Your students don't just
study the world. They change it.
Not a tour. Not a course. A practice.
A DAT university partnership is not a cultural tour with theatre on the side. Students are embedded in real communities, working alongside local artists and youth to create original performances that speak to the issues that matter most in that place, at that time.
Students don't just study theatre — they practice it as a tool for listening, justice, and transformation. They come home with a fundamentally different sense of what art can do.
Start a Conversation
From conversation to performance.
Reach Out
Share your vision, your students, and your learning goals. We'll ask the right questions to understand what you're really after.
Co-Design
Our team works with your faculty and administrators to design a partnership that integrates DAT's methodology with your academic requirements.
In the Field
Students travel with DAT artists to partner communities. They devise, teach, produce, and perform — learning by doing.
Back Home
Artists return changed. The stories they created ripple outward — in papers, performances, and the lives they continue to live.
A program for every vision.
From weekend intensives to multi-week immersions, we'll find the right shape for your students, your faculty, and your academic calendar.
Applied Community Theatre
DAT's flagship university program — and the one faculty return to year after year. Students are embedded in partner communities in Ecuador, Slovakia, and beyond, leading theatre workshops with local youth, devising original work, and performing at an international festival. Faculty travel as co-facilitators or academic supervisors, deepening their own practice alongside students. Fully structured for credit integration. Arrive as students. Return as teaching artists.
Rugged Artist Workshops
An intensive artist-development program for theatre students ready for more than the studio. Students train alongside working DAT artists in international partner communities — rigorous, place-based, and community-rooted. Designed to fit spring break or semester schedules. Ecuador, Slovakia, and beyond.
Cross-Cultural Arts Journey
A three-week international journey open to students of any arts discipline — not just theatre. Students travel with DAT to partner communities, take part in professional workshops and international performances, collaborate with local artists, and culminate in a shared performance. Ideal for departments seeking interdisciplinary credit-bearing travel beyond their own form.
Academic Arts Fieldwork
Short, rigorous cultural immersions built around a specific academic or artistic question. Students pair theatre practice with community observation, ethnographic encounter, and artistic exchange. A natural fit for doctoral fieldwork, interdisciplinary seminars, or a department's first step into a longer DAT partnership.
Curated Theatre Weekend
A curated weekend in a city where great theatre is being made. Students see two or three productions together, share meals at restaurants connected to DAT's international communities, meet working artists, and complete a minga — preparing gift boxes for DAT drama clubs around the world. A powerful standalone experience, or the opening move of a longer partnership. Places: Chicago. Places: Edinburgh. Places: New York.
Devising Theatre Laboratory
A theatre-making intensive built around the devising process — no script, no predetermined outcome, just artists in a room making something from the ground up. DAT Lab can be embedded in an existing course, run as a standalone workshop, or hosted internationally. Ideal for advanced students and departments ready to push past interpretation and into creation.
Don't see exactly what you need? We can co-design every partnership from scratch.
Propose Something CustomWhy partner with DAT?
Global Competency
Students develop cross-cultural fluency, active listening, and collaborative leadership that lasts a lifetime.
Academic Rigor
Programs can be structured to meet your institution's credit-bearing requirements — we work closely with faculty and registrars to make it happen.
DEI & Equity
Programs center underrepresented communities and amplify underheard voices — a genuine contribution to your institution's equity goals.
Faculty Integration
Your faculty can join as co-facilitators, researchers, or academic supervisors — deepening their own practice alongside students.
Co-Designed Partnership
Every partnership is built from scratch around your students, your calendar, and your learning goals. No off-the-shelf tours.
Lasting Impact
Relationships between your institution and DAT communities can deepen over multiple cohorts, creating real continuity of care.
Our students came back different. Not just more worldly — more human. DAT didn't give them an experience; they gave them a practice.— Study Abroad Director, Partner University
Let's design something extraordinary.
Share a few details about your program, your students, and what you're hoping to build. We'll be in touch to start the conversation.