Performing Arts

The School of Performing Arts enjoyed another prolific year of music and theatre-making. With over 300 concerts, six mainstage theatre productions, the tenth annual UCF Celebrates the Arts festival, three additional music events in Steinmetz Hall, success at festivals and competitions, our new play festival, and the many student projects, we impacted the community and provided our students with significant opportunities to excel.

At UCF Celebrates the Arts, we presented over 38 performances, lectures, presentations and exhibits. The festival was also honored with major support grants from the State of Florida and the City of Orlando.  The production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was a prime example of the level of excellence the theatre department is capable of and the innovative techniques our students are being taught to prepare them for life after graduation. The National Young Composer’s Challenge, produced for the fourth time at UCF Celebrates the Arts, featured six outstanding composers from around the country that were premiered by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and UCF faculty members. Opera wowed audiences with Mozart at the Celebration with their most ambitious work yet, a collaboration between music and theatre. We hosted over 2000 students in the region in invitational clinics. The percussion studio invited alums from years past and had over 50 alumni performing together (with College of Arts and Humanities Dean Jeff Moore at the drum set!)

This year, UCF choirs presented a holiday show in Steinmetz Hall, and our bands presented a concert that featured a world premiere piece in the same hall. Our world-renowned jazz program had its ninth recording on the national jazz charts for 18 weeks, rising to #2.

Once again, SPA received a coveted Pabst-Steinmetz Arts and Wellness Innovation Award under the guidance of Julia Listengarten. The funding resulted in a production titled Daring to Dream that was featured in the 2024 Pegasus PlayLab.

Thanks to a generous grant from Bruce and Jeffrey Gould (honoring their mother’s love of nursing), UCF students in the theatre studies program, in partnership with the College of Nursing, continued bringing the magic of theatre to Nemours Children’s Health.

Our themed experience program continues to grow under the leadership of Peter Weishar. Enrollment is competitive for the programs: three MFA  and two MS cohorts are in full swing, all enrolled at maximum capacity. Students are getting hired before graduation to work for Disney, Universal and other major partners.

Theatre UCF produced an entertaining season of plays that entertained and enlightened. The Prom was a sellout and a big audience favorite; students went swimming onstage in the beautiful and heart-wrenching production of Metamorphosis. Peter and the Starcatcher was a magical journey through life before Peter Pan; they presented a compelling and moving production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, they found the heart of a southern family in Chicken and Biscuits and soared in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. Pegasus PlayLab enjoyed its biggest year yet, with readings of three new plays and a total production. Playwrights came to campus and worked with students on revising and working on their plays. The dance program again presented an evening of original dance pieces, and the dance minor has grown to over 100 students.

Bands commissioned several new works and we welcomed guest artists worldwide to play and teach. The trumpet studio successfully competed at the National Trumpet Competition. The jazz program impressed audiences with the UCF Jazz Festival and the UCF Symphony performed as part of the St. Luke’s Music Series and under the stars! Two UCF graduate string players completed the first-ever OPUS Scholars program, wherein, as part of their studies, they spent two years as resident artists with our partner the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.

I am proud of our students, alums, faculty, and staff for their dedication to the arts and to training the next generation of musicians and theatre artists. The UCF faculty are passionate about what they do as artists and educators. The students are inspired by their teachers and the university benefits from the outstanding arts opportunities we create and the exceptional artists that go into the world, reflecting UCF’s world-class training and values.

— Michael Wainstein, director