Myths and MFAs

This is the first installment of Isabella D’Esposito’s Myths and MFAs series, in which she interviews the heads of MFA writing programs in order to demystify the grad school experience for potential candidates.

By The Time I’m Twenty-Five:

• Get Married
• Get my MFA in Playwriting
• Have a Puppy
• Have a House

I wrote that list when I was still walking the halls of middle school, when I barely knew what an MFA was. I still have a year or so left until the deadline, but I’m one year into a two-year MFA Playwriting program at Carnegie Mellon University, median age around twenty-six (I’m on the younger side). In my program in particular, we have plenty opportunities for productions, readings, and development, both on campus and off. None of us have full-time jobs, but we pick up work here and there to pay the bills. Most importantly, we write.

Each post in this blog series will highlight a program tackling the problems that candidates and applicants face in their pursuit of their degrees. I’ll be the first to admit, I feel pretty privileged for gaining a spot in my program. It’s awarded me a great perspective on an MFA in Playwriting, what it means to me, and what it means to countless others. I’d been told over and over again that an MFA wasn’t right for me: that I was too young, that I couldn’t afford it, that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. And I’ve heard the same told to my peers in different ways. Too old, too slow, too family-oriented…Myths, all of them enshrouding MFA programs in a veil of demographic statistics, rumors, and hearsay.

Some of these myths have their roots in truth: some MFA Playwriting programs tend to have younger or older classes of students because of other factors of admission—resumes, connections, style of program. But most myths boil down to a lack of accessibility to the programs in question. And honestly, the time it takes to research every single writing program available in the United States would be enough time to write and rewrite a play to completion. According to the March 2016 article in The Atlantic “How Has the MFA changed the Contemporary Novel?” the number of MFA creative writing programs has exploded in recent years, from a meager fifty-two in 1975 to 350 in 2015. And that’s just in the United States. Of that 350, forty schools have specifically Playwriting/Screenwriting MFA programs. They may be called Dramatic Writing, Theatre Writing, etc. Twenty-nine Playwriting specific programs, almost three hundred and fifty creative writing MFA programs—so why do applicants feel so trapped? Why do applicants, like me, feel they must fit a very specific mold (twenties to thirties, unmarried/untethered, already produced) to pursue postgraduate education in playwriting?

When I started looking into applying to MFA programs, I was in my second to last year of undergraduate. Young playwrights are often told to not pursue an MFA until they’ve been out in the world a bit, two years being the average answer I’d gotten. That being said, I had plenty of support to apply, but there was trepidation in that support.

Despite it all, I wanted more schooling. I wanted to learn more about my craft before I stepped off into what I assumed was a professional abyss. Was I not allowed to get a post-graduate degree just because that was the “norm”? I took a workshop with a playwright who, among other things, told me I shouldn’t try and pursue my MFA immediately after undergrad. To which I responded, “I’m still going to do it, so where should I apply?” I got the response I’d get all the way up to my first day of grad school: “You’re too young. You’re not prepared.” End of discussion on their part, the first spark of rebellious motivation on mine.

That same year I met a playwright who after retiring from his lifelong career in the medical field was finally in his last semester of his MFA program. I delighted in the fact that he was so passionate, and how his particular MFA program worked so well for him.

He had beaten the odds, and so had I, in my own way, at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Another popular phrase to throw around MFA discussions is, “But you’ll have to give up your job and move to another state!” The idea of putting your whole life on hold to get your degree is daunting, and for some, impossible. Families, mortgages, debts—for some, keeping your full time day job trumps the idea of five days of class a week for eight hours a day with rehearsals at night, and rightfully so. How do playwrights with full time jobs get their MFA’s? Low residency programs are always an option, and the next post in this series will feature a discussion with the head of a low residency program to highlight how it all works!

The endgame of this blog series isn’t to increase applicant numbers; I’m not an admissions counselor and the numbers don’t matter to me. What does mater is highlighting the fact that people accomplish this challenging, worthwhile degree from every walk of life. My goal is to deconstruct the myths (age, commitment, cost, and content) that prevent some from applying to MFA programs through interviews with program heads like Matt Pelfrey, who’s the head of the low residency MFA program at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA, who I’ll be interviewing for next time.

Demystify the process, keep writing, and I’ll see you all soon!