Yes, You Should Major in Theatre
No Other Major Better Prepares You for the 21st Century Workforce
It’s easy to shit on theatre majors. “All you’ll do is roll around on the ground pretending to be animals.” That’s true. To be fair, you also walk around pretending to be animals. If you’re advanced, you also do some climbing like animals, or even some improvised scenarios as animals. In addition to honing your animal impersonation skills, more importantly, theatre is also the major that develops the most in-demand soft skills in the marketplace. No other major, including business, better prepares you to enter the 21st century workforce.
Before we get into the capitalism of it all, let me say you should major in theatre because it makes you a better human being. You learn empathy and visual aesthetics and storytelling and acceptance and all sorts of great things that make life better. It’s also completely valid to be a theatre major so you can spend your life making theatre. Go figure. So, major in theatre because you want to make art. That’s great.
This article is about the skills you develop in the theatre and how you can use them in the corporate world. For an art based in storytelling, we’ve done a terrible job telling the story of what majoring in theatre does for you beyond the stage. So, here goes.