Friday, January 30, 2026
by Ileana Garnand
UNT’s Dance and Theatre Department has ‘evolved’ by offering more instruction on auditioning and the business of acting.

This story is part of the Pathways to Placement series, which highlights UNT faculty and staff’s hard work to prepare students in the creative arts for professional success.

After reevaluating its approach to professional development and career readiness, UNT’s Department of Dance and Theatre increased acting students’ success and satisfaction with new courses and upgraded networking opportunities.

Actors are on stage in a classroom set. Five students sit on the ground while another is held up horizontally above them by two tech crew members.
UNT students perform in a fall 2025 "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" production.

“The way the theatre department has evolved has really made it to where the students can be successful after they graduate,” said Cassidy Wiedman, an actor who graduated from UNT in 2020.

In 2023, acting faculty developed new upper division courses to better prepare students for post-graduation life. Associate Professor of Acting Bob Hess said the professors drew from their own personal experiences in the industry to determine what students need to know.

One of the new classes, Audition for the Stage, explores strategies for booking roles and being memorable to casting directors. A critical section of the course covers self-tapes, an audition format that’s become increasingly common in recent years.

“The more you can enhance your self-tape experience, the better chance you have at being selected,” Wiedman said. “At this point, self-tape quality is so important.”

Another course, Business of Acting, is a required capstone that equips graduating students with necessary skills like how to get an agent, build a portfolio website, file taxes, create a resume, correspond professionally, market themselves and more. All students receive free headshots from a professional photographer.

Hess said about half of the classes involve outside speakers, from professional actors like Wiedman giving audition feedback to a webmaster demonstrating portfolio site design.

A student stands at the far right of the image, singing into a microphone, with a sign reading "Kabaratt" behind them.
A UNT student performs in a spring 2025 "Cabaret" production.

These upper-level classes also provide an opportunity for some students to realize acting is not what they want to pursue professionally. Hess said faculty works with these students to find a better fitting industry role.

“We have a theatre entrepreneurship track which looks at opportunities that someone may not think about, like dramaturgy, stage management, front of house, even academia,” Hess said.

A former student who Hess cut from an acting class is now an admissions director for an arts academy — a much better fit, according to the professor.

“He loves it,” Hess said. “He’s close to the theatre but he’s not having to perform because he didn’t really like performing.”

In addition to reworking the curriculum, UNT’s Dance and Theatre Department elevated the prestige of an integral networking event.

The Showcase of Undergraduate Theatre Artists (SOUTA) is a general audition hosted by UNT and held in Dallas every spring. Multiple universities send seniors and recent graduates to perform in front of over 50 industry professionals including casting directors, agents and filmmakers.

While UNT has hosted SOUTA for nine years, the number of interested students tripled in the last few years. In 2024, the department screened out auditioners for the first time.

Four students stand in the middle of a stage, laughing and pointing at each other.
UNT students perform in a fall 2024 "Anatomies" production.

“They have to do a screening audition to show they mean business and will represent UNT and themselves well,” Hess said. “If they are selected, each faculty member mentors and coaches their audition scenes.”

Hess said students are frequently signed with agents or asked to audition for professional productions after attending SOUTA.

“I have seen in the last couple of years a lot more students going immediately after graduation to shows on stage,” Hess said. “They appear at our DFW professional theatres, not the community theatre circuit.”