Master of Arts

Theatre for Social and Civic Engagement

You’ll take courses guided by principles of reflective studio practice, justice-centered praxis, and arts-based inquiry, emerging as a responsible and reflective artist and facilitator.

Through reflective studio practice, you'll have opportunities to:

• Discover how your existing theatre skills can adapt to community contexts
• Explore facets of theatrical creation, finding approaches that resonate with your artistic voice (playwriting, directing, devising, physical theatre, verbatim performance, and more)
• Develop unique ways of blending different theatrical traditions to serve your work in and with communities

Through justice-centered praxis, you’ll encounter a cycle of reflection and action to:

• Examine how personal values and lived experience inform your work as an artist-facilitator
• Navigate emerging projects with community partners
• Engage in conversations with peers and faculty about the presumptions of power and evolving role of theatre in social change

Through arts-based inquiry, you will:

• Conduct research using methodologies like ethnodrama and verbatim performance that honor artistic ways of knowing
• Create arts-based research projects that center the experiences of specific communities
• Develop your voice as an artist-researcher through the design and implementation of an original capstone project

Additionally, you'll have opportunities to engage in production work (on the mainstage, with the NYU Steinhardt Youth Theatre Ensemble, and in schools, with Shakespeare to Go), and explore the wide range of projects coming out of the Verbatim Performance Lab, Prison Theatre Initiative, ArtsPraxis, and more.

The program prepares thoughtful artists and facilitators who can effectively use theatre as a tool for social change and community building. Our alumni work as theatre artists, educators, and facilitators in arts organizations and venues, galleries, museums, independent K-12 schools, and various cultural and community settings.

The program also prepares students to pursue graduate study in the form of a terminal degree, seeking an EdD or PhD in a related field.

Educational Theatre Scholarships

Graduate and Doctoral students in the Program in Educational Theatre may receive scholarships through one or both of the following methods. The first is through completing the Steinhardt Financial Aid process and potentially receiving merit or need based scholarships. Information on this process is available through the Financial Aid website for graduate students.

The second method is by applying for Educational Theatre Scholarships directly through the Program.

Eligibility Criteria for Educational Theatre Scholarships

• Educational Theatre Scholarship applicants must be graduate or doctoral students in the Program in Educational Theatre who demonstrate service to the Program, academic merit, or artistic merit.
• Doctoral students can receive scholarships up to two times, but not in consecutive semesters. Master’s students can receive a scholarship only once.
• If doctoral students who have already received the award apply again, information included in the statement should only pertain to work completed after the previous award.
• Priority is given to students with financial need.

Awards

Up to a $5,000 bursary will be awarded to students and applied to their Bursar account in one of four areas: Service-based, Academic Merit, Artistic Merit, or Study Abroad.

Note that these scholarships can only be applied towards tuition and/or registration fees for NYU/Educational Theatre courses.

Application Procedure

Students can apply for these scholarships after completing one semester of study. An application form will be circulated to current students through the program’s list serve approximately two - three weeks prior to the start of registration for the upcoming term.

Application Deadlines

• Fall – April 1
• Spring – November 1
• Summer – January 24

The application form requires:

• a faculty member to support the application
• selection of one of the four award areas (Service-based, Academic Merit, Artistic Merit, or Study Abroad)
• a statement of no more than 500 words responding to a corresponding prompt

Statement Prompts:

Service-based:
Statement of Service describing the ways in which you have provided service to the Program that is deserving of acknowledgement.

Academic Merit:
Statement of Academic Merit describing the ways in which your academic work is deserving of acknowledgement.

Artistic Merit:
Statement of Artistic Merit describing the ways in which your artistic work is deserving of acknowledgement.

Study Abroad:
Statement of Service, Academic Merit, or Artistic Merit describing the ways in which your work is deserving of acknowledgement through scholarship for the study abroad program.

Scholarships

Nancy and Lowell Swortzell Permanent Fund in Educational Theatre Scholarships

This scholarship honors the legacy of Nancy and Lowell Swortzell, distinguished professors who founded the Program in Educational Theatre at NYU Steinhardt in 1966, and continued teaching in the program for 40 years. In the spirit of their work, we are pleased to support the financial needs of students as they work toward completion of their degree. Awards are available to students at the graduate and doctoral levels.

Myoung-Cheul Chung Scholarship in Educational Theatre

This scholarship for Educational Theatre students was created by one of the Program's alumni, Mr. Myoung-Cheul Chung, MA '95. The scholarship has supported graduate students in Educational Theatre since its inception in 1999. Mr. Chung was a student of Nancy and Lowell Swortzell, the founders of the Program in Educational Theatre at NYU.

Email Jonathan Jones for more information.