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Creative writing, official name of program, department(s) sponsoring program, degree designation, nysed program code.
Hunter’s Creative Writing MFA is a highly selective program in which students work closely with distinguished writers to perfect their writing skills. The course comprises workshops, craft seminars, one-on-one supervisions with faculty, and literature classes. There are three concentrations: fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Most years there are twelve students per concentration. Each year, several students are named Hertog Fellows (fiction and creative nonfiction) and Thomas Hunter Fellows (poetry). These students are paired with established writers, for whom they conduct research for one semester.
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The Rita and Burton Goldberg MFA Playwriting Program at Hunter College is a highly selective, rigorous, and affordable two-year playwriting program located in the heart of New York City. We seek writers eager to develop their craft and challenge assumptions about what theatre is and will become.
The Program
The program at Hunter is focused on helping writers hone their voice and aesthetic while taking risks and experimenting with form. Students study with award-winning writers, working theatre professionals, and esteemed guest artists in a program that offers intensive, hands-on writing workshops and fosters a collaborative, close-knit artistic community.
There are five students in each cohort, which allows our instructors to give students generous individual attention. Each semester, students take three courses that meet in the evenings, which enables students the flexibility to work during the day. Teaching Assistantships are available to students in their second year. To supplement coursework, the program provides a series of Master Class workshops each semester with playwrights, directors, and industry professionals, as well as free or affordable tickets to a wide range of New York City productions to facilitate a robust connection with the New York theatre community.
The capstone project of the program is the Hunter MFA Playwrights Festival , a week-long workshop with professional directors and actors which culminates in a public reading attended by agents, literary managers, producers, and other industry professionals. You can read about our 2024 MFA Playwrights Festival HERE .
The Hunter MFA Playwriting program is both affordable and accessible. The cost of in-state tuition for one semester is $4,230, and the program is often able to provide partial or full tuition waivers to incoming students. Additionally, all students are offered paid Teaching Assistantships in their second year.
Instructors
Current and recent playwriting faculty include: david adjmi (stereophonic, stunning) clare barron (dance nati on, you got older), eboni booth (primary trust, paris) lisa d’amour (detroit, airline highway).
Chisa Hutchinson (Somebody's Daughter, Whitelisted) Lloyd Suh (The Far Country, The Chinese Lady) Maria Striar (Clubbed Thumb) Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, The Internationalist)
Visiting Artists
2023-2024 visiting artists: hansol jung, haruna lee, tina satter, lloyd suh, and mfoniso udofia.
Photos from the 2022 MFA Playwrights Festival
Student & Alumni News
October 30, 2024
Jen Diamond (‘24) and Phillip Christian Smith (‘23) are named as 2024-25 Dramatists Guild Fellows.
August 22, 2024
Diana Ly's (’23) play Sex and the Abbey premieres at the Brick Theater.
August 12, 2024
Lauren Holmes (’23) wins the Princess Grace Playwriting Fellowship.
May 9, 2024
Jesse Jae Hoon (‘22) named as Terrence McNally New Works Incubator Fellow at Rattlestick Theater.
April 19, 2024
Minna Lee (’24) is awarded the Lanford Wilson Award for early career playwrights.
April 4, 2024
T. Adamson's (’17) play Usus premieres in Clubbed Thumb Summerworks 2024.
February 8, 2024
Ryan Drake's (’21) play y ou don't have to do anything premieres at HERE Arts Center.
January 25, 2024
Minna Lee's ('24) play My Home on the Moon premieres at San Francisco Playhouse.
January 18, 2024
Ian Robles (’23) is awarded a Tow Foundation Playwright Residency with Teatro Círculo for the world premiere production of Lío in Spring 2024.
August 2, 2023
Phillip Christian Smith (’23) is announced as a member of New Dramatists.
June 5, 2023
John J. Caswell Jr.’s (’20) play Wet Brain premieres at Playwrights Horizons.
April 4, 2023
Maya Lawson’s (’21) play Por Du is receives a reading in the Bushwick Starr Reading Series.
October 13, 2022
T. Adamson (’17) is awarded the Vineyard Theatre’s 2022-3 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award.
September 7, 2022
Jesse Jae Hoon (’22) is named as a 2022-23 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow.
June 16, 2022
Diana Ly (’23) announced as a debut member of the Universal Writers Lab.
