View a video introduction
from Paula Vogel, Chair.
See what Justin Taylor, a playwriting student, is working on at YSD.
See what Susan Soon He Stanton, a playwriting student, is working on at YSD.
Playwriting
Paula Vogel, Chair
M.F.A. and Certificate
Yale School of Drama’s Playwriting department is designed to guide the writer in finding honest and vivid strategies that articulate the personal and cultural impulses for writing and making theatre. Playwrights work with their fellow theatre artists as they write plays for production. The playwright creatively and critically employs character recipes, narrative strategies, organizing principles, poetic images, political and aesthetic manifestos, sinewy language, and the plasticity of the stage to convey and challenge our private and public dreams. The goal of the department is to encourage the widest range of work possible, in a variety of mediums, and to mentor each playwright’s evolving understanding and translation of their voice.
Although the playwright writes the script, collaborators together write the production. When we say that theatre is a collaborative art form, we mean precisely that. Not only do we explore a wide range of strategies on the page taken from all periods and parts of the globe, but also we must be open to a wide range of approaches as playwrights in the rehearsal room, for it is here that plays are made. When to articulate one’s intention, when to watch, when to listen, when to question, and when to hold one’s ground — all of the process is explored through three years of production and collaborative opportunities.
Yale School of Drama’s playwriting program believes that every voice is unique: by intense submersion into a spectrum of aesthetics, literature and theory, the writer’s singular voice is strengthened. Each year, playwrights have the opportunity to participate in productions, collaborative courses, and the Yale Cabaret. The program begins with Paula Vogel’s boot camp and designs at least two bake-offs a year—short plays on assigned themes with assigned elements written within forty-eight hours. Playwrights are also offered various opportunities to teach. By engaging in the annual boot camp with other School of Drama and professional artists, playwrights are able to begin a lifelong conversation with a common language; short exercises sharpen our writers’ muscles.
Chair Paula Vogel and Associate Chair Ken Prestininzi are joined by faculty members Michael Korie, Lisa Kron, Lynn Nottage, Frank Pugliese, Rachel Sheinkin, and Deborah Stein. The faculty also includes guest teachers with expertise in musical theatre, film and television writing, and other forms of dramatic writing and performance. The department encourages playwrights to expand their horizons through elected study of design, dramaturgy, performance and production management, and expects each playwright to take courses that challenge them as critical thinkers and creative artists in the other departments at the School of Drama.
Plan of Study
First year:
Second year:
Third year:
Photo Credit: Miriam A. Hyman ('12), Brian Lewis ('12) and Seamus Mulcahy ('12) in elijah By Michael Mitnick ('10), Carlotta Festival of New Plays, 2010. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
