Each year, School of Drama students have opportunities to perform, direct, and write for the stage. Performances take place in studio settings, at the Bank Street Theater, and at other venues around campus and in New York City. The School of Drama offers events that showcase the work of our graduating students as well as regular performance opportunities for BFA and MFA students during their course of study.
MFA Site-Specific Projects
MFA Site-Specific Projects provide an opportunity for students to connect deeply with a chosen space and co-create a new work, drawing inspiration from its history, architecture, and energy. This project offers creative possibilities for making and culminates in a public performance.
MFA New Play Workshop
In the New Play Workshop, MFA Drama students gain a deeper understanding of the processes and practices associated with developing, rehearsing, and producing original text-based plays. In working through the stages of new one-act plays, students examine the roles and responsibilities of actors, directors, and writers and develop techniques to enhance participants' creative contribution to the process.
BFA Creative Lab/Studio
The Creative Lab/Studio offers BFA students the opportunity to propose and produce self-directed projects with resources from the School of Drama. They work under the close guidance of a faculty advisor, getting hands-on producing experience as they manage a project from start to finish. They develop the skills needed to be professional artists while collaborating with undergraduate and graduate students from across the New School community to bring their lab or studio performance to life. A creative and entrepreneurial spirit is required.
BFA Dramatic Arts Senior Festival
This festival highlights the culminating work of BFA Dramatic Arts students, exploring their training in technique and the depth of their critical inquiry skills and often contextualizing their work as that of citizen-artists. While this senior work takes a different form for each student, for all it must be a scholarly endeavor that creatively reflects the knowledge and experience gained both in and outside of the classroom and the ability to communicate across disciplines.
Each spring, our graduating students present their Directed Research projects, which can take the form of either a new or extant play or a film or media presentation, in the BFA Dramatic Arts Senior Festival.
Actor Showcase
The BFA Actor Showcase takes place during the spring semester following a semester-long intensive course that prepares graduating students to select dramatic material and hone their artistic voice.