College Cuts Theater Department

“Last month, in a sharp cost-cutting move, the administration [of Mills College, a small liberal arts school in Northern California] voted to eliminate the dramatic arts department in 2004… For reasons both pragmatic and symbolic, the disappearance of drama from the academic program at Mills reverberates in especially pointed and powerful ways. Beyond the loss of classes, student productions and jobs for the small department’s four nontenured, ‘semi-permanent’ faculty members, the decision puts larger issues about women and theater — and the way women get seen and heard in the world at large — into high relief.”