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MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN DRAMA: Directing

MFA PROGRAM MISSION

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in directing is a 70 hour (6 semester) graduate program in the School of Fine Arts. The purpose of which is to train students at an advanced level in the application and integration of the many aspects and forms of theatrical expression and communication necessary for successful dramatic, performative storytelling and to prepare them for entry into the profession of theatre practice. In addition, the program develops students as teachers and utilizes teaching and the development of teaching pedagogy to: 1) further develop the student’s understanding of their own craft and theory and 2) develop them as teachers in their own right.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

Directing is an expressive art form involving the management and integration of many elements of theatrical technique and expression. The training of the director is a process of developing in the student a broad set of understandings of the multiple modes of theatrical technique and expression, from acting to design to music to digital media. It also strives to develop the tools and skills necessary to unify these multiple expressive modes into a coherent, aesthetic, performative whole. Narrative Storytelling and Dramatic Action are taught as primary tools of theatrical communication, but the program also works to deepen and greatly broaden the graduate directing student’s familiarity with and use of a range of theoretical models of analysis and performance. In addition, directing training involves direct, hands on work in various modes of theatrical expression that others in the collaborative collective the director manages, specialize in; from the affective experiential mode of expression native to the actor to the imagistic, often associative mode native to the designer. The intense focus of techniques and principles taught and employed in the program is in the service of communicating story through dramatic action and the program is concerned with preparation for and realization of projects based in these principles.

DIRECTING EXPERIENCES

Directors in the program at UM direct every semester of residency, working in a multiplicity of styles, genres, spaces and even technologies. Accompanying seminar work supports an ongoing investigation and exploration of craft and process across a wide range of theory and practice. The program utilizes production to strengthen in the directing student, principles of dramatic, performative storytelling as well as deepening proficiency in: unifying design concepts and execution, organizing elements of the preparation, rehearsal and execution processes of mounting a production, and creating and developing an effective performance ensemble.

Second year directing students move on to full length productions in the department’s main-stage and begin to work with designers. Scene work in the second year moves across a wider range of styles, genres and storytelling techniques with work in Shakespeare, Opera, non-linear, associative performance material and uses of multi-media technologies.

The third year is spent preparing and executing a major full-length production in the department’s subscription season and studio work moves the director into camera and digital technologies.

In addition, the Montana Repertory Theatre, the department’s resident professional theatre company, provides MFA directing students with numerous opportunities to work beside and with major professionals in the field. In addition to assisting directors of major Rep productions, MFA directing students have the opportunity every June to work with emerging national playwrights in the development of new scripts in MRT’s new play development workshop, The Colony, under the direction of major national playwrights and screenwriters such as Marsha Norman and James McClure.

By the third year of residency, directing students who have begun working in media and digital technologies in their course work also have the opportunity to extend that work into making short video films.

THE PROGRAM OF STUDY

The core curriculum of project, production and process and theory seminar work is augmented by graduate courses in acting, voice/speech, movement, design, digital media technologies and performance theory and criticism.

The First Year

Directing (theory and practice - analysis, narrative storytelling, dramatic action, principles of staging, production and rehearsal management) performance (acting process, modern scene study in American Realism, Ibsen, Chekhov), seminars in research methods, history, and teaching processes. Directing projects will be drawn from twentieth century realism and poetic realism including scene work (Autumn) and a longer project or one-act play (Spring)

The Second Year

The Third Year

APPLYING TO THE PROGRAM