands-on performance and production experiences. It is an interdisciplinary liberal arts program that asks majors to read widely, experience fully, think critically, and communicate clearly about theatrical performance and dramatic literature.

Jobs in Drama & Theatre Studies

• Director
• Producer
• Literary manager
• Educator
• Playwright

Past Elon Drama & Theatre Studies Internships

• Blumenthal Performing Arts
• Burning Coal Theatre Company
• The Drama League
• New York City Center
• United Talent Agency

Related Majors

• Arts Administration
• Cinema & Television Arts
• English
• Music in Liberal Arts
• Theatrical Design & Technology

From directing to lighting design, student explored a wide range of roles behind the scenes

In the four years Matthew Bobzien was a student at Elon University, he worked on more than 30 performing arts productions — as a director, producer, lighting designer, production manager and marketing director for student-run shows, as well as an assistant director, assistant lighting designer, dramaturg and stage manager for university productions.

His résumé reflects the broad nature of the drama and theatre studies major at Elon — an interdisciplinary program that provides opportunities to get hands-on experience in nearly every aspect of the theater.

“I was able to explore so many different parts of the theater,” he said. “In a lot of other theater majors, you are kind of pigeonholed into that one thing you’re mainly doing — just acting or just tech — but with drama and theatre studies, you get to do a little bit of everything. It’s sort of like a build-your-own-adventure for what you want to focus on. And the skills you learn can be applied to everything you do.”

Bobzien graduated from Elon in 2024 with a double major in drama and theatre studies and arts administration, and he said the hands-on learning set him up for success in numerous specialties. Shortly before graduation, he was applying for jobs in lighting design, directing, production management and general arts administration.

Elon is a place where you can explore a lot of different things and really learn about yourself.

Elon’s experiential learning process was key to his education, Bobzien said. But also essential were his professors and mentors.

They helped him navigate life struggles when he needed advice. They shared opportunities that offered him eclectic experiences. And they were there by his side to guide him as he tried new roles in the theater.

Bobzien got to know associate professor of drama and theatre studies Susanne Shawyer by taking one of her classes freshman year, and from there, she became an important mentor to him. When, in his sophomore year, he was an assistant dramaturg for “Sense and Sensibility,” she worked with him and a few other students, bringing him into a field he hadn’t previously explored. (Dramaturgs are advisers who research and interpret scripts and provide the cast and crew with vital information that help them do their jobs.) Then, when she heard he had an interest in directing, she gave him the opportunity to assistant direct for her on “Concord Floral.”

“She mentored me through what her directing process looked like, through what it is like to work with other departments, through how to apply that to a career in the future,” he said. Two years later, Shawyer gave Bobzien the opportunity to be the lead and only dramaturg in “John Proctor Is the Villain,” which allowed him to apply what he had learned from previous productions “to sort of run free on my own” — though she was still there for him if he needed advice.

“Anytime I encountered a challenge, especially if I was trying something new, I knew that my professors were there for me,” he said, citing Shawyer as well as associate professor Scott Proudfit from the English Department, who once worked with the Actors’ Gang in Los Angeles and was there whenever Bobzien wanted to bounce ideas off him or hear his perspective. “I could go to their office or email them, and they had the expertise to talk me through the issue and not just tell me what to do, but also ask me guiding questions to get me to the answer of what I really wanted to do, which I think is an incredibly effective way of teaching and directing.”

In addition to stage productions, he received other hands-on experience during his college career. He was an arts administration intern at Burning Coal Theatre Company in Raleigh; he helped put on the Amplify Black Voices Festival in 2024; and during his senior year, he was president of NewWorks, a student-run theater organization at Elon dedicated to the development of student-written plays.

“Through that, I learned how to lead an entire production process both as a director and from the business side as the producer, making decisions about what’s best for the community, what’s best for the mission of the organization,” he said.

In class, Bobzien learned about basing production decisions on script analysis and theory, and he found himself applying those lessons as a lighting designer. For a senior dance performance about the stress of today’s 24/7 work culture, he used heavy flickering and rhythmic flashing to convey growing pressure, inspired by the cultural materialist theory of overemployment he learned from another mentor, associate professor Scott Proudfit from the English Department.

And in what he considered the role that culminated his four years at Elon, he was the production manager and lead lighting designer for Elon’s 2024 Queer Arts Festival. The festival began the prior year as another student’s Lumen research project on applying queer theory to arts administration practices, and Bobzien was so inspired by it, he and two other students helped revive it for his senior year. It was meaningful for him on many levels.

“For me personally, the first Queer Arts Festival was the first place I used my gender-expansive pronouns of he/they, so it really provided a safe space for me to, not come out, because I was already out as bisexual, but just be my full self,” he said. “And then I also saw how it empowered artists to explore their queer identity or even just try something new and meet other people, and I heard from audience members about the impact it had on them.”

The festival also inspired Bobzien to bring the concept to high schools and other colleges. He is currently working on starting a nonprofit called the Queer Arts Education Collective.

“I want to empower students at more schools,” he said. “Young people are exploring their identities, but also we’re trying to grow as artists and as leaders, and so putting on a festival and working with them and mentoring them through it will not only help them grow professionally but also help them grow in their identity and empower them in spaces that aren’t always super empowering.”

Bobzien knows that if it wasn’t for the environment at Elon that encourages students to branch out and explore different opportunities, he wouldn’t be the person he is today.

“Even though you can be really good at one thing, you can also explore new things and go outside of your comfort zone and be great at it,” he said. “I never would have thought that I would be a dramaturg, but then I did a full production pretty much on my own working alongside a guest director. I never thought that I would be a lighting designer, but I designed every single student-run dance production over the past year. Elon is a place where you can explore a lot of different things and really learn about yourself.”

Curriculum & Degree Requirements

• Drama & Theatre Studies A.B. (opens a new window)