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Performing Arts Department

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Dowd Main Stage

With a BFA in musical theatre, our Performing Arts Department provides a foundation in music, theatre, dance, and technical theatre, resulting in thorough professional training for a career in this exciting field.

You’ll work with the finest teachers of voice, acting, dance, theatre history, music history, and theory, and gain a liberal arts education at the same time..

In addition, you’ll have opportunities to perform in main-stage musicals,  classic and contemporary plays, student-directed one-act plays, workshops and readings of new musicals, and choral and instrumental ensembles. A 386-seat theatre, a recital hall, a lab theatre, a dance studio and practice and rehearsal rooms will support your study.

Whether you pursue a career as a performer, work behind the scenes or become a teacher, your experience at SUNY Cortland will serve you in a variety of career options.

Majors

News

Orchestra plans holiday concert

The Dec. 7 concert “It’s About Time” explores a musical approach that’s worked through the ages.

Big Fish opens Friday, Nov. 12

The musical will be performed in Dowd Fine Arts Center Theatre through Nov. 21. 

Ubaldo Valli is a prize winner in The American Prize National Nonprofit Competition in the Performing Arts

Ubaldo Valli, Performing Arts Department, has been selected as a prize winner in The American Prize National Nonprofit Competition in the Performing Arts. Valli shared third prize in the Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming, College/University Division category. The American Prize is “the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the classical arts” and is “designed to evaluate, recognize and reward the best performers, ensembles, composers and administrators in the United States.” 

SUNY Cortland's Musical Theatre Major Named a Hidden Gem

OnStageBlog.com recently named SUNY Cortland as one of “The 5 Most Underrated Theatre Colleges” for the Northeast, lauding the College for its contemporary training standards, facilities and past performance

Broadway Performer’s Visit Inspires SUNY Cortland’s Aspiring Actors

Jonalyn Saxer, who has performed in "Cats" and "Holiday Inn" on Broadway and will be part of the cast of "Mean Girls" later this year, shared her experience and took plenty of questions on Friday, Feb. 2.

Events