Graduate School Bulletin

Description of Theatre Arts

The Department of Theatre Arts offers a 30-credit Master of Arts in Theatre. The M.A. offers an interdisciplinary, collaborative curriculum encourages our graduate students to produce, write and adapt their own work, serve as dramaturgs for department productions, and to apply the historical and theoretical knowledge they attain in course work to the practice of innovative theatre making and new play development.

Among the world-class faculty are directors, actors, playwrights, theorists, dramaturgs and designers all of whom work closely with graduate students. The Staller Center for the Arts is Long Island’s hub of creative activity, and provides a wonderful inter-arts working atmosphere for students of Theatre, Art and Music. Students are also introduced to the art of devising new work in collaboration with faculty and students from Art and Music.

The goals of the M.A. program are (1) to study the dramatic tradition and the history of the performing arts, (2) to develop an understanding of the vital relationship between theatre theory and onstage practice, and (3) to prepare students qualified to matriculate in programs of study at the M.F.A. or Ph.D. level.

The Department of Theatre Arts recognizes the contribution of the dramaturg in institutional American theatre. In the United States and throughout the world, the dramaturg plays a vital part in the direction of professional theatre. He or she must be well informed in historical, critical, and comparative studies, and sensitive to every aspect of theatre practice. Training in dramaturgy is useful even to students who later decide to pursue other careers in the theatre or other media, or in teaching. Professional dramaturgs often become directors, producers, administrators, drama critics, teachers, or playwrights, and many combine two or three different careers.

The Stony Brook program offers opportunities for students with a wide range of interests in theatre practice and dramatic criticism to pursue individual development with an applied orientation. This can mean, for example, that graduates could find themselves working with a psychology professor on autism research, as one of our graduates are, or working with an artist on a video installation piece.

The 2-year program culminates in the creation of a Thesis.

Interested students should request information from the department and find application information at http://www.grad.sunysb.edu/admissions/ app_info.shtml. Students are encouraged to apply as early as possible, especially if they plan to apply for financial aid.