The Theater Management department prepares aspiring leaders and managers to create organizational environments conducive to the creation of theater art and responsive to their communities. The department provides students with the knowledge, skills, and values to enter the field at high levels of responsibility, to move quickly to leadership positions, and ultimately to advance the state of management practice and the art form itself. While focused primarily on theater organizations, discussions incorporate other performing arts organizations, other nonprofits, and for-profit organizations to help identify the factors that make theater organizations succeed. It is training in the practice, informed by up-to-date theoretical knowledge.

The department offers a joint-degree program with Yale School of Management, in which a student may earn both the M.F.A. and M.B.A. degrees in four years (rather than the five years that normally are required).