The New School for Drama

The New School for Drama is a rigorous, collaborative conservatory program for theater artists leading to the Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting, Directing, or Playwriting, or a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts undergraduate BFA degree. The faculty includes some of the finest theater professionals in the United States. The New School, a private university in New York City’s Greenwich Village, has had a theater arts curriculum since 1945, when it gave a home to Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop. The graduate drama school, established 1994, has become a vibrant center of theater innovation, and the undergraduate program started in 2013 is at the forefront of contemporary theater education.

The MFA program takes a carefully selected group of artistically courageous students through three years of professional training. The curriculum covers a full range of styles, forms, and traditions, and includes significant performance and production opportunities. Beyond that, it addresses the practical challenges of building an artistic community and self-producing—skills essential to sustaining a career in the arts in today’s world. New School for Drama graduates are a growing community of award-winning professionals working on and behind the stage and screen in some of the most prestigious venues in the United States and internationally.

With multiple pathways through the offered curriculum, the BFA provides students with a high level of artistic training, project-based learning, consistent performance opportunities and, as importantly, knowledge and reasoning skills which can be applied to a constellation of 21st century career challenges and choices.

Through a shared Graduate and Undergraduate faculty and learning environment in the historic Westbeth Artists complex in Greenwich Village, access to top design, music, liberal arts and social science divisions across the University, and connections to excellent downtown theater companies, The New School for Drama offers unparalleled opportunities for courageous and engaged theater artists and performers.