About the Playwrights Workshop
The Iowa Playwrights Workshop—The University of Iowa's MFA Program in Playwriting—is an intensive three-year program dedicated to educating playwrights for the professional theatre. The objective of the program is to train talented playwrights and collaborative theatre artists who will lead the American theatre in the creation of new works and the training of future generations of playwrights.
The Playwrights Workshop was founded in 1971, but a strong tradition in playwriting has existed at the University of Iowa since the early 1920s. Graduates have found success in every medium of dramatic writing, including stage, screen, television, and nontraditional performance. Graduates include the playwrights Tennessee Williams, Lee Blessing, Sherry Kramer, Charles Smith, Neal Bell, John O'Keeffe, David Hancock, Naomi Wallace, and Rebecca Gilman; and the film and television writer-producers Richard Maibaum, Norman Felton, Barry Kemp, and Rick Cleveland. More recent graduates include Kirsten Greenidge (2001), whose plays have enjoyed productions at Playwrights Horizons and the Humana Festival of Actors Theatre of Louisville; and Tory Stewart (2001) and Allison Moore (2001), both recipients of McKnight and Jerome Fellowships at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis. These and many others have exemplified the Iowa tradition of training professional dramatists who are both writers of script and texts and collaborative artists who actively engage in the development and production of new work.
The Playwrights Workshop seeks to create conditions in which writers can develop their unique voices while freely experimenting with a variety of creative processes and theatrical forms. Student writing is nurtured through both coursework and opportunities to present new work at all stages of development. The playwriting faculty believe that only by working with actors, directors and other collaborators, and by seeing one’s work on stage, can a writer find his or her own theatrical voice. The Workshop therefore offers students a wide variety of opportunities to have their work produced. In addition to weekly staged readings, Workshop and Gallery productions of new plays are presented at least ten times a year. In the spring, the New Play Festival showcases five full productions and readings by all students in the Workshop.
At the center of the program is 049:269: Playwrights Workshop, a course taken by all MFA playwriting candidates in every semester of their enrollment. In this course, students present scripts in the early stage of development and receive intensive feedback from faculty and student colleagues in playwriting and dramaturgy, as well as in directing and acting. While enrolled in Playwrights Workshop, students also take courses and workshops in a range of approaches to playwriting and creating new work. Often taught by visiting artists, these courses are designed to challenge the student's working process and sense of theatrical form.
Department core coursework in collaboration and theatrical analysis rounds out the program, seeking to sharpen the student's theatrical vision in relation to the diverse dramatic and performance traditions of the past and the present. The various components of the MFA Program in Playwriting are interdependent; through them, the MFA candidate is expected to demonstrate ongoing growth and maturity as a writer, collaborative theatre artist, and student of theatre.
Faculty and Guest Artists
Permanent faculty include dramaturg Art Borreca, playwright Dare Clubb, and dramaturg Sydne Mahone. A professional guest playwright or dramaturg is in residence one semester of every academic year. Through out the academic year, an annual series of guest artists conduct short-term workshops in writing, new play development, and collaboration.
Recent semester-long guests have included playwrights Sherry Kramer and Lisa D’Amour, and dramaturg Robert Blacker. Short-term guests have included Athol Fugard, Theodora Skipitares, Anne Bogart, Lee Blessing, Morgan Jenness, Naomi Wallace, Dominic Dromgoole, Darrah Cloud, Kim Sherman, Oskar Eustis, John Collins and members of Elevator Repair Service, Ellen McLaughlin, David Gothard, David Hancock, Kia Corthron, Melanie Marnich, Matthew Maguire, and Wendy Goldberg.
Playwriting students also have the opportunity to work with guest artists brought to campus for the department's annual New Play Festival, as well as the Partnership-in-the-Arts program, through which a team of professionals is in residence for four or more weeks to develop and present a new theatrical work. Recent Partnership guests have included Will Power, Anton Juan, and David Schweizer.
Requirements for the MFA in Playwriting
Plan of Study
The MFA Program in Playwriting requires a total of 60 semester hours of coursework in three areas: Playwrights Workshop, Guest Seminar/Special Topics in Playwriting, MFA core curriculum in Theatrical Analysis. At least 30 of these credits must be completed in residence. Accelerated Degree Status may be granted on the basis of graduate transfer credit that satisfies course requirements and/or for professional experience that the faculty deem equivalent to specific program requirements. Normally such experience will consist of a significant record of production at major theatres or alternative venues signifying advanced achievement in theatrical writing.
In addition to coursework, MFA candidates in playwriting are expected to generate dramatic writing on a regular basis, not only in fulfilling course assignments but also in demonstrating continuing growth as a playwright.
Playwriting course requirements
MFA Thesis
In the third year, the student must submit a full-length playscript for an MFA thesis, along with a Preface placing the work in the context of the student's development and overall work in the program. The thesis play must be a script begun and completed or substantially revised during the third year.
Applying to the Program
Students applying to the program will normally possess the following: an undergraduate degree completed in good academic standing, demonstrated talent and ability as a writer for the stage, clear potential for growth as a writer, and experience in theatrical areas outside playwriting.
To be considered for admission, the applicant must:
