Graduate Degree Programs

The Master of Arts and the Master of Science in Theater Arts consist of forty-five graduate credit hours planned after admission in consultation with the departmentalgraduate advisor, Dr. Richard Wattenberg. Twelve of the forty-five graduate credits may be in courses taken outside the department, if specifically related to a student's course of study and approved in advance by the departmental graduate adviser.

Master of Arts in Theater Arts

The Master of Arts degree is recommended for students who want to focus their graduate study on research and scholarship in the history, literature, and criticism of the theater and who may also plan to continue their graduate work in a doctoral program in theater. The Master of Arts student must demonstrate competence in the use of a second foreign language and will typically complete the degree program with a thesis, playwriting, or two-paper project.

Hedda Gabler (Winter 2007)

Master of Science in Theater Arts

The Master of Science degree is suggested for students who wish to focus more intensively on performance and production areas in preparation for a career in the professional theater and/or further degree work in a Master of Fine Arts theater program. The Master of Science student must demonstrate expertise in the skills pertaining to either advanced theater performance or design and will typically complete the degree program with a project in directing, acting, scene design, costume design, or lighting design, a project in playwriting, or a two-paper project.

MA/MS Interdisciplinary Studies

The Interdisciplinary Studies program is a 45-graduate credit program designed to provide highly motivated students the opportunity to develop, with an advising committee, an individualized, interdisciplinary program for graduate study, in which fully approved courses in the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and the professional schools are combined to create a cohesive program not otherwise available on campus. Such a program will involve a minimum of two and a maximum of three academic disciplines.

The MS in Interdisciplinary Studies with a Film Studies focus may be earned through the Department of Theater Arts with secondary course work from the Departments of English and/or Communications. The Pathway for the MS-IS with a focus in Film Studies contains information on courses that may be applied to the focus.

Download the Pathway for MS-IS (focus in Film Studies)