May 20, 2022
Jesse Jae Hoon (’22), Liqing Xu (’21), and Garrett Zuercher (’22) will be part of the 2022 Orchard Project Adaptation Lab
May 17, 2022
Mara Velez-Mendelez’s (’19) Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members premieres at Soho Rep.
March 16, 2022
Lindsey Ferrentino (‘14) will write and direct film version of Amy and the Orphans for Netflix.
March 1, 2022
John Caswell Jr.’s (’20) Man Cave produced by Page 73 premieres at the Connelly Theatre.
February 9, 2022
Charly Evon Simpson’s (’17) Sandblasted premieres at the Vineyard Theatre in a co-production with WP Theater.
January 31, 2022
Liqing Xu’s (‘21) Yellow Dream$ produced in Second Stage’s 2022 Judith Champion New Voices Series.
January 18, 2022
Liz Appel’s (’21) Bells Like Hooves produced in Roundabout Theatre Com pany’s 2022 Underground Reading Series.
September 23, 2021
Justice Hehir (’18) and Hannah Novak (’18) receive Clubbed Thumb Constitution Commissions.
September 15, 2021
Garrett Zuercher (‘21) produces and directs Deaf Broadway’s concert production of Into the Woods for Restart Stages at Lincoln Center.
May 22, 2021
Garrett Zuercher (‘22) wins the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.
September 24, 2020
John J. Caswell Jr. (‘20) received the Vineyard Theatre’s 2020 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award.
I am incredibly grateful for my time in the Hunter Playwriting MFA program. I wanted the opportunity to focus and deepen my craft, to work with undergraduates in preparation for future teaching, and to stay in NYC and involved with theater in the city. This program allowed me to do all three of those things and more while working with professors and fellow students I greatly admired. It pushed me in the ways I need to be pushed in order to grow as a playwright.
- Charly Evon Simpson, Class of 2017
Read the MFA Playwriting Program’s 2023-2024 Newsletter HERE.
Admission requirements.
You must meet the following minimum requirements in order to be considered for admission. Meeting these minimum requirements does not guarantee acceptance to the program.
Interviews will be conducted with a select group of candidates after the initial review of application is completed. (Only matriculated students are eligible to take MFA courses.)
A bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution comparable in standard and content to a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College.
Play Manuscript - Submit a full length play at least 45 pages as a PDF. A digital copy of the manuscript needs to be uploaded in the online applications system before submitting the application
Two letters of recommendation from appropriate academic or professional references.
A statement of purpose of approximately 500-750 words answering the following questions: Why do you choose playwriting as a literary form? Discuss your background in the theatre, the playwrights and productions that have influenced you, and what you hope to bring to the stage.
Applicants whose native language is not English and who have taken all or part of their undergraduate education in a country where English is not the native language are required to submit scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The following minimum scores must be obtained:
Paper Based Test: 550
Computer Administered Test: 213
Internet Based Test: 60 (less speaking component)
FALL 2025 DEADLINE: January 15, 2025
Questions? Contact the Director of the Rita & Burton Goldberg MFA Playwriting Program, Christine Scarfuto, at [email protected] .
Ready to start your application? Click the button below!
Degree Requirements
This two-year program encourages playwrights to discover and develop their unique voices. Students should expect a thorough grounding in theatre history, dramatic literature and theory, and the craft of playwriting. They will also have the opportunity to take electives and learn from well-known guest artists. At the end of the first year, students will have a reading with a professional director and actors. The second year of the program culminates in a 29-hour workshop of a new play and a public, staged presentation of the students’ work.
Required Courses
MFA Playwriting I: Developing Your Voice THC 73100
MFA Playwriting II: The Art of Revision THC 73200
MFA Playwriting III: New Play Workshop THC 73300
MFA Playwriting IV: Thesis Project THC 73400
MFA Production Workshop I: Adaptation THC 73500
MFA Production Workshop II: The Playwright Prepares THC 73600
History of Theatre I THC 75100
History of Theatre II THC 75200
Play Analysis THC 79000
Electives (9 credits)
Sample Program of Study
First Semester
History of Theatre I
MFA Playwriting I: Developing Your Voice
MFA Production Workshop I: Adaptation
Second Semester
History of Theatre II
MFA Playwriting II: The Art of Revision
Third Semester
MFA Playwriting III: New Play Workshop
Play Analysis
Fourth Semester
MFA Production Workshop II: The Playwright Prepares
MFA Playwriting IV: Thesis Project
Christine Scarfuto Program Director [email protected]
The Director of the Rita and Burton Goldberg MFA in Playwriting is Christine Scarfuto. Christine is a dramaturg with over a decade of experience in new play development. She was the Literary Manager of Long Wharf Theatre from 2015-2019 and has worked with Second Stage Theater, LCT3, Signature Theatre, Lark Play Development Center, Playwrights Center, Clubbed Thumb, Playwrights Realm, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Kennedy Center. Christine was educated entirely in public schools including the University of Iowa, where she received her MFA in Dramaturgy.
