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The Dramatic Writing MFA at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama is built around continuous collaboration with the celebrated student actors, directors and designers of the oldest conservatory in the country. Combining playwriting, screenwriting, and writing for television, this is a rigorous graduate program with a substantial workload. It is for the writer who is prepared to revise a hundred pages overnight and for the leader inventing the theater of a better nation.

Students are encouraged to pursue their professional careers while enrolled in the MFA program, supported by initiatives that provide access to new play development and production opportunities in the field. Full-length plays by graduate playwrights receive workshop productions in the New Works Series. The Sloan/CMU Script Competition awards $35,000 in prizes to current CMU students each year for original screenplays and TV pilots. Graduate students have the opportunity to teach undergraduate courses in playwriting or screenwriting. Alumni have access to an established framework of professional connections.

Guest faculty are a vital presence in the program. Recent guests have included Clare Barron, Sheila Callaghan, Kia Corthron, Erin Courtney, Kristoffer Diaz, Jessica Dickey, Madeleine George, Lucas Hnath, Onalee Hunter Hughes, Aurorae Khoo, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Richard Nelson, Jean-Paul Nickel, Jiehae Park, J.T. Rogers, Cori Thomas, Andrea Thome, Francine Volpe, Anne Washburn, Mac Wellman, and A. Zell Williams.

Recent alumni include Gillian Beth Durkee (EST/Youngblood), Liza Birkenmeier (Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, Ars Nova Play Group, Playwrights Realm Fellow), Leviticus Jelks (Humanitas LA Play Festival, Playwrights Union), Lauren Wimmer (Ars Nova ANT Fest, Playwright's Center), Isabella D'Esposito (Playwrights Realm Fellow), Dan Giles (THE SECOND MAN at NYTW Next Door), Joshua Harmon (BAD JEWS, SIGNIFICANT OTHERS, SKINTIGHT), Mora V. Harris (City Theater Momentum Series, Pittsburgh), Daniel Hirsch (Tête à Tête opera festival, London), and Jordan Barsky (Law & Order SVU). Other alumni are writing for television and film in LA, touring plays for Seder tables and punk rock clubs, and making wild puppet extravaganzas in Texas.

We are committed to an inclusive theater that resists bigotry and oppression. Our community is one of bold artists and bold citizens.

Applications are due January 1. Information at http://drama.cmu.edu/

Rob Handel
Associate Professor of Dramatic Writing
Carnegie Mellon University

Update on CMU alumni in Youngblood, The Playwrights Union, and everywhere

Ensemble Studio Theatre announced that Gillian Beth Durkee (MFA '18) will be a member of Youngblood for the 25th anniversary season of the Obie-winning emerging professional playwrights under the age of 30.

DIRTY DIRTY by Amy Gijsbers van Wijk (MFA '16) has been chosen for development and an industry reading in the Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation Playwrights Program.

Leviticus Jelks (MFA '16) has been named a winner of the 2019 Humanitas Play LA Festival and joined Carolyn Kras (MFA '10) as an inductee of the Playwrights Union.