College of Performing Arts
Office of Admission
55 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011
212.229.5150 or 800.292.3040
performingarts@newschool.edu
Today's most influential artists don't fit into one box. Neither should your graduate training. The MFA in Contemporary Theatre and Performance is designed for artists whose practice spans disciplines and whose curiosity is limitless.
Our Master of Fine Arts program combines advanced training in acting, directing, and writing, guiding you in deepening your craft while developing the skills and artistic versatility you need to work across dramatic forms and roles. You learn to breathe new life into existing texts, devise original interdisciplinary works, and effectively lead collaborative processes, building the creative and professional capacities that sustain careers in rapidly changing fields.
Rather than restricting you to a single discipline, our MFA offers integrated pathways enabling you to explore creative practice as an actor-director, actor-writer, or director-writer or pursue a self-designed interdisciplinary pathway if you want to take graduate courses offered throughout The New School while anchoring your studies in acting, writing, or directing. Experiment with new creative technologies or reimagine classical texts and theatrical forms. Whatever your passion, you will acquire a solid foundation for a lifelong pursuit of artistic excellence.
In our ensemble-based and project-driven curriculum, collaboration is both the process through which you learn and an essential part of your artistic practice. You hone your skills by performing, directing, writing, and co-leading projects that reflect your artistic vision and ambitions. You learn from nationally and internationally recognized artists in an environment that values artistic rigor and innovation, sharing your voice in bold new work created with your fellow artists.
As a member of the New School community, you can further expand your creative practice by taking courses offered throughout the university in areas including transmedia storytelling, community development, entrepreneurship, social justice, and mindfulness studies. You work with New School creative educators, guest artists, and mentors from New York's theatre community, forging connections with practitioners and institutions shaping performance industries. Through these opportunities you cultivate the skills and creative agility you need to thrive onstage, on-screen, across digital media, and wherever the future of performance takes you.
Choose one of our structured integrated pathways—actor-director, director-writer, or actor-writer—which foster collaboration across dramatic disciplines. With guidance from renowned faculty and visiting artists, you develop your artistic voice and versatility for today's evolving performance landscape.
Expand your impact through performance that sparks dialogue, builds community, and engages with the urgent questions of the day. Mentored by our seasoned faculty, you develop the resilience, curiosity, and collaboration skills needed for success as a global citizen-artist.
Your course of study is rooted in the understanding that artists learn by applying new and developing skills to the creative process. Through rigorous discipline-specific, ensemble-based training, you acquire tools you can directly employ in the collaborative and multidisciplinary professional contexts you’ll enter after graduation. You leave the program as an adaptive, cooperative, and multidimensional artist able to elevate your unique perspective and voice.
The New School cultivates an interdisciplinary environment through its schools and programs, which represent a broad range of disciplines. Graduate minors offered here free you to explore areas outside of your primary field and gain expertise in research techniques and practice methods, broadening your skills and career options.
Our interdisciplinary curriculum features project-based learning that breaks down long-standing artistic silos, preparing you to thrive as a multihyphenate artist. Gain expertise in acting, directing, and dramatic writing while creating original work for the stage, screen, and other venues that you develop with your ensemble, with peers across the university, and with external partners from NYC’s creative industries.
Successful artists create opportunities and build careers that connect an entrepreneurial spirit to creative practice. Our program prepares you to grow as a multidisciplinary artist, equipped to create original work, take on a range of artistic roles, and shape the future of the field.
MFA students benefit from individualized guidance from award-winning faculty and a rich array of performance and production opportunities. You might find yourself developing writing under the guidance of School of Drama faculty such as Tony Award-winner Stephen Karam.
The New School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.