Gregory Mosher Senior Associate Dean for the Arts [email protected]
The Program is part of the Hunter Department of Theatre, which is chaired by Tony Award-winning producer and director Gregory Mosher, who has produced over 100 world or American premieres at the Lincoln Center and Goodman Theaters, on Broadway, and in the West End. Writer colleagues in these productions include David Mamet, John Guare, Elaine May, Emily Mann, John Leguizamo, Richard Nelson, Mbongeni Ngema (Sarafina), Arthur Miller, David Hare, the Nobel Prize-winners Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka, Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett, and many more.
Learning Outcomes
Graduates of our MFA Playwriting Program will be able to:
Create, revise, and develop full-length dramatic works that expresses students’ own artistic aesthetic.
Collaborate with directors, designers, actors, and other theater artists.
Develop constructive workshop practices and demonstrate the ability to closely observe, analyze, and respond constructively to the writing of workshop participants.
Analyze a variety of dramatic structures, techniques, methods, and approaches with the aim of enriching students’ own work.
Demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge of theater history and practice with the aim of enriching students’ own work.
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MFA Program
Poetry: Donna Masini, John Murillo Fiction: Adam Haslett (Program Director), Megha Majumdar, Ayana Mathis Creative Nonfiction: Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Mychal Denzel Smith
The program is fully funded for Poetry and Fiction students, contingent on continued college funding. Creative Nonfiction is not currently funded. The program offers teaching opportunities for second year MFAs.
Fiction and Poetry students who live in New York State receive a full tuition award; out-of-state students receive the equivalent of an in-state tuition award towards tuition fees. Students must file a FAFSA application to be eligible for funding.
Through the Hertog and Sainsbury Fellowships, all Fiction and Creative Nonfiction students have the opportunity to conduct research for an established writer. Recent writers students have conducted research for include: Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead, Yiyun Li, Hernan Diaz, Edwidge Danticat, Alexander Chee, Melissa Febos, ZZ Packer, Jia Tolentino, Ottessa Moshfegh, Sigrid Nunez, Valerie Luiselli, Zadie Smith, Claire Messud, Nathan Englander, Phillip Lopate, Cheryl Strayed, Mary Gaitskill, Frank Bruni, William Finnegan, Rivka Galchen, and Kaitlyn Greenidge.
Through the Thomas Hunter and Sainsbury Fellowships, all Poetry students have the opportunity to conduct research for an established poet, publication or poetry organization. Recent examples include Poets’ House, Cave Canem, Four Ways Books, Kimiko Hahn, Grace Schulman, Marie Howe, Fanny Howe, Jean Valentine, and Edward Hirsch. The Poetry program also can facilitate internships with the Threepenny Review and Graywolf Press.
The MFA’s Distinguished Writers Series invites a diverse array of prominent authors each semester to visit classes and give public readings. Recent authors include: Leslie Jamison, Terrance Hayes, Phil Klay, Porochista Khakpour, Lucy Sante, Eula Biss, Greg Pardlo, Laura Kasischke, Vievee Francis, David Adjmi, Elif Batuman, Helen MacDonald, Pankaj Mishra, and Claudia Rankine.
The program’s Creative Nonfiction track begins in process and springs from personal perspective—whether it be essays, opinion, reportage, memoir, or hybrid forms of storytelling. Creative Nonfiction seeks students who are committed to the connections between their experiences and the broader world.
Fatin Abbas, Ahmad Almallah, Ari Banias, Jiordan Castle, Bill Cheng, Scott Cheshire, Brad Fox, Alex Gilvarry, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Jessica Leigh Hester, Meng Jin, Phil Klay, Janice Y. K. Lee, Megha Majumdar, Tanya Marquardt, Darragh McKeon, Liz Moore, Jason Porter, Jeff Rotter, Gary Shteyngart, Jessica Soffer, Jeanie Vanasco, Maria Venegas, Erin Williams
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