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 (stage, film, and television) 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.
