Swarthmore College Department of Theater

Name: Swarthmore College Department of Theater
Address: 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA, 19081, US
Telephone: (610) 328-8000
Rating: 5

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Swarthmore College Department of Theater

Swarthmore's Theater Department is an educational and artistic laboratory. We encourage students to

Swarthmore's Theater Department is an educational and artistic laboratory—a place for testing the talents and intellect of students and faculty alike. We combine a rigorous liberal arts education with the practical exploration of performance. We continually seek new working relationships between the academy and the professional theater and build bridges between the American theater and our international colleagues.

11/18/2025

This Thursday, Join Asst. Prof Alex Torra for a talk on his ongoing creative research on Theater as Civic Practice.

Thursday Nov. 20, 4:30 PM Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall

Over the last year, Alex's creative research has taken shape through six theater projects, each one a live experiment in how we might keep showing up — to each other, to our communities, and to the big challenges of our modern times. Working alongside collaborators and audiences, they have been asking a simple but demanding question: how can theater teach us to meet uncertainty with clarity, courage, and care? At the center of this practice is a desire to create theater that can do more than entertain; it can invite us to reflect, reckon, and repair. In the process, perhaps we can build the tools to cultivate a hopeful yet clear-eyed relationship with the complexities of our current moment.

Photos by Johanna Austin

11/16/2025

Ladies, Gentlemen and Everyone else! Today is your last chance to see The Threepenny Opera at 2:00 PM! You don’t want to miss this fantastic cast before it all closes!

11/15/2025

The Threepenny Opera is open! Three more chances to catch this energetic rock opera! Nov 15 at 2 + 8 and Nov 16 at 2
(Photos by Silas Reyes)

11/14/2025

The Threepenny Opera opens tonight at 8 PM! Here’s one last look behind the scenes at our Wandelprobe rehearsal. These young performers are powerhouses and the only thing missing from their performance is you!

Nov 14 at 8 PM
Nov 15 at 2 + 8 PM
Nov 16 at 2 PM

11/11/2025

It's registration time at Swarthmore College, and here are some of the classes we are offering with no prerequisite required!

11/10/2025

This past weekend, the production ensemble cohort completed tech rehearsal for The Threepenny Opera. These rehearsals add in lights, costumes, sound and even fog machines to fill out the world of the Capitol. Come out this weekend to see the hard work of these young performers!

11/09/2025

Another peek behind the curtain in The Threepenny Opera: here’s our sitzprobe rehearsal.

The Threepenny Opera runs Nov 14 at 8 PM, Nov 15 at 2 + 8 PM, and Nov 16 at 2 PM. Will you be there?

11/07/2025

Production Ensemble’s The Threepenny Opera opens in a week! Throughout the next week, we’ll be showing you some behind the scenes footage of the rehearsal process. Mark your calendars for Nov 14 - 16 and join us in the Capitol! (Video by Percy Xu)

11/04/2025

The Swarthmore Department of Theater is excited to announce that we are seeking a new Professor of Theater Design to join our faculty.

Interested and qualified applicants should submit their materials at this link: https://apply.interfolio.com/177022

11/03/2025

Next up at Swat Theater: Production Ensemble presents THE THREEPENNY OPERA

Directed by Jude Sandy

Friday November 14 through Sunday November 16

LPAC Main Stage

In the Capital, swindling and conniving are a business, extreme inequality reigns, and gangs, businessmen and the cops draw contentious lines across the map. Yet when an inauguration promises big rewards, and realignments of power threaten to throw the city into turmoil, who will come out on top: the violent or the crooked?

In The Threepenny Opera, the underbelly of Brecht’'s Weimar take on London is transported to the subversive cultures of 80's punk rock, new wave, drag, graffiti and protest. Come see a raw interpretation of the show that made Mack the Knife a hit, and hear it take on new meaning against the back-drop of late-20th Century American capitalism, greed and lust.

Free and open to all. For More Information, please contact [email protected]

10/24/2025

Meet the playwright of FALSE THIEF--Grace Fruauff ('26). Come check out this reading of her new play on Saturday October 25 at 7:30 PM in the Frear Ensemble Theater.

Grace Fruauff ’26 is a senior Honors major in Theater with a minor in Film and Media Studies. She loves writing plays and is so excited for False Thief to be her debut full-length play here at Swarthmore. Grace has done a lot of theater here at Swat, including Everybody, The Glass Menagerie , The Weiner House, 32 very short plays about death, and most recently Monkey See, Monkey…A Love Story. Grace may or may not have been a boy-band fan growing up or currently.

Picture 1 is from Everybody by Branden Jacob-Jenkins. Photo credit Cara Anderson
Alt Text Description: Grace Fruauff stands at a microphone in the Lang Performing Arts Center. She has red hair past her shoulders, and is wearing a white polo shirt. She speaks menacingly into the microphone

Picture 2 is from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Alt Text Description: The stage of the Frear Ensemble Theater is awash in purple light that illuminates a couch, and two figures dancing a partner dance, hands clasped together. Grace Fruauff faces the camera, and is wearing a long white dress.

10/22/2025

Minister of Loneliness will be on Swarthmore's campus for one week only, October 22-28, to file your loneliness claims. Tonight find him near Clothier Hall 6:00-7:30pm.

Address

500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA
19081

Telephone

(610) 328-8000

Website

http://www.swarthmore.edu/department-theater

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