Theatre for Young Audiences

The University of Central Florida offers one of the nation’s most distinctive graduate training programs in Theatre for Young Audiences. The program offers courses such as Puppetry, Storytelling and Methods of Teaching Drama and the MFA in Theatre for Young Audiences is partnered with Orlando Repertory Theatre, a professional Theatre for Young Audiences in vibrant downtown Orlando.

The Master of Fine Arts in Theatre for Young Audiences track is designed for students who demonstrate the artistic and intellectual capacity and evidence of professional promise to pursue careers in professional and academic theatre. This track is for all theatre disciplines and offers opportunities to create work with and for youth, including community-based applied theatre, teaching artistry and education, devised theatre and directing.

The program is a highly selective, rigorous, three-year professional training program emphasizing both theatre theory and practice. The MFA degree is rooted in the belief that classroom study and practical experience in the theatre are of equal and complementary value. 

Students, in addition to becoming highly trained theatre practitioners, must also demonstrate the ability to understand the conceptual basis of their art and to be able to articulate that understanding to others. Toward this end, the department will recruit and develop graduate students who can serve, along with faculty and staff, as role models for undergraduate students whose BFA programs of study are integrally connected and dependent. Assistantships also offer students teaching opportunities in the theatre department.

News

Alumna Tara Kromer ’15MFA Directs “Driving Miss Daisy” for Theatre West End

February 05, 2021  Directed by MFA graduate Tara Kromer, “Driving Miss Daisy” at Theatre West End shines a spotlight on the little moments that add up to a person’s character, and how that character can bend and change over time.

2 Teams Awarded 2020 Pabst Steinmetz Foundation Arts and Wellness Innovation Awards

February 04, 2021  The winning projects, which received $25,000, were chosen for being interdisciplinary, sustainable and community focused.

Theatre UCF returns to the stage this spring

January 14, 2021  This spring, Theatre UCF is back on stage for three outdoor performances including a hopeful musical concert, a colorful commedia dell’arte play and a family-friendly show about wanting to be anything but average.

More News

Students interested in applying to the TYA MFA Theatre track must be accepted to both UCF Graduate Admissions and through an audition and interview through the UCF School of Performing Arts.

The MFA TYA Track admits students every two years to start the fall semester of each odd-numbered year with interviews and auditions held early that same year.