About the Graduate Playwriting Program at Boston University

How to Apply - Faculty & Staff - A Message from the Artistic Director

Leslie Harrell Dillon and Sarah Newhouse in Humpin' Glory Bay by Karmo Sanders. [BU Photo Services]

Founder Derek Walcott

Boston Playwrights' Theatre is part of the famous Boston University Creative Writing Department. Founded by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, it is one of the few MFA programs in the nation in Playwriting.

Throughout the program, our graduate playwrights work intensively with our faculty to create both one-acts and full-lengths to be workshopped with professional actors in our seminars. All this hard work culminates in our First Stages Reading Series in April and May where we hire professional actors and directors to bring these works to life. This has been a remarkably successful program, producing such award-winning alumni playwrights as Melinda Lopez, Ronan Noone, Sinan Ünel, Russell Lees, John Kuntz, Zayd Dohrn and more.

Alums of our program have their works produced here at BPT in our Season of New Plays. We produce two professional productions in our Season, and a third play is produced (under the name Playwrights' Theatre at BU) in association with the CFA Theatre Department to be entered in the Kennedy Center National College Theater Festival.

We offer an MFA in Playwriting, accepting four to six playwrights annually into this program. While some Playwriting programs are part of the Theatre Department, ours is different - we are part of the English Department, specifically the Graduate Creative Writing program. You are welcome to read a letter to potential students from the Director of the Creative Writing Program.

Our program is an intensive MFA where our grad students take Playwriting workshops and graduate level Literature classes (we intend to add production courses to our program in Fall '09). The Playwriting classes are a workshop environment where we hire local professional actors to read the play drafts so that they can be developed further.

Once you've graduated, this becomes a permanent home for you with opportunities to have your works read and the possibility of being produced here at our professional theatre. Boston Playwrights' Theatre is a center for new plays in New England and produces two new plays each year chosen from the work of our alumni. Produced under Actors' Equity contracts and directed by Boston professionals, these fully-mounted productions are attended by the general public and reviewed by Boston critics. Boston is rated one of the top ten theater cities in the nation and has become a hotbed for new works - with BPT at the center of it.

Edward Martin and Zachary Springer in The Lepers of Baile Baiste by Ronan Noone.
[BU Photo Services]

Our program may enter one of its previous year's graduate students' plays in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, where talented playwrights have the opportunity for national recognition, publication, and prize money. Six of our playwrights - Dan Hunter, Greg Fletcher, Matthew Roland, Ronan Noone, Molly Smith Metzler, Leah Maxwell, and John Kuntz - have won awards at KCACTF: The John Cauble Short Play Award (1999), Mark Twain Comedy Award (1st Place 2005, 1st Place 2003, 2nd Place 2001), Paula Vogel Playwriting Award (2005), David Mark Cohen (1st place 2003, 2nd Place 2000), Dad's Garage Short Play Award (2006), and the Michael Kanin National Student Playwriting Award (2002, 2003, 2005) respectively.

Our alumni have gone on to productions in New York, LA, Chicago, around the country and around the world, and have won a multitude of distinguished awards in their professional careers.

Most of our graduate students receive generous financial aid, and one Teaching Fellowship per year is awarded. For more information on admission and financial aid, click here for How to Apply.