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The Mason Gross School of the Arts
 
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  Mason Gross School of the Arts 2009-2011 Graduate Programs in Theater Arts Master of Fine Arts Program Program in Acting  

Program in Acting


The master of fine arts (M.F.A.) acting program is an intense program dedicated to the proposition that acting is a creative art and true excellence in its practice requires mastery of technical craft. The program is concerned with the development of complete actors, that is, actors who are able to acquit themselves well in all mediums (film, television, and stage) and contemporary, realistic, and classical texts. This requires tremendous commitment to these goals and the requisite talent to achieve them.

Students must complete satisfactorily all core studio and production work in acting, speech, voice, performance, and movement. In addition, they are required to take supplementary work in dramatic literature, script analysis, auditioning, monologues, cold reading, theater theory, and combat, among other topics. In all, the program should total 105 credits. Students must comply with a three-year, full-time residency requirement. 

In the first year, it is essential to master the necessary technical tools to enable the actor to create a truthful and compelling reality. The work requires a vivid creative imagination, a rock solid sense of truth, and the ability to bring a text to vivid and truthful life. In voice and speech, the student will be expected to master phonetics, correct any regional speech influences, and accomplish a well-placed and produced voice. In movement, the student must make real strides in releasing areas of tension throughout the instrument and achieve a balanced, centered, and aligned body.

After the first semester, M.F.A. degree program actors are required to perform extensively in both studio and fully produced main stage productions. Acting in directing and acting classes is required in every semester. 

The second year is devoted to the development of those tools necessary to interpret characters in plays by important prose writers. Students also begin in-depth text analysis. In voice and speech, further progress is expected in vocal technique and the ability to speak complex pieces of prose and poetry sensitively and clearly, as well as the thorough application of accents. Movement work will continue to require physical release and alignment with the Alexander Technique, and will also focus on the ability to create physical characters through the work of Michael Chekov. The study of style and classical text is also included in the second-year practice.

The third year requires the focus of all prior work on the challenges of classical texts and auditioning skills. In all of the work, the constant questions will be, who is going to hire each student to do what, where, and when the graduated actor gains professional employment, what will the actor's contribution be?  The faculty must be convinced that the actor has the requisite tools, personality, and ability to compete in the highly competitive world of professional acting, as it exists in this country.

The faculty will constantly be responding to the student and his or her work, as master teachers, mentors, and also artists; testing the student actor's work against the faculty's perceptions and beliefs about the art form and its requirements. Art is by nature subjective and so must be some of the responses to the student as a developing theater artist.

 
For additional information, contact RU-info at 732/932-info (4636) or colonel.henry@rutgers.edu.
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