Overview

The Theatre School’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Acting program is highly truthful, expressive, and physical. Informed by our Chicago roots, we prepare actors to work on stage and screen all over the world.

Students learn from a distinguished faculty of working professionals who possess a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise. Our faculty have developed a powerful curricula that mine a diversity of ideas from Stanislavski, Spolin, Grotowski, Shurtleff, Lessac, Linklater, Yoga, Tai Chi, Feldenkrais® Method, Laban, mask work, and more. Students are inspired through unique points-of-view within a comprehensive progression of acting, movement, and voice and speech curricula.

Equally important to the training students receive in the classroom is the opportunity to synthesize that learning in the production process, with each student completing quarterly production assignments throughout the two year program. 

Explore The Curriculum

Graduate Showcase

Under the guidance of the faculty, graduating actors prepare a showcase production—usually a series of scenes and monologues—which is presented online as well as in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles for casting directors, talent agents, producers and directors from theatre, film, and television. The Graduate Showcase includes a series of alumni networking events in each city to introduce and connect our graduates to our large alumni network.

Admissions Process

The Theatre School admits a diverse acting pool and encourages applicants inclusive of all gender and sexual identities and expressions, including their intersection with racial and ethnic identities, as well as the multiplicity of identities in our ever-evolving society. For more information on how The Theatre School strives for equity, diversity, and inclusion, read our diversity action statement.

Application Information Audition Information

“Personal discovery is the basis of any artistic training, and essential to the art of the actor. The Theatre School demands graduate students to discover the true landscape of their being in theatrical art.”

Dexter Bullard

Head of Graduate Acting

Curriculum

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Formerly structured in a three-year format, the MFA Acting program is now (beginning fall 2021) designed to be completed in two years. The coursework and production requirements listed below represent the requirements for the two-year format and span 45 classes (120 credit hours).

First Year

Fall Quarter

GRADUATE ACTING I: Truth in Action

GRADUATE VOICE I: Breath, Impulse, & Channel

GRADUATE MOVEMENT I: Patterns & Contact

GRADUATE SPEECH I: Vowels & Consonants

GRADUATE MOVEMENT I: Yoga for Actors

MFA 1 IMPROVISATION One

MFA 1 WORKSHOP IA Equilibrium IB Poetry

GRADUATE SEMINAR I: Theatre – Now/Then

December Intersession

GRADUATE SEMINAR I: Plays – Analysis/Structure

Winter Quarter

GRADUATE ACTING I: Scene Study

GRADUATE VOICE I: Resonance & Play

GRADUATE SPEECH I: Phonetics & Idiolect

GRADUATE MOVEMENT I: Awareness, Radiance

GRADUATE MOVEMENT I: Acro-Yoga for Actors

MFA 1 IMPROVISATION Two

MFA 1 WORKSHOP IA Make-up IB Monologues

REHEARSAL & PERFORMANCE I: Actors Project

Spring Quarter

GRADUATE ACTING I: Ensemble

GRADUATE VOICE I: High Stakes Full Expression

GRADUATE SPEECH I: Dialects

GRADUATE MOVEMENT I: Laban and MPA

GRADUATE MOVEMENT I: Neutral & Corporeal

MFA 1 WORKSHOP IA Community  IB Dialogue

GRADUATE ON-CAMERA I: Film  (with FILM488)

REHEARSAL & PERFORMANCE I: Casting Pool

 

Second Year

Fall Quarter

GRADUATE ACTING II: Shakespeare

GRADUATE MOVEMENT II: Storytelling & WOP

GRADUATE MOVEMENT II: Unarmed Combat

GRADUATE VOICE II: Shakespeare

GRADUATE SPEECH II: Text and Rhetoric

GRADUATE ACTING II: Audition for Theater

REHEARSAL & PERFORMANCE II: Casting Pool

MFA WORKSHOP II: IIA Marketing IIB Self-tapes

Winter Quarter

GRADUATE ACTING II: Graduate Showcase

GRADUATE MOVEMENT II: Mask/Whole Body

GRADUATE MOVEMENT II: Weapons & Mo-Cap

GRADUATE SPEECH II: Animation

GRADUATE ON-CAMERA II: Audition for Camera

REHEARSAL & PERFORMANCE II: Casting Pool

MFA WORKSHOP II: IIA Business IIB Co. Creation?

Spring Quarter

GRADUATE ACTING II: Activism & Community

GRADUATE ON-CAMERA: Acting for Camera II

GRADUATE MOVEMENT II: Red Nose/Flying

GRADUATE VOICE II: Voiceover

REHEARSAL & PERFORMANCE II: Casting Pool or Independent Project?

In addition to completing the above requirements, each student must complete one analytical/reflective paper a minimum of 15 pages in length in conjunction with Rehearsal and Performance casting, Head of Program approved topic, or Independent Project in their final quarter of study.