Can you take college courses outside your major?

DUH, you can take whatever the hell classes you want. It's your choice and no one is going to stop you from taking theather. Your professors could care less what your major is, in fact most of the time they don't even know your major since you are registering for classes online. Also they most likely will never learn your name or even remember your face anyways because they have so much students.

Half the courses you take in college are supposed to be outside your major (8 gen-eds and 8 electives). So, yes, you can. Some colleges, though, particularly the larger ones, restrict participation in theatrical productions to theatre majors, because they're the ones that actually have to do this stuff as part of their degree requirements. A school can only put on so many shows a semester, and there are only so many jobs to do when working on a production, so it isn't fair to the theatre majors to fill roles (on-stage and off) with people who don't NEED to be there. Small colleges generally allow and sometimes encourage non-theatre majors to get involved with productions, though. Why not minor in theatre? Minors don't really count for much of anything, anyway, other than helping you choose which courses to take for elective credit. No one will ever care what you minored in other than you. If you stay on top of your chem work and get long-term projects out of the way before tech week/opening night, you should be fine; worst-case scenario is a little sleep deprivation.

You will have 3 sets of requirements to meet. First, you will have to complete a certain number of credits. Different schools count credits in different ways, but each class will be worth a certain number of credits (not all of them are worth the same number), and there is a minimum number of credits you have to complete in order to graduate. You're going to want to average about 1/8 of the total credits required each semester or 1/12 of them each quarter in order to graduate on time. Next, you will have to complete general education requirements, which almost (but not quite) all American schools have. These are designed to give you a broad education and make you, in general, an educated person. Most of these credits will be earned outside your major department. You'll need some humanities, some social science, and probably at least 3 credits (or about 1 class) in the fine arts, like theater. Finally, you will have to complete your major requirements. These are designed to give you a deeper education in that one discipline. In your case, this is chemistry, and most of the required classes will be chemistry classes. You can take two majors or a major and a minor (which is like a major, but with fewer requirements), but you don't have to. One major is fine. Add up all the credits you'll need to spend on your major and the gen-ed requirements, and subtract that from 120. Everything left over will be accounted for by electives, or courses you choose (elect) to take as opposed to being told to take them. You can take chemistry classes that you don't have to take, but that interest you. You can spend some of those credits on subjects your general education requirements introduced you to. And you can spend all of those elective credits on theater classes. You will probably meet with an advisor before or during your first semester of college to make out a plan for your time at college. It will show when you are meeting each of the requirements and when you will have room for electives. You will change that plan over the next 3 years or so, but it will give you an idea of how you can graduate on a specific date in the future. And it will give you an idea of how many credits I don't know what the rules are for theater productions. If I were you, I'd contact the theater department and ask. I hope you have a great time in college.

You can take theater classes and they might even count for some of your electives so it won't put you off for graduation.