Collection of Augustana College Theatre materials

Augustana College and Theological Seminary offered its first courses in elocution and physical culture in 1897-1898, which likely included some elements of acting. In 1910-1911, the Department of Elocution and Physical Culture first offered a course in “dramatic expression.” The following year, it became known as the Department of Elocution, and in 1919-1920, it became the School of Oral Expression. Starting in 1928-1929, theatre courses are listed under the School of Oral Expression and the Department of Public Speaking and Debate, which in 1929-1930 became the Department of Speech. In 1934-1935, the School of Oral Expression was dissolved, but the Speech Department continued a course in “Dramatic Art.” Augustana’s School of Oral Expression began producing one-act plays in the college chapel in the mid-1920s, and plays continued to be produced by each of the succeeding departments.

In the 1960s, a group called the Augustana Players began producing several plays a year. This continued until the mid-1980s, when plays began to be staged under the Theatre Department’s banner. The Theatre Department also ran a summer program, which was founded as the Paddle Wheel Players in 1968 and renamed the Pitchfork Players the next year. The Pitchfork Players dissolved in 1979.

The first student-run theatre organization was the Elsinore Dramatic Club, founded in 1905. The club started with readings, then progressed to producing short plays before eventually dissolving in 1912-1913. Augustana Musical Theatre, a student organization that donated all of its proceeds to charity, produced its first musical in the spring of 1967. The group continued to produce an annual musical until the 1977-1978 school year, when it changed its name to Augustana Student Theatre and began producing plays. The group dissolved in 1981.

Opera has also been produced at Augustana College, first by the Augustana Opera Workshop, and, more recently, by Opera @ Augustana, both of which were collaborations between the music and theatre departments.