Welcome to Department of Drama | Claire Trevor School of the Arts | Department of Drama

Human Error

October 1 - October 31 Online

Madelyn and Keenan are NPR-listening, latte-sipping blue-staters who are planning a family. Or they were, anyway, until the fertility clinic screwed up and accidentally implanted their fertilized embryo in another uterus — a uterus belonging to a small...
Audio Theater

November 12 - November 13 Claire Trevor Theatre

Experience the magic of audio performances with six plays written by UCI students and alums, directed by UCI undergrad and graduate students. More information, including a list and description of each audio play, can be found at ...
Rebecca Oaxaca Lays Down a Bunt

January 29 - February 6 Claire Trevor Theatre

In this modern day five-door farce, the overarching theme is to find, express, and celebrate your true calling in life. The action takes place in a renovated hotel, The Hotelman Arms, in Chicago, where the motto is, “No privacy is the new privacy.” The...
The Seagull, by Chekhov

March 5 - March 13 Claire Trevor Theatre

The first of Anton Chekhov’s realistic plays, The Seagull is a 4 act, slice of life drama filled with comedic irony about artists navigating through life. The play deals with the human condition and the conflict between ourselves and others. Come along...
The Effect

April 23 - May 1 Robert Cohen Theatre

This cynical romantic comedy takes place within the confines of a clinical drug trial. Tristan and Connie meet while undergoing the anti-depressant trial and become quick friends and then more. The question is: how can they know if they’re feelings are...
Into the Woods

June 1 - June 5 Claire Trevor Theatre

This Tony Award-winning, modern classic by James Lapine and legendary composer Stephen Sondheim is easily one of the most popular works of the canon, and rightfully so. Through innovative storytelling, musical sophistication and dark comedy, the ...
Emerging Brighter

As UCI student artists emerge from an extended hiatus from campus, learn more about what they discovered and how they honed new skills in 2021.

Emerging Brighter

UCI student artists discovered and honed new skills in 2021 By Christine Byrd When UCI moved operations online a year and a half ago, everyone gained new skills: creating an at-home studio, mastering Zoom meetings and troubleshooting technology. But as artists struggled to keep their creative...

Alumni |Connect

Donnetta Lavinia Grays Views Theater as a Place ‘Where Community Can Flourish’

By Richard Chang UC Irvine M.F.A. graduate Donnetta Lavinia Grays (acting, ’02) was already an accomplished actor and playwright when she received news this year that would change her life. In February, she was informed that she had won a prestigious Whiting Award, a $50,000 annual grant that...

Faculty |Student

Coup de Comedy Festival brings a global community together

By Lauren Knight When founding UCI’s student improv team, Improv Revolution (iRev), with his fellow students in 2011, Joel Veenstra had no idea that UCI’s student improv group would grow into what it is today. Now, Veenstra serves as the group’s faculty mentor, and produced an event with iRev...

Graduate Programs

UCI is devoted to the development of working professional actors: actors who can make for themselves a successful professional life in an extraordinarily competitive field and who possess the skills, insight, intelligence, creativity, and vision to create the theatre of the future.