The School of Theatre will begin offering an MFA in screen acting next semester.
Mark Parker, dean of the School of Theatre and Wanda L. Bass School of Music, said this program will be a unique offering for students.
“Looking at the landscape across the US especially, there are just not very many master’s of screen acting anywhere,” Parker said. “There’s one for-profit degree, and a few others that offer screen acting as a track in an MFA program, but an MFA focused on screen acting is something that’s just not out there.”
Parker said the degree will be a two-year program, with students spending a year in Los Angeles and a year in London.
“It’ll be intense because, often, an MFA degree is a three-year program. We think it’s good for somebody’s career to get it, get through it, and move into the career,” Parker said. “The people will be doing this course actually where they’re going to live and work. They have to ability to go where the job is.”
Parker said this is the only program where students split their time between London and Los Angeles. He said students will have ample experience with industry professionals about performing for the camera.
“There’s a course about how to get a job in commercials. How to compare? What is it like? How does it differ from filming something for TV or films? There’s a core acting class each semester, which involve projects on camera. There’s a course on history and style of film and TV so you understand how it has evolved overtime,” Parker said. “We already have over a dozen industry professionals that have signed on to do a guest lecture masterclass, which Kristen Chenoweth is one of them, but there’s more people already lined up and more to come.”
Parker said the relationships built through this program will be extremely beneficial for the screen acting MFA and the degrees on the Oklahoma campus.
“We’re going to have a lot of new colleagues, friends, partners, and we expect that they will help with our undergraduate program. We have a strong curricular on-camera philosophy in our program. We believe that needs to grow and can only grow for helping undergraduate students in the future too,” Parker said. “We expect a lot of crossover as far as opening doors to expertise that we might not have right now.”
Katherine Abel, acting junior, said she sees this new program as an excellent expansion of what the school has to offer.
“I think it’s really important because we train so heavily, especially in the acting program, in Shakespeare and Chekhov and some contemporary scene work,” Abel said. “I think it’s important that we broaden the horizon with on-camera work, especially in the time of the pandemic, when even if you are auditioning for theater, you’re doing it through a screen.”
Abel said the industry demands actors to have the skillset to work on camera.
“While stage is great, the money isn’t always fair. So, I think it’s important to just be as well rounded and as well-trained as possible as you can, as natural and versatile as possible, and be in as many facets as you can be,” Abel said.
Parker said he is interested to find out what type of students will be most interested in this program.
“That’s a question we keep bouncing back and forth. I’ve always thought it will be a student that’s a little older, already done undergrad, has tried to do this, but hasn’t had the opportunity to get this kind of help and education to do it. I’m thinking maybe more of those students will be the clientele of this program,” Parker said. “Others that we talk to think it might be straight from undergrad to entering this program immediately. Time is going to tell, but I do know there’s a lot of people that want to do this and haven’t had any chance to get those next steps to get them ready.”
Abel said she imagines she would be most interested in this program after a few years of professional work.
“I have never really thought about, at least until now, getting my master’s or coming back, but I think it’s important to go out in the industry and try first, and then if you think that there are areas that you need to work on, especially film since I haven’t really done a lot of that, I think I would definitely have to really consider it,” Abel said.
Parker said the program will start in January with 12 slots but may be expanded over time.
“We’re starting with 12 but may be able to go to 14-15 in the future. Slots are going to be pretty limited, and we’ve already had more inquiries in the first 72 hours than we have slots. So, we’ll see how fast it builds up,” Parker said.
Parker said the degree has built a large amount of enthusiasm, and he is excited to see where the program goes.
“Right now, the interest is extremely overwhelming. We thought that this is a good program. I thought it was a good idea. We thought maybe it was a little hard to explain, but apparently just through release last week, people already understood it, and they’re very interested,” Parker said. People interested in pursuing the School of Theatre’s MFA in Screen Acting can apply now through Acceptd.
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