Featured Alumnus: Marco Antonio Rodriguez ('97)
At Buffalo State Theater
We meet you where you are and customize your curriculum to foster and develop your artistry. We set high standards within an academic environment of compassion while providing opportunities in our vibrant television, film and theater community of WNY. Hands on is what we do. The only thing that will limit your possibilities is you. We encourage you to apply today and experience for yourself what is possible.
Get to Know Buffalo State Theater
2025-2026 Productions
Love Notes
February 11 - 14, 2026
Celebrate Valentine’s season with Love Notes, a romantic cabaret featuring love songs from your favorite musical theater shows, performed by our talented college cast. From sweet crushes to epic love stories, each song explores a different side of falling in (and out of) love. Bring a date, your friends, or come solo and let the music set the mood for an unforgettable night of heart, harmony, and Broadway romance.
Pipeline
April 15 - 19, 2026
By Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Jennifer Toohey
Co-sponsored by Casting Hall Productions
Nya, an inner-city public high school teacher, is committed to her students but desperate to give her only son Omari opportunities they’ll never have. When a controversial incident at his upstate private school threatens to get him expelled, Nya must confront his rage and her own choices as a parent. But will she be able to reach him before a world beyond her control pulls him away?
With profound compassion and lyricism, Pipeline brings an urgent conversation powerfully to the fore. Morisseau pens a deeply moving story of a mother’s fight to give her son a future — without turning her back on the community that made him who he is.
Thursday Play Reading Series
Join us as we present FREE play readings and discussions. Enjoy plays selected from our student surveys or submitted by faculty and local directors. All performances will take place in the Flexible Theatre (SAVA 205), from 12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
Schedule:
February 19, 2026
March 12, 2026
April 23, 2026
May 7, 2026
Theater Spotlight
Buffalo State talent shines on and off stage with ‘DREAMGIRLS’ at Shea’s 710
Audiences are dazzled by Dreamgirls, a co-production between Shea’s Performing Arts Center and AnsariSaxon Productions, founded by two Buffalo State faculty members: Naila Ansari Carbonell Catilo, assistant professor of theater and Africana Studies; and Karen Saxon, ’03, lecturer of music. The production features work by multiple Buffalo State students, faculty members and alumni.
Theater News
Buffalo State presents musical ‘Ride the Cyclone’ in renovated Flexible Theatre
February 20, 2024 - Theater Department premiers new play by local playwright Donna Hoke.
For the first time in Buffalo State’s history the national anthem was performed in American Sign Language (ASL) for the Homecoming game! Organized by Melissa VanOsch, professor of dance.
Buffalo State Mentorship Project with Local Theater Professionals Provides Benefits to Both Parties
Calamus Project Launches Films, Website, and Live Performance of Love Poems by Walt Whitman
Fire Brings Years of Expertise, Creativity to Buffalo State’s Costume Shop
Ansari, Alumna, Students Invited to Participate in 'Black Roots Summer'