In the 2.5-year master of fine arts (M.F.A.) playwriting program, each playwright is encouraged to develop his or her individual voice and to stretch and experiment. The program offers the space and time to navigate the challenges of solitude, the privacy of thought and discovery, and the bracing, sometimes fraught and exhilarating, process of collaboration. This is a place for students to hone their craft, to engage with emerging and established theater artists, and to study the new, the ancient and the innovative in the unique alchemy of performance.
Mason Gross School of the Arts seeks playwrights who are delighted with the potential of the theater and are curious, adventurous, generous, and driven to create work that engages with the world today. The program is open to the various impulses and forms each playwright may propose; each unique theater world will be embraced and interrogated.
Theatrical tradition must be challenged and reinvented. The unique life of each play must be nurtured and honored. There are so many ways to make a play, to create a performance. This is a place to ground oneself in relevant study and experimentation, to develop an ongoing community of theater artists, and to ready oneself to leap into the new.
A rich and expansive study of dramatic literature and theatrical practices will root each playwright in the varied present as each unique voice and practice is developed.
During the 2.5-year program, each playwright will forge bonds with fellow-playwrights, actors, designers, and directors in and outside the program. Classes and workshops will be led by active theater professionals, including visiting playwrights and other theater artists. Each playwright will have an opportunity for the rehearsal and production of an original work at the yearly Festival of New Plays. Frequent trips to New York City and local venues to see productions will prepare each playwright for a dynamic life in the theater.
Playwrights seminar (each semester):
This is where each playwright will develop his or her own work. Though there is always room to write a piece that doesn't fit with the general heading of the semester, the following approach will act as a guide for theatrical exploration.
Fall: fragments, performance pieces, puppet play
Spring: adaptation, revisions
Fall: short play(s), documentary
Spring: full length play, revisions, more scraps
Fall: revisions, New York
Writer's workshop:
Playwrights will explore their works-in-process with a director and actors.
