I hope you all are settling into September. It sure feels like New York flipped a switch, with cool morning temperatures and pops of red and yellow leaves appearing in the parks. I went apple picking this weekend and am seeing my first Broadway show of the 2025-26 season tonight, so it’s officially fall in my book!
While I love the back-to-school, back-to-routine energy of this season, I’ve been disheartened to read about so many MFA theatre program closures, with students just returning to campus only to learn their programs won’t be around for long. There is a growing list of MFA programs that are on pause or slated to shutter.
One of the latest is the MFA in Dramatic Writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, which will no longer accept new students. The tuition-free program admitted two students per class; enrolled students will be able to continue their studies through graduation.
Faculty learned at a recent all-staff meeting that USC will sunset the MFA in Dramatic Writing program as the university shifts from a non-profit model to a revenue-centered system. There have been no negotiations to save the program.
I heard from Luis Alfaro, the current steward of the program, who has been at USC for 20 years. “Anything that doesn’t make money is considered a liability to the school,” says Alfaro. “This program is not only essential to the making of the art, but to the field in general. How have we become a liability when we know that without language, there is no play?”
The news is devastating to both the students and the teachers who have been dedicated to this program, including Boni Alvarez, one of its first graduates and now a full-time professor. “I am acutely aware of how this decision affects the specific faculty I work with: four people of color, three women, all bringing a built wisdom to the school with more than 135 years of combined experience,” says Alfaro.
Yet, despite these challenges, Alfaro remains committed to his students. “I am teaching with a larger-than-full load this semester, and classes are at maximum. It’s the equivalent of living in the present U.S. moment. We must ignore the chaos. I don’t bring it into the classroom, the most sacred space on campus, or, as bell hooks states, ‘The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.’ My job is to bring passion and desire, craft, and technique.”
For Alfaro, this work is part of a larger mission. “I am committed to being an artist and an educator because I believe we must maintain a connected ancient thread alive. We pass it on from one generation to the other. This is the role of art in our culture: to question, to create, to innovate, and yes, to change, but not at the risk of damaging our field…We must always make the work. We must continue to be innovative in our thinking, in the form, and in the practice. The work continues, regardless of the institution.”
Unfortunately, the challenges I wrote about two years ago in MFA programs are even more pressing now.
Wishing the very best to students and teachers navigating challenging transitions this school year.
✏️ Around the Web ✏️
- Open Door Arts has launched a digital platform with tools to help make cultural institutions more accessible.
- Krystyna Resavy has been chosen as SDCF’s 2025-26 Mike Ockrent Fellow. She will collaborate with choreographer Ellenore Scott on the production of Ragtime at Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.
- SPACE at Ryder Farm will offer family residencies to five artists affected by the Eaton-Palisades fires earlier this year, including educational programming for children.
- San Francisco’s PlayGround has announced its 2025-26 Producing Fellows: Juliana Morgado Britos, Devin A. Cunningham, Jordan Maria Don, and Donnalesly Fondjo.
- New Dramatists in New York City has selected Zoë Rhulen as the recipient of the Princess Grace Fellowship for the 2025-26 season.
- Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre has announced Nina Cajuste and Taylor Mills, students at Spelman College, as its 2025-26 Spelman Leadership interns.
- Love this piece about college students who are self-producing a play after the University of Central Oklahoma cancelled it for not complying with Title IX.
- Check out Playbill’s annual report on the colleges and universities with the highest number of alumni performing on Broadway in the 2024–25 season.
- More from Playbill’s Back to School Week series: check out this great piece featuring 30 Broadway professionals discussing their training and favorite theatre teachers.
- Love this video from the Educational Theatre Association, featuring attendees at the 2025 International Thespian Festival sharing why theatre matters to them.
💫 On Social Media 💫
Teachers, how are you feeling about the closure of MFA drama programs and its impact on your students’ futures?
Graham Schmidt
BFA prof and MFA grad here. While some MFAs are of immense value and the mentorship available can be life-changing, I don’t think of MFAs as a destination or even an urgent necessity for all artists. The MFA ecosystem and the concentration of performing arts training within universities has its own (not always felicitous and certainly not inevitable) history. MFA programs only emerged in the latter half of the 20th century. However, to the extent that MFA closures serve as an indication of the strength of the field as a whole, it’s extremely concerning.
Lamar Hardy
Recently got my MFA at the University of Louisville African American Theatre Programs, May 2022. 3-year program. One thing I will say is that some MFAs were struggling before COVID and never got back on track, or their foundation was already all over the place. Also, free tuition is not the issue, because most Research 1 schools have it. Yale and NYU started free tuition two years ago because they saw that people can no longer pay for schools anymore.
Steven Barker
Maybe if college programs would get out of their ivory towers and vertically articulate with the high school programs instead of staring down their noses at high school programs, then the flow would be strong.
Beth Hylton Delehanty
Mostly an actor only around the fringes of academics, but I have long felt the lack of collaboration between professional theatre and programs that claim to teach professional theatre creates a gulf that is hard to cross. More conversation, use student actors in professional work, and have a unified or at least cohesive language across training programs that all American actors can share.
Read more great responses here.
