The Department of Drama has a unique affiliation with Syracuse Stage, Central New York’s premier professional theater, which provides opportunities for drama students to gain professional experience in all areas of study as they earn their undergraduate degrees.
This symbiotic relationship began in 1974, when Syracuse University hired Arthur Storch to serve as both Stage’s artistic director and the drama department’s director.
The affiliation between the Department of Drama and Syracuse Stage is fostered by their common home in one theater complex. The Syracuse Stage/Drama Theater Complex, also known as the Regent Theater Complex, contains three theaters and a cabaret space. These four performance spaces provide the broadest range of design and staging possibilities, from conventional proscenium to theater-in-the-round.
All performance spaces can be used by both the Department of Drama and Syracuse Stage, enabling each organization to present work in the venue that best serves the artistic and pedagogical needs of the work at hand.
- The John D. Archbold Theater is a 499-seat proscenium theater.
- The Arthur Storch Theater seats between 200 and 250 people and can be configured as a proscenium, thrust, or avenue stage.
- The Loft Theater is an intimate and flexible space that seats 49 audience members in a variety of configurations. It is most often used for short plays, readings, workshops, and experimental efforts.
- The Sutton Pavilion provides a versatile cabaret space, often for late-night entertainment for Syracuse University and the greater Syracuse communities.
The complex also includes dance studios, performance/rehearsal studios, lecture rooms, seminar rooms, musical practice rooms, locker rooms, and showers—as well as the professionally staffed technical shops that build the Department of Drama and Syracuse Stage productions. Facilities for the department also include adjacent buildings with stage management classroom and office spaces as well as our newly expanded and renovated Theater Design Center, which includes three design studios, crafts rooms, a LightBox, CAD lab, and a design library.