Concentrating on active learning, the program is dedicated to producing four major productions every year.

Directed and designed by professional artists of international standing and reputation, these productions offer student actors rigorous challenges with significant professional support. In addition, smaller productions and workshops offer further opportunities for public performance.

A full range of classes supplement the demands of work in the theatre, building talent and technique, as well as catering to students whose talents lie behind the scenes in stage management and technical theatre, and even in related fields like pr & marketing.

Our season is drawn largely from the established dramatic canon, though new plays, devised, and contemporary work have also frequently been produced. As part of the University's English Department, we primarily produce 'straight' plays, though musical theatre continues to be an vital, if not annual, part of our seasons. In all our productions we pride ourselves on exploring the multiplicity of ways a theatrical story can be told, on pushing theatrical boundaries, and on creating exciting work for a young, contemporary audience. Though our work is centered on the dramatic text, multi-media, music, dance and puppetry have all made their appearance on a regular basis in our productions.

The program, established in 1990, has produced over 75 full productions (including five new play world premieres and numerous other Rochester area premieres). Adding to the diverse repertoire have been late-night festivals, new student play festivals, and works by writers such as Jonson, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Gorki, Stoppard, Bogosian, Guare, Brecht, Beckett, Churchill, Durang, Buchner, Lorca, Miller, Moliere, Ibsen, Fo, Wedekind, Frayn, Etherege, Pirandello, Williams, Treadwell, Shaw, Ionesco, Kaufman & Hart, Shepard, Ostrovsky, Behn, Kushner, Corneille, Feydeau, LaChiusa, and Lan, among many others.

Theatre Program productions have been seen in Russia, New York City and Canada, and have twice been invited to the Kennedy Center College Theatre Festival. Additionally, original work created and/or developed at the UR International Theatre Program has gone on to have a further life in New York City and nationally.

Although not specifically focused on training students to be theatre professionals, the Program is deeply proud of its many alumni who have taken the experience and training they have received in Todd Theatre and are working as actors, stage managers, and theatre technicians in New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC (amongst others) and, in some case, internationally. We are equally proud of the hundreds of students who have applied the lessons they've learned in the theatre to their careers outside of the performing arts, and have become discerning, appreciative, and supportive theatre audiences and patrons.