Work Across Media.
Anti-racist Perspective.
Polyvocal Approach.
Work Across Media.UCLA’s Graduate Playwriting Program is housed within the Theater Department at the School of Theater, Film & Television. Students earn an MFA in Theater with a specialization in playwriting. Coursework, taken over three years, centers on writing plays and collaboration in theater with optional classes in screenwriting, TV writing, VR/AR, devising, adaptation, and more. See recent work here.
Anti-Racist Perspective.
As a land grant institution, the Playwriting Faculty at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands). We belive that Black Lives Matter and we are invested in the success of our BIPOC students. We believe that representation is everybody’s business; we expect our students to challenge historically oppressive narratives.
To these ends, our entire school has marked this year of protest with a series of Town Hall conversations addressing racism in the world, on campus, and in our department. Our faculty is engaged in ongoing learning on micro-aggressions and nonviolent communication. We share resources about anti-racist course construction and have an Associate Dean dedicated to addressing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at TFT.
Polyvocal Approach.
Our four full-time faculty offer students a rare breadth of artistic and lived experience. Dominic Taylor’s deep expertise in African-American theater informs his own dramaturgy and a vibrant teaching style emphasizing playwrights’ perception of theatrical space. Edit Villarreal was a participant in Maria Irene Fornes’s ground breaking Hispanic Playwrights Laboratory at Intar Theater in New York City. A native Texan, Villarreal’s creative work is focused on the Latinx experience through the lens of bilingual playmaking, comedy, surrealism, heightened poetic language, historical exploration and cultural remembrance. Hanay Geiogamah, a leader in Native-American Theater, is devoted to sharing the study of ritual performance alongside his expertise in twentieth-century drama. Sylvan Oswald’s language-driven work lives between theater and performance, using metatheatricality and formal irreverence to explore the ways we construct our identities. With specialties in contemporary playwriting, avant-garde theater, and queer and trans theater, Oswald’s teaching is influenced by formalism, conceptual poetry, and new music.
Anti-Racist Perspective.
As a land grant institution, the Playwriting Faculty at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands). We belive that Black Lives Matter and we are invested in the success of our BIPOC students. We believe that representation is everybody’s business; we expect our students to challenge historically oppressive narratives.
To these ends, our entire school has marked this year of protest with a series of Town Hall conversations addressing racism in the world, on campus, and in our department. Our faculty is engaged in ongoing learning on micro-aggressions and nonviolent communication. We share resources about anti-racist course construction and have an Associate Dean dedicated to addressing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at TFT.
Polyvocal Approach.
Our four full-time faculty offer students a rare breadth of artistic and lived experience. Dominic Taylor’s deep expertise in African-American theater informs his own dramaturgy and a vibrant teaching style emphasizing playwrights’ perception of theatrical space. Edit Villarreal was a participant in Maria Irene Fornes’s ground breaking Hispanic Playwrights Laboratory at Intar Theater in New York City. A native Texan, Villarreal’s creative work is focused on the Latinx experience through the lens of bilingual playmaking, comedy, surrealism, heightened poetic language, historical exploration and cultural remembrance. Hanay Geiogamah, a leader in Native-American Theater, is devoted to sharing the study of ritual performance alongside his expertise in twentieth-century drama. Sylvan Oswald’s language-driven work lives between theater and performance, using metatheatricality and formal irreverence to explore the ways we construct our identities. With specialties in contemporary playwriting, avant-garde theater, and queer and trans theater, Oswald’s teaching is influenced by formalism, conceptual poetry, and new music.
