The Ithaca College London Center (ICLC) program is a vital part of many theater students’ experience during their four years at Ithaca College, offering the chance to experience the rich dramatic heritage of one of the great theatrical capitals. Most of these students center their curriculum around a nine-credit course called Interrelationships: British Drama and Cultural Life. This exciting, experiential class features lectures, discussions, intensive readings of British drama, and theatrical walks through London streets, theaters, and museums, guided by a British theater historian. In addition, students see plays approximately twice a week, and guest lecturers enhance the learning experience.
Other courses in the core theater program include Stage Combat, Introduction to British Styles of Acting, geared for B.A. drama majors, Styles of Acting for B.F.A. performance students, and Applied Voice for musical theater majors. Internships are available in several areas including management, technical theater, and stage management. Design students frequently enroll in British art and architecture classes, and a program requirement for many theater students, Shakespeare, is offered regularly.
In order to ensure that balanced numbers of students attend ICLC and that balanced numbers remain at the home campus in order to build, cast, and otherwise staff plays in our theater season, design/tech students and management students consult with their faculty on a year-to-year basis. B.F.A. acting majors go to ICLC in the fall semester, and B.F.A. musical theater majors attend in the spring semester. B.A. drama majors are generally allowed to go in either semester.
Theatre Arts faculty member Jack Hrkach offers more information and student input on the Ithaca College London Center on his webpage.
In August 2000 the Department of Theatre Arts implemented a trip to the Edinburgh Festival, primarily for students who were headed to London for the fall semester. This trip has proved quite popular and is now being conducted regularly. Students embark on this three-day excursion each August, and it ends just before the orientation for the fall semester at the Ithaca College London Center. A faculty sponsor/guide accompanies the students. There is a mix of organized group activity and free time to explore the city and the festival in smaller groups. Students see several shows in the Festival Fringe, take an open-top bus tour of the city, visit the Edinburgh Castle, and in some years see a play at the main festival, in others the famous Military Tattoo. Recently, a few students not en route to London have begun to attend the festival and fly back to Ithaca College in time for the beginning of the fall semester. The year 2004 marked the fifth anniversary of this fine, experiential addition to our program and to our offerings at the London Center.
Since the early 1990s, B.A. drama students have regularly enrolled at the National Theatre Institute (NTI) at the O’Neill Center in Waterford, Connecticut, in one of the semesters of their junior year. The B.A. degree is the least intensive in the department, allowing its students to double major, and/or to spend one, two, or even three semesters away from the campus. It is not unusual for students in this degree program to spend their entire junior year away, in London during one semester and at NTI during the other.
NTI has been described by returning students as “theater boot camp.” It provides a very intensive experience in many facets of the theatrical art. Perhaps most focus is placed on performance, but every student has to direct, design, and write a play as well.
A few of our more adventurous students have instead attended the branch of NTI at the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia, where they train with actors from that famous theater and take other courses in Russian language and Russian theater history. Students attending either branch of NTI receive 20 credits and can substitute certain classes there for required department courses in Directing, Introduction to Design, and in Moscow, Senior Seminar. Attending the Moscow semester is one way of completing the department’s foreign language requirement.
Nearly all of our B.A. drama students who apply are accepted. NTI has proved an exciting addition for these students, who have chosen a general approach to theater at Ithaca College, but who can add a rigorous semester as a supplement to their liberal arts curriculum.
