The UC Irvine Department of Drama offers a wide array of Musical Theatre classes and experiences that have become an important stepping stone between the academic and professional worlds for the undergraduate student.
Our Undergraduate Music Theatre Program provides drama majors the opportunity to audition for music theatre courses. This high-level professional training curriculum includes song repertoire building, audition technique, dance technique and repertoire, and singing for the stage, widening the actor’s knowledge of the musical theatre canon and its important role as a truly American art form is one of the major goals of our comprehensive instruction.
UCI Drama alumni were featured recently on Broadway in Mean Girls, Hadestown, Tootsie, The Play That Goes Wrong, Come from Away, and Book of Mormon. Past graduates have appeared in the Broadway productions of Fun Home, Escape to Margaritaville, Cher, Spring Awakening, Hair, Spamalot, South Pacific, Urban Cowboy, King and I, High Fidelity, Wicked, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A Chorus Line, Annie Get Your Gun, All Shook Up, Grease, The Producers, and Jersey Boys.
UCI’s Music Theatre training prepares its versatile students to work in many mediums – in film, casting, writing, composing, and recording. Additionally, former students are using their creativity in the education of others.
The Department of Drama produces six Mainstage productions each season, including two musicals – one of which is only open to undergraduates. Past undergraduate productions include American Idiot, The Pajama Game, The Sweet Smell of Success, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and most recently, Into the Woods. In 2021, Drama produced the online premiere of Bunkerville , with music direction by MFA 3rd year Luke Shepherd.
In addition to Mainstage productions, students have multiple musical theatre performance opportunities throughout the year in faculty and student-directed works. The development of new musicals – such as Professor Andrew Palermo’s Nickel Mines that had its regional premiere in January 2022 at ACT of Connecticut – is another important aspect of the UCI Music Theatre training program.