About TMA
The Department of Theatre and Media Arts, housed in the College of Fine Arts and Communications, hosts five majors (Acting, Media Arts, Music Dance Theatre, Theatre Arts Studies, and Theatre Education). 23 full-time faculty, 10 full-time arts administrators, and over 30 adjunct faculty contribute to the education of our ~500 undergraduate students. We run a theatre season of 7 faculty-directed and 4 student-directed productions in three different theatres, and produce 7-8 fiction, non-fiction, and animated short films each year.
TMA MISSION
Our mission is to promote literacy, creativity, and spirituality in the arts of theatre and media, to illuminate and confirm truth, tell the most important stories, and celebrate the infinite potential of the human soul. We work to develop scholar artists who are inspired by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and who build on the great works of the past and present to become the innovators of the future.
As a department we understand the power of the fine arts to uplift and inspire. Latter-day Saint prophet, President Kimball clearly understood the same—he mentions the performing arts more often than any other field of study in his foundational speech, “The Second Century of Brigham Young University.” As we train our students to be leaders in their fields, they are prepared to go into some of the most influential professions, creating the stories that create popular culture and influence popular opinion. As we use gospel methodology for this training, our students are in the powerful position of understanding how to use their testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ to be a light in the modes of expression that shape much of our world.
TMA is centered on students. All our planning and processes are evaluated by the impact they will have on the spiritual development, intellectual growth, professional training, character building, emotional well-being, and service orientation of our students.
The five majors in TMA—Acting, Media Arts Studies, Music Dance Theatre (MDT), Theatre Arts Studies, and Theatre Arts Education-- provides both a strong liberal arts foundation and specialized technical training. These programs emphasize professional practices, creative problem-solving, collaboration. Students from our TMA programs are prepared for careers in the fields of theatre and media arts, are ready for graduate studies, and have a wide range of transferrable skills that will set them on a path for success no matter what their future holds.