The Department of Dramatic Arts and its theatre production arm, the Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT), combine to create an exciting center for excellence in the dramatic arts. Each year young theatre artists from across the United States choose to pursue education, training, and production experience through undergraduate and graduate study in the Department of Dramatic Arts and CRT. The goal of the department is twofold. First, it aims to provide the finest possible professional training through classroom and studio instruction. Second, it aims to supplement and enrich that classroom and studio training through professional level production experience in plays produced by the Connecticut Repertory Theatre.

Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) is the production organization of the Department of Dramatic Arts. Through CRT, the Department produces a subscription series of plays and musicals during the academic year. CRT operates in a manner that is essentially identical to a typical regional repertory theatre and does so with similar artistic aspirations. The CRT's contract with the Actor's Equity Association permits our acting majors, both graduate, and undergraduate, to participate in the Equity Candidacy Program through which many of them are eligible for union membership upon their graduation.