ACTING (MFA)
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.
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.
