Thank you @remartin67 for visiting and for your interest in the acting program at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. I am the Director of Admissions at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, I am happy to provide some clarity about the performance opportunities for our students (although @bromquest did an awesome job…thank you!).
All of our productions are designed to enhance and tie into the students’ classwork and to address their pedagogical needs at each stage of the training. While we have a framework for our production season, we make adjustments based on the individual needs of the student companies, so the production schedule and repertoire may vary from year to year.
In general, each student in the acting conservatory program will perform in seven productions during their three and a half years at Rutgers. How a production is cast depends on the show. For some productions we will hold auditions, but all the students in the company will be cast. In some cases, we do not hold auditions and assign casting based on the needs of the students.
Undergraduate acting students do not perform in the first year. This year is spent exploring and mastering fundamental concepts, developing a background in theater, and establishing the work ethic of the profession.
In the second year, each student will perform in four productions. The Performance Ensemble project is a devised piece created and performed by members of the second year company under the direction of the Associate Head of Acting, Kevin Kittle. The conception of this piece begins in the classroom during the student’s first year. The next production is the Movement Project, a devised piece that requires students to create narrative lines and develop complex themes with movement as the primary mechanism of story telling. The spring semester begins with the American Realism Project, which allows students to relate their studio based classwork within the parameters of an authored script. Depending on the needs of the company, the American Realism spot may be one show with a large cast, or two to three shows with smaller casts. In any scenario, all students will be cast in one production. The final second-year production is the Text Project, which challenges students to work with heightened text and more advanced circumstances. Recent projects have included works by Lope de Vega, George Sand, and August Strindberg.
Acting students will spend the majority of the third-year at Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Students study with master teachers at the Globe and live in the heart of London, enabling them to take full advantage of the arts and culture the city has to offer. As part of this experience each student will perform in a full-length Shakespeare play which has a public performance on the Globe Theater’s main stage. The students return to New Jersey and spend the final weeks of the semester rehearsing and performing the same Shakespeare play which they performed in London, however, the production is reimagined with a new director and the students are recast in different roles.
The acting student’s senior “year” is one semester long. During this fall semester the students will be cast in two productions. The first is chosen entirely based on the needs and make-up of the company and can range from Greek trilogies to contemporary dramas. We may produce multiple productions for the graduating company during this time, but ultimately each student performs in one. Finally, the students will perform in our annual Playwrights Festival which includes new plays written by our MFA playwrights and are presented to the public in rotating repertory.