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California Institute of the Arts

MFA: Stage Management

School of Theater

Women smiling together on set next to a work table

New forms and voices take the stage

With an emphasis on artistic collaboration and creative leadership, CalArts’ three-year MFA in Stage Management—a specialization within the Experience Design and Production (XDP) program—emphasizes the development of new voices and forms as it provides the foundation for a career as a creative manager in a range of professional performance environments. As graduate students, you and your peers work as stage managers and assistant stage managers on projects, performances, and workshops presented by the School of Theater and the CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP) each semester, gaining hands-on experience as you begin to build your lifelong creative network.

Performers on a dark stage with tables and technology equipment in the foreground
  • Best performing arts programs
  • 8:1 student-faculty ratio

    in the School of Theater

  • Top 20 colleges for performing arts

Artistic collaboration, creative leadership

MFA Stage Management

As a graduate student in Stage Management, you’ll hone your individual management style while working in close partnership with colleagues—faculty and students alike—across the spectrum of Performance and Experience Design and Production metiers in the School of Theater.

Let’s connect

You’ll also benefit from unique opportunities to collaborate with artists, designers, performers, musicians, writers, dancers, and others at the only accredited arts college in the United States that gathers the full range of visual and performing arts under one roof. Students work on projects, performances, and workshops presented by the School of Theater and the CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP), and your mentor and other faculty will encourage you  to seek collaborations with your peers throughout the Institute.

The specialization’s emphasis on developing new voices and new forms gives you the opportunity to invent and reinvent yourself as a stage manager as you approach each project, honing your skills and refining your vision as you prepare to enter—and transform—the field.

The core Stage Management curriculum includes seminars in specialized stage management skills, textual and performance analysis, production management, producing, score reading, directing, management theory, and design. Based on each student’s interests, studies may be augmented with electives in themed entertainment, producing for film, and entrepreneurship—all the while cultivating your leadership, interpersonal skills, and ability to nourish creativity in yourself and others.

All MFA Stage Management students are required to pass a mid-residence and graduation review in order to complete the program and earn the degree.

Admission requirements

To be considered for the MFA Stage Management specialization, you must complete an application and all program-specific requirements, including a self-recorded video introduction, an artist statement, a portfolio of your work, and an interview. Before applying, please familiarize yourself with the detailed application requirements and resources available to assist you in this important process.

Application requirements

Degree requirements

Stage Management is a specialization within the Experience Design and Production (XDP) MFA program.

The MFA requires three years of full-time study, focusing on developing leadership, collaboration, communication, practical stage-management skills, and creative problem-solving, with coursework designed to prepare students for professional environments through hands-on production experience and theoretical study.

MFA XDP Specialization in Stage Management academic requirements

Interdisciplinary opportunities

In addition to CalArts’ naturally collaborative atmosphere, the Institute provides several programs of study that can be pursued concurrently with a student’s chosen metier, such as a concentration in Arts Education or Integrated