Starting next year, the School of Dramatic Arts will “sunset” two of its degree programs: the Bachelor of Fine Arts in technical direction and the Master of Fine Arts in dramatic writing, according to a letter from Dean Emily Roxworthy to SDA faculty and staff on Aug. 28. The decision came alongside layoffs in production and design staff, reductions in student worker budgets and plans to release leases on certain spaces.

The students currently in the program will still graduate, but SDA will not be admitting new students to these programs starting in the Fall 2026 cycle, the letter read. The school will try to ensure the “same quality of education” for current students that they were guaranteed when they enrolled.

The announcement left some students and alumni in the technical direction program feeling “sad” and “disappointed.” Alex Muir, a senior majoring in technical direction, said cutting the program would undermine SDA’s offerings in producing sets given the uniqueness of the program.

“It was a very niche program that I wanted to attend, and I think SDA losing it means that there’s going to be a lot more work on the faculty and staff to build the sets versus the students,” Muir said.

Kate Harrow, 2014 graduate with a BFA in technical direction, said that technical directors are one of the most sought-after positions in the industry, and cutting off the program would undermine USC’s appeal.

“To eliminate this BFA program … USC now becomes less competitive in the dramatic arts marketplace as a sought- after school to apply to,” Harrow said.

Sydney Fabis, 2023 graduate with a BFA in technical direction, said that the education at SDA for both production students and actors would be incomplete without the technical direction major.

“You can’t really have a good theater education, even if you’re an actor, without having the other half of theater, which is all the people that bring it to life,” Fabis said.

Scenic shop facing layoffs and cuts

The Technical Theatre Lab at SDA, where technical direction students work on set construction and maintenance, has also been affected by staff reductions, according to Zoe McCracken, a 2024 graduate with a BFA in technical direction.

Currently, there’s only one professor in technical direction left to oversee scenic work, making the school’s production of student shows increasingly difficult, McCracken said. She said that the layoffs hinder the functionality of day-to-day operations in the scenic shop.

“There is no support staff in the scenic shop to produce any of the SDA shows and to continue to build those sets,” McCracken said. “[It] is just kind of problematic based on the amount of training and support they need from professionals that should be guiding them through the process.”

SDA’s production and design section is further impacted with cuts in work-study programs that reduced half of the student labor in helping the school with producing shows, McCracken said.

In response to questions from the Daily Trojan, SDA wrote that reductions to student worker budgets are tailored to the budget approval processes and the preference for hiring students with work-study, rather than specific cuts to the budget.

Sophia Pollacchi, a junior majoring in technical direction, said that these cuts have affected SDA’s overall ability to produce and design sets.

“We actually had to reduce the number of shows that we fully produce every semester because we don’t have enough hands to build every show,” Pollacchi said.

Students and alumni express concerns about SDA’s decision-making process

Some students and alumni said they learned about the program’s closure only after the decision had been finalized. While acknowledging the dean’s support and transparency, Muir said the decision-making process did not invite student opinions.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, we’re considering cutting this program, what are your thoughts?’” Muir said. “It was like, ‘This is what we’re doing, but we’re going to help you.’”

Fabis said that many alumni have not been formally informed, and the knowledge about the program cut went “through the grapevine.”

“[Roxworthy] definitely is not transparent about any of these changes, and they don’t really care about the alumni opinion, especially not the opinion of production students,” Fabis said. “They like to know what the famous actors are doing, and if any of us have won awards, … but, they don’t want to talk about anything else.”

Over the summer, SDA announced it would replace some full plays in the Bachelor of Arts theatre program with staged readings. Roxworthy said that the change was made due to financial constraints, and staged readings were an opportunity to “enhance” the student experience.

“The dean has expressed repeatedly that she feels SDA shows are overproduced and that it’s unnecessary,” McCracken said. “The dean continues to emphasize that we need to produce more performances and more shows for the actors to have opportunities to perform. However, then the support on the production side for the students, staff and overall school is being totally slashed.”

Looking ahead, Fabis said that these changes might affect SDA graduates’ ability to integrate into their future working environment. She said that another alum she knew expected a drop in new talent in the technical directions field.

McCracken said that the program cuts and the layoffs separate performers and producers, impacting SDA students’ overall understanding of their future workspace.

“When the dean pushes for these multi hyphenate performers and students to become artists, to go out into the world, most people don’t walk onto a fully budgeted feature film where everything is handed to them,” McCracken said, “Most people are working in 99 seat theaters around L.A., and they really have to build the sets themselves … by not pushing for these programs, SDA is kind of taking themselves out of that community, right?”