There are two paths for admission into the MFA in Acting Program at Northwestern. Please check the information below to decide which option works best for you. For further information, please contact the Theatre Office at (847) 491-3598 or David.Kleineick@northwestern.edu
URTA Auditions
Who is this for?
Candidates attending one of the three URTA Audition events listed below.
Live auditions are held annually in January and February through the University/Regional Theatre Association’s (URTA) national cooperative platform. In 2025 they will be held in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Fullerton, CA:
- Philadelphia: Jan. 10 – 12, 2025
- Fullerton, CA: Jan. 18 & 19, 2025 (hybrid)
- Chicago: Jan. 26 – 29, 2025
Apply at: urta.com
- Auditions are held exclusively through the URTA program.
- Candidates attending the URTAs do not need to submit an application to The Graduate School at Northwestern prior to auditioning.
- Selected candidates will be contacted in the weeks following the auditions with a preliminary offer of admission and instruction on how to submit their formal application.the
Traditional Application
Who is this for?
- International Candidates
- Domestic Candidates not attending the URTA Auditions
- (Optional for) International and Domestic Candidates attending one of the four URTA Audition events.
Apply at: TGS Application Portal (will launch in late October)
Deadline: February 4, 2025
Application Requirements:
- CV/Resume
- 2 letters of recommendation
- Consent for direct referee contact to submit a Recommendation
- Audition Video – One monologue (with provided direction below) and a response to an Oral Prompt integrated into your video submission.
- Our required audition submission is a YouTube link to an online video; any other links will not be eligible for viewing by faculty.
Provided Direction: ‘A monologue should reveal the listener’s moment-to-moment responses to the monologue’.
- Your monologue must not exceed 1 1/2 minutes.
A good audition video is able to:
- Demonstrate listening and reacting to the unseen character’s moment-to-moment responses.
- Convey your character’s underlying thoughts and feelings as you navigate the journey of the scene.
- Show adjustment of your tactics to overcome obstacles that thwart your objective.
* If you sing, please only submit 16 bars of a song.
URTA Auditions
Who is this for?
Candidates attending one of the four URTA Audition events listed below.
Live auditions will be held annually in January and February through the University/Regional Theatre Association’s (URTA) national cooperative platform in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
- Los Angeles: Jan. 14 & 15, 2023
- New York City: Jan. 19 – 22, 2023
- Chicago: Jan. 29 – 31, 2023
- Virtual Auditions: Feb. 5, 2023
Apply at: urta.com
Auditions are held exclusively through URTA and the program does not offer private auditions.
NOTE: Candidates attending the URTAs do not need to submit an application to The Graduate School at Northwestern prior to auditioning. Selected candidates will be contacted in the weeks following the auditions with a preliminary offer of admission and instruction on how to submit their formal application.
Traditional Application
Who is this for?
- International Candidates
- Domestic Candidates not attending the URTA Auditions
Apply at: TGS Application Portal
Deadline: January 14, 2023
Application Requirements:
- CV/Resume
- 2 letters of recommendation – and consent for direct contact with the referees in addition to the letters
- Essay Prompt(please respond in the Statement of Purpose section)
If you had the opportunity to conceive, develop, and produce your own performance project as part of your training experience, what might your project be? Please share as much detail as possible in imagining what you might create. Also describe the collaborative role the MFA Acting program would play in helping you realize your vision. Again, be as detailed as possible in your response. Dream away!
- Audition Video – our preferred audition submission is via a link to an online video. Video links can be pasted into a word doc and attached in the “supplemental” section of the application
- MUST NOT exceed 3 minutes
- MUST CONSIST of 2 contrasting monologues (two different characters from two different plays and two different genres of dramatic literature, trying to achieve two different goals in two different situations)
- If you choose to sing, please only submit 1 minute maximum of a song.