Playwriting

Our nationally recognized Playwriting Program—founded by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott in 1981—offers a three-year MFA in Playwriting that combines the best of the traditions established in our more than 30-year history with an exciting collaboration with Boston University’s award-winning School of Theatre. Our students’ voices are encouraged, nurtured, and challenged, and we have a positive impact on their artistry by incorporating them into a vibrant community of artists.

Our playwrights’ experiences with us are founded in the best of two points of view: a scholarly outlook allowing for a background in theatre history and drama, and a love of collaboration. Playwrights needn’t work alone. Collaborations with actors, directors, and designers are at the heart of our degree program. We begin with the playwright and add collaborators into the mix as the plays grow. We foster a creative process that celebrates all the theatre artists involved in the making of a play.

Our goal is to help our students find their singular “voices” as writers and ready them in all ways for a life in the professional theatre, as well as in academia.