Archive

The Notre Dame Theatre Chronology provides details from 1845 of faculty-directed, student-driven, co-curricular theatre productions at Notre Dame beginning with the Thespians and St. Cecilia Philomatheans and continuing to the contemporary Department of Film, Television, and Theatre. Begun by student Martin Sprunck in 1994 and continued under Washington Hall building manager Tom Barkes until 2004, the Theatre Chronology was co-edited by Mark C. Pilkinton (Film, Television, and Theatre) and Elizabeth Hogan (Archives) and maintained by Kevin Cawley (Archives) from 2004 to 2016.  It is now edited and maintained by Stacey Stewart (Film, Television, and Theatre). Also see Mark C. Pilkinton's Washington Hall at Notre Dame: Crossroads of the University, 1864-2004 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011). FTT is indebted to Dr. Pilkinton for his contributions to the timeline below.

Since 1990, the Notre Dame Student Film Festival has screened films made by Notre Dame undergraduates during the past year as class projects. The ND Student Film Festival Archive currently provides details about these featured films from 1996 to the present. The Archive is edited and maintained by Tre Goodhue and festival founder Ted Mandell.

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  2020-2021

  FTT outfits a new high-tech music production and sound design lab.

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  2018-2019

  FTT produces the first student-written musical workshopped as part of Matt Hawkins' new course, the Musical Theatre Lab. Stupid Humans, with book, music, and lyrics by Jorge "Jay" Rivera-Herrans '20, sold out all ten performances in the Philbin Studio Theatre and went on for subsequent workshops with Apples and Oranges Studios and Chicago's Tony Award-winning Goodman Theatre.

• 2018-2019

  FTT establishes the interdisciplinary Minor in Musical Theatre in partnership with the Department of Music.

• 2012-2013

  FTT presents the first production of ND Theatre NOW, a soon-to-be annual slot in the mainstage theatre season devoted to student-driven work. The initial offering featured two student-written one-act plays, She by Renée Roden '14 and The Sinopean by Daniel García de Paredes '13. 

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  2004-2005

  The Department moves into the brand new DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

• 1997-1998

  The New Playwrights Workshop is founded by Professor Mark C. Pilkinton.

• 1998-1999

  The Department of Film, Television, and Theatre is created to reflect more accurately the academic and creative interests of the Department.

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  1989-1990

  The first Notre Dame Student Film Festival takes place, founded by faculty member Ted Mandell.

• 1989-1990

  The cooperative theatre program with Saint Mary's College ends.

• 1980-1981

  Communication & Theatre Department is created with the continuing cooperative arrangement with Saint Mary's College.

• 1968-1969

  Speech & Drama Department is created from split with Communication Arts (which later becomes American Studies).

• 1967-1968

  Communication Arts Department creates a separate and cooperative Notre Dame/Saint Mary's College theatre program.

• 1957-1958

  Communication Arts Department (Journalism, Speech, Radio/Television, and Theatre) is created.

• 1925-1926

  Professor Frank Kelly teaches Play Production class.

• 1924-1925

  Speech & Drama Department is created with general university departmentalization.

• 1920-1921

  Public Speaking area is described.

• 1871-1899

  Elocution and Oratory academic area is described.

• 1867-1868

  For the spring semester, Professor A.A. Griffith arrived to teach elocution.

• 1858

  Theatre societies such as the Thespians and St. Cecilia Philomatheans are created.

• 1855-1856

  The Rev. R. A. Shortis is Professor of Elocution and Belles Lettres.

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  December 26, 1842

  The University of Notre Dame began late on the bitterly cold afternoon of November 26, 1842, when a 28-year-old French priest, Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., and seven companions, all of them members of the recently established Congregation of Holy Cross, took possession of 524 snow-covered acres that the Bishop of Vincennes had given them in the Indiana mission fields.