The Directing Concentration
The MFA Directing program is based on the idea that one’s vision as a director is developed through practice, encouragement, critical feedback, collaboration…and more practice. In addition to exposure to the theories and practices of the great theatre directors of the past, students are encouraged to experiment with both the formal structures and physical ideas of directing, and apply theories from intersecting art forms such as music, painting, and dance to their work on the stage.
Directors are asked to move constantly between practical considerations of staging and collaboration to the deeper issues behind the existence and nature of theatre. The training is project-based and has directors working daily with actors, playwrights, dramaturgs, and managers. There are opportunities to direct the great classical texts, to collaborate with playwrights on new work, and to make original performance events from fresh collaborations with artists of many disciplines.
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Slide 1: 'Is God Is,' directed by Brittany Vi-King '26
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Slide 2: 'Light Shining in Buckinghamshire,' directed by Talia Feldberg '26
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Slide 3: 'Phaedra's Love,' directed by Danica Selem '24
Notable Alumni
Saheem Ali '07 (Associate Artistic Director, Public Theatre)
Carl Cofield '14 (Associate Artistic Director, Classical Theatre of Harlem)
James Dacre '10 (Former Artistic Director of the Royal & Derngate Theatres)
Michel Hausmann '14 (Artistic Director New Miami Drama)
Diane Paulus '97 (Artistic Director ART, Harvard)
Darko Tresnjak '98 (Former Artistic Director Hartford Stage)
Meiyin Wang '06 (Director of Contemporary Programs Lincoln Center; former Associate Director of Under the Radar).
Saheem Ali '07 (Broadway Productions of Fat Ham, Buena Vista Social Club)
Rachel Chavkin '08 (Tony Award for Hadestown)
Carl Cofield '14 (One Night in Miami)
Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16 (Public Obscenities at Soho Rep, shortlisted for Pulitzer Prize)
Robert O’Hara '96 (Broadway Production of Slave Play)
Ash Tata '12 (Coriolanus at Theatre for a New Audience)
Keenan Tyler Oliphant '21 (Practice at Playwright’s Horizon)
Diane Paulus '97 (Tony Award for Pippin)
Tyne Rafaeli '14 (Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) at Public Theater)
Darko Tresnjek '98 (Tony Award for A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder)
Isabelle Kettle '18 (Royal Opera House)
Paul Peers '04 (Peak Performances, Boston Baroque)
Elkhanah Pulitzer '05 (Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera)
Jay Scheib '02 (Bayreuth)
Carl Cofield '14 (Head of Graduate Acting at NYU)
Mark H. '18 (Northwestern)
Diane Paulus '97 (Head of ART at Harvard)
Jay Scheib '02 (Professor of Theatre and Music Arts at MIT)
Marike Splint '07 (Head of Directing at UCLA)
Kim Weild '07 (Head of Directing at CMU)
Faculty
Guest Lecturers
Katie Mitchell