The first and only MA of its kind to focus on queer performance, this course offers broad training in a range of queer performance practices, delivered by renowned queer artists, theatre-makers, academics, and researchers. Fiercely socially engaged, political, experimental, and interdisciplinary, the course provides an in-depth, comprehensive examination of queer performance practice, studying its themes, methodologies, and untapped possibilities.

Live Art and Performance Studies (LAPS) is a two-year master’s programme in English that combines critical thinking with experimentation in artistic work and artistic research. We empower you to develop and activate new knowledge of performance and its theory. As a student of our programme, you will be committed to studying full-time.

This course is the only postgraduate program in the world that takes candidates through a course of study that culminates in their receiving Designated Linklater Teacher status along with the MFA degree. A deep dive into the Linklater Voice method is the foundation of the MFA. The program was designed in close collaboration with Ms. Linklater and reflects her ideas of what a twenty-first-century postgraduate course for actor-teachers should look like. It is, in part, a voice-centred actor-training, rooted in Linklater’s approach to voice as fundamental to a whole system.

This advanced and rigorous MA/ MFA Contemporary Directing Practice program offers an experiential two-year course, where students will develop their vocabulary and find their own voice and vision as a director while acquiring and honing a diverse variety of skills, techniques, tools, and devices.

This program focuses on creating an ensemble, performer training, theatre-making, and performative writing. Informed by critical reflection and practice research, the uniqueness of this program lies in the opportunity to develop and present original work. In a collaborative context, students move creatively between different roles to develop skills in performance and independent-making practice.

The MA/MFA Actor/Performer Training is a practice-based program for those seeking intensive advanced training as actors and performers alongside rigorous academic study and performance research. The program focuses specifically on actor/performer training, theatre creation, performative writing, informed critical reflection, and practice research.

The Graduate Theatre program at Villanova offers a distinct fusion of both academic work and practical experience. As a student, you will have the opportunity to expand your mind through rigorous academic courses, covering topics such as theatre history, dramaturgy, dramatic literature, theatre criticism and script analysis.