Students on stage performing Marisol
Actors Studio Drama School

MFA in Acting

Based on the Stanislavski/Actors Studio Method, MFA Acting students experience an intense training consisting of acting, movement, and voice programs. Students have the opportunity to develop their craft not only in their classes but also in a variety of public performing events.

  • Our acting training is based on the Stanislavski “System” and its American development through the Group Theater and the Actors Studio.
  • The three-year Acting program is focused on sensitizing and opening the actor’s instrument, thereby freeing the actor’s individual and unique talent. This work allows the actors to express themselves in the deepest and most personal way in a variety of roles both in class and in performance.
  • The three-year Movement program is especially designed to develop the stamina, fluidity, grace and power of the actor’s physical instrument. The work offers a series of exercises, improvisations and stages of movement inspired by the experiments and teachings of innovative masters of the theater.
  • A second aspect of our Movement program consists of dance classes held at studios.
  • The three-year Voice program is based on Kristin Linklater’s approach, which we consider the finest vocal training for actors.

Acting Opportunities

  • Throughout the three years actors, directors and playwrights learn to collaborate with each other in classes in which the actors act, the directors direct and the playwrights write. Collaboration among these three tracks is the heart of the MFA program and the Repertory Season at the end of the third year.
  • In addition to their work in the acting classes, acting students also participate in the projects of the directing classes and in the projects of the Playwrights and Directors Unit that consist of original plays written by the student playwrights.
  • Throughout the three years the best work of these classes is presented for the public in what we call the end-of-semester “Festivals.”
  • During the Third-Year Repertory Season, acting students appear in a series of professionally produced plays for the general public and the theater profession.