Master of Fine Arts - Dramatic Writing

The University of New Mexico's Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing provides professional training to promising and distinctive writers from New Mexico and beyond. UNM offers an intensive three-year program for a cohort of no more than nine (UNM accepts up to three students per year) allowing for specific and individualized attention to students.

Students are instructed in traditional and experimental compositional strategies, exposed to current issues in performance theory, and introduced to ways to make a living as a working artist.

The curriculum is rooted in the playwriting workshop, a three-tiered course sequence guiding students from the generative phase of drafting new work through a rigorous process of revising, editing, and preparing a script for production. Workshops frequently focus on a particular style, theme, writer, or movement. In addition to a demanding writing schedule, the workshop asks students to read and discuss plays and dramaturgical theory drawn from different styles and historical periods, in search of creative inspiration and new compositional strategies.

The program offers opportunities to attend performances and new play festivals in other cities. Recent trips have taken the cohort to the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville; to New York City to see the New York premiere of Paula Vogel’s Indecent; to Los Angeles for performances at South Coast Rep and EST/LA; and to Colorado for the Denver Center’s Annual New Play Summit. The program is a member of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and has been invited to present work regionally and nationally every year.