We’re excited to welcome Sam Collier to the Department of Theatre & Dance!

Collier is a playwright, director, and theatre artist whose work explores climate change, storytelling, and the creative possibilities of collaboration across species. She joins Colorado College with a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder and an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

Her plays have been produced and developed by organizations including Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Dogteam Theatre Project, and Theatre NOVA. In 2025, she developed Canine Capture, an interspecies multimedia performance created with artists, motion-capture technology, and

her dog, Auberon.

This fall, Collier will also begin developing a newly commissioned play about the 150-year history of the University of Colorado in collaboration with Tectonic Theater Project and students at CU Boulder.

We’re thrilled to have her joining the Theatre & Dance community and look forward to the creativity and perspective she’ll bring to our students and department.

Auditions are coming up for our fall Mainstage production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, adapted and directed by Professor Shannon R. Davis.

Auditions: Aug. 27, 28, and 31, 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Callbacks: Sept. 1, 2, and 3, 5:30-9 p.m.
Location: Celeste Theatre, Cornerstone Arts Center

The year is 2012. It’s summer, the Mayan calendar is threatening to end in December, and we’re in Appalachian Athens, Ohio, where a huge music festival is taking over the forest. It’s a moment shaped by utopian longing, economic precarity, the possibility of the end of the world, and the promise of escape through art. This adaptation explores the play’s familiar chaos through questions of desire, consent, manipulation, and disorientation.

Students from all disciplines are welcome and encouraged to participate. We’re looking for cast, crew, and creatives, so you don’t have to be interested in performing to be part of the production.

Sign up for a 10-minute audition slot here.

Rehearsals run Sept. 21-Oct. 22, with performances Oct. 23-Nov. 8. There will be no performance on Halloween.

Curious about Theatre & Dance at CC? Come see what we’re all about at our Open House on Friday, Sept. 4!

Meet our faculty and staff, connect with students who share your interests, learn about ways to get involved onstage, backstage, in the studio, and beyond, and stick around for some fun, games, and prizes. Whether you’re already part of the department or just wondering what we do, you’re welcome to join us.

And, of course, we’ll have snacks and drinks!

Friday, Sept. 4 | 3-5 p.m.
Cornerstone Arts Center

Looking for a class this fall? Explore movement, comedy, performance, playwriting and more with these upcoming Theatre & Dance courses.

What happens when creativity and well-being come together? Explore the growing interdisciplinary field of arts and health through daily movement, discussion, and hands-on workshops with health professionals. You’ll connect creative practice with fields including psychology, education, economics, and the health sciences, then bring it all together through a final project in an art form of your choice.

Funny on purpose? Even better. Learn how to write and perform stand-up comedy with guidance from a professional comedian. You’ll explore joke structure, develop your performance persona, and practice the physical techniques that make material land onstage. Come with a set you want to polish or absolutely no stand-up experience at all. All experience levels are welcome.

What can dance tell us about culture, identity, space, politics, and the worlds we imagine?

Dance as radical world-making: Explore dance works from U.S. and international contexts working with a range of forms, aesthetics, and critical questions (narrative, queer life, third-space, utopia, ancient futures) through elements of movement, space, and time. We do so alongside liberatory thinkers from social theory, dance and performance studies, postcolonial/decolonial studies, poetry and literature. 

Ever wondered how a theatre season gets chosen? Go behind the scenes of season planning while building the dramaturgical skills used to evaluate contemporary, modern, and classic plays. You’ll read and analyze scripts, meet with playwrights, and consider what makes a play right for the Department of Theatre & Dance season.

14 E. Cache La Poudre St.
Colorado Springs, CO 80903