UTAH OFFERS ONLY ON-LINE MFA DEGREE IN THEATER EDUCATION AND DIRECTING
Distance learning has taken center stage at the University of Utah where the theatre department, in collaboration with Sundance Institute, has begun a new graduate program offering the nation's only on-line MFA degree in theater education and directing.
Wholly administered on-line ñ with the exception of two residential summer sessions at the Sundance Theatre Lab ñ a test run of the three-year, 50-semester-hour program was launched this fall through the U.'s Division of Continuing Education.
"Interest in the program has been phenomenal. We've received more than 400 inquiries," says Xan Johnson, chair of the U.'s Theatre Department. Though a decision was made to cap admissions at 19 for the first period of the pilot program, a larger cohort of students will be accommodated in two years should it prove successful, he says.
David Dynak, the program's founding director and assistant professor of theatre, says the curriculum isn't much different from the courses taught to on- campus MFA directing students. The reason for moving into distance learning is to enable classroom drama teachers in Utah and around the world to pursue an advanced degree in theatre without having to take leave of their work, he says.
"We have students from coast to coast, who are all deeply involved in theater education in private arts schools, intercity secondary schools and remote rural programs and very few of them can afford a lengthy leave of absence to further their education," he says.
Dynak sees the strength of the program in its ability to create a diverse and transgenerational community of people who are tied together by theater and arts education. "Most theater teachers work in isolation. This program is designed to bring the educators and their students together to share ideas and reflect on pedagogy," he says.
"Our intent is to create a network of theater education professionals, who, while learning about their teaching practices and the aesthetics of their art form, are concurrently enhancing the education of the K-12 students they serve."
With the course work, Dynak hopes to see a shift away from the notion of theatre as simply play production. "Theatre is an art form, but it's also a powerful form of pedagogy," says Dynak, who, in his own work with K-12 students has used theatre to deepen their understanding of other subjects.
"Theatre can be used to teach history, or help kids deal with emotional issues like alienation or stress," he says.
Included in the program of study are courses on directorial concept, history, craft and design, research, dramaturgy, the history of theatre, and acting styles.
Students are required to develop and stage plays, musicals and original work at their home schools and then share narrative summaries, self-reflective journals, audio and video tapes and slide shows of these works-in-process. A final creation and staging of an original production is required as the thesis project, which is documented by candidates and evaluated by a committee of U. faculty. "We hope to be able to get at least one of our faculty to each school to witness the production first-hand," says Dynak.
All course work for the program and communication with faculty takes place on the Internet using email, attachments, listservs and the theatre department's web site. "We'd obviously like to get higher-tech and there are possibilities for growth into a consortium program with other schools, institutes and businesses," but that's down the road, says Dynak.
Faculty assign readings and write lectures, which then are downloaded to a site all students can access. Students are required to prepare written remarks and send them to the instructor who makes comments in red. These documents are posted again at the open site where students are expected to read each other's remarks and the instructor's comments.
Dynak says he's found that because they must compose their responses for everyone's consumption, students are more prepared and likely to invest more in their reactions than is often found in a typical classroom setting. "Everything is on the table here," he says.
Assessing the limits of an on-line curriculum, "we were particularly worried about the lack of direct contact, and some members of the cohort have expressed a need for discourse activity," says Dynak. "But it has encouraged interaction among people who normally never would have met."
Amy Luskey-Barth, the founding director of the Tri-School Theatre Program, a four-year sequential arts training ground for high school students in Anaheim, Calif., says though she sometimes longs for person-to-person contact, her experience with the program has been more integrating than isolating. "In many ways the one-to-one contact with professors is more intimate and direct than in a traditional classroom experience," she says. But in order to overcome the isolating "barrier of the computer screen," it's essential that professors keep consistent class times and communicate regularly, she says.
For two consecutive summers following years one and two of the program, all participants will meet in Utah for the Sundance Theatre Lab, which should help to further integrate the participants, says Dynak. The intensive lab runs all day for three weeks, and forms a significant part of the summer's course load.
The Sundance Lab "brings together an incredible coterie of theatre professionals," says Dynak. Students will shadow leading directors, playwrights, dramaturgs, designers, performance artists, and actors as well as collaborate with their colleagues in the development of new work for the stage.
In a typical year, eight to 10 projects are selected for the lab from a pool of 350 applicants, projects of great critical acclaim. It's not everyday that teachers get the opportunity to work with top-notch professionals, Dynak says. "I expect this experience will change many of the students' lives. It changed mine."
Garnering university support for this experimental program has, at times, been a little bumpy but the theatre department is really rallying behind it, says Dynak. The four faculty teaching this year are doing it on an overload basis in addition to their regular class load. "It's worth it. We all feel as if we're playing around on the cutting edge. Even though there are bumps, those bumps will help us down the road to create a very high-powered program," he says.
Luskey-Barth and Elliston agree and remark that participating in the program gives them a sense of pioneering new ground for the arts and theatre education. "This program absolutely fills a void in higher education. Distance learning is here to stay and developing a teaching pedagogy for it is no doubt looming," says Luskey-Barth. "Two years of data should show us a lot about what is advantageous about this form of learning," says department chair Johnson. In the meantime, a number of theatre departments across the country watch and wait anxiously for results. "They're letting us skin our shins on this one," says Dynak.
Next summer Dynak will travel to Chicago to present his experiences before a joint conference of the American Alliance for Theatre Education and Educational Theatre Association.
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Sources: David Dynak, (801) 581-5603; Xan Johnson, (801) 581-4927; Eva Belliston, (801) 412-2150; Amy Luskey-Barth, (714) 774-7575 ext. 155
(Eds. note: for more information, visit the Master of Fine Arts in Directing and Theatre Education web site at (http://www2.finearts.utah.edu/mfa)) Writer: Kirsten Wille, 581-7975, [email protected]
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