A College Just Cut Theatre Opportunities and Its Students Still Don’t Know Why

by Chris Peterson

Students at Tallahassee State College in FL were supposed to be auditioning for plays this week.

Instead, the college canceled its fall productions.

TSC now says on its Theatre TSC website that fall auditions have been canceled and that both The 39 Steps and Pride and Prejudice “will also not take place as scheduled.” At the moment, the only production still listed for the 2026-27 season is Mean Girls in April. The college has not publicly explained why the fall shows were canceled.

According to information shared with OnStage Blog, the cuts may extend beyond the productions. 

We were provided a copy of an email sent to students confirming the cancellation of at least one theatre course, THE 2090-1.

“Dear Students,” the message begins. “We are writing to inform you of an important change to your THE 2090-1 course. This course has been canceled.”

The email, signed by Dr. Tricia Rizza, associate vice president in TSC’s Office of Academic Affairs, directs students to a pathway advisor for help finding an alternative course and thanks them for their “flexibility and understanding.”

That confirms the cuts aren't limited to the two productions, although it's theoretically possible these theatre courses were removed for unrelated reasons. TSC's course search website doesn’t appear to list any theatre offerings.

According to TSC's own financial documents, its unrestricted financial cushion has also gotten considerably smaller over the past few years.

According to the college's 2023-24 operating budget, when the school was still Tallahassee Community College, its unrestricted fund balance(money it has available for general operating needs and unexpected costs) was about $8.75 million, or 10.75% of estimated available funds.

But according to the college's 2026-27 budget documents, the unrestricted fund balance is approximately $4.6 million, or 5.39%.

While those numbers don't tell us exactly why two plays were canceled, they do show that TSC's unrestricted reserve is smaller than it was just a few years ago.

At the same time, the college has continued making highly visible investments in other areas.

In March, TSC opened a $3.6 million Innovation Hub that, according to a press release, is focused on giving students a “students hands-on experience with emerging technologies and workforce-driven skills.”. It would be misleading to suggest that the college simply chose to spend money that could have funded theatre on a technology center instead. Those dollars don't necessarily work that way.

But students can still question institutional priorities when programs they participate in are being reduced while other areas are expanding.

And TSC isn't the only college where theatre and the arts have recently found themselves on the chopping block.

Last year, we reported that Jacksonville University in FL planned to eliminate its music and theatre programs as part of a larger cost-cutting effort. The same report noted that Portland Community College was considering theatre arts among a group of programs that could be eliminated.

Florida's arts community has dealt with its own funding uncertainty as well. In 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed roughly $32 million in state arts and cultural grants, eliminating funding that hundreds of organizations had expected to receive.

None of those examples explains what happened at TSC this week. But they do provide some context for why seeing another college suddenly reduce theatre opportunities should concern people beyond Tallahassee.

What bothers me most is how abruptly students seem to have lost them.

Students were planning to audition. Some may have planned their semester around these productions or courses, only to find out, just as the fall term was beginning, that those opportunities were no longer available.

Maybe there is a perfectly understandable financial explanation. Colleges do face difficult budget decisions, and sometimes painful decisions have to be made.

If that's what happened here, TSC should say so.

And if this represents something larger about the future of theatre at the college, students deserve to know that too.

Because right now they're left with canceled productions, at least one confirmed course cancellation, and very few answers regarding why.

The students deserve more than silence.