Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater

Shen Curriculum courses are open to all students at Yale, regardless of major or professional school affiliation.  Because class size is limited, each Shen course has either an application, an audition, or permission of instructor requirement.  

Fridays @ Five is a series of master classes and other theater events integrating the professional world of the American Musical Theater with academic life at Yale. 

Extra-curricular voice lessons in musical theater technique are offered by audition through the Shen Curriculum.  Information about auditions will be available in the fall.  Questions? dan.egan@yale.edu

Through both the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies program and Music Department, Yale offers upper-level musical theater history, lyric, and libretto writing seminars, some of which are cross-listed with the David Geffen School of Drama. These courses comprise the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater. There are also opportunities for voice training through the Department of Music, usually in noncredit-bearing courses.

Several student organizations, including the Musical Theater Group, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, the Opera Theater of Yale College, and the Yale Baroque Opera Project, specialize in producing musicals and opera. The Yale Dramat produces a commencement musical yearly and one or two other musicals per season. In addition, students occasionally mount musical theater productions at the Off-Broadway Theater, a black box devoted to extracurricular productions, or in one of the college theaters. Most of these productions have a full student orchestra, student choreography, student musical direction, and almost always a full and lively house.