Tom Loughlin’s MFA in Acting

February 12, 2009 by  

Go right now and read Tom Louglin’s journey to getting an MFA in acting. Below is a preview:

Let me say that I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Daisey’s point of view. Taken as a whole, MFA programs are by and large selling a false product. But rather than seeing this situation as deliberately fraudulent, I would prefer to cast this more in the light of understanding it as an “emperor’s new clothes” situation. It is not that universities are out there deliberately trying to defraud students of money (the “ponzi scheme” reference), but rather that they are simply refusing to acknowledge what’s right before their very eyes – that the system is stark naked of value or meaning. Mr. Daisey is merely the young child in the crowd pointing that fact out.

What is fundamentally wrong with the MFA system today is exactly what was wrong with it 27 years ago when I was an MFA candidate. Its only true market value lies in the fact that it is a terminal academic degree. Every college professor who has an MFA knows this in their heart, and yet MFA programs in this country by and large are simply unwilling to admit it. Beyond a handful of very exclusive and well-connected programs, it has very little value in the actual theatrical marketplace. Just ask the thousands of unemployed or underemployed actors out there with the degree.

MFA programs are selling an expensive and crumbling myth. If the model had any promise at all – and it probably did when the regional theatre movement had its own promise of community-based ensemble companies – it’s now a castle in ruins.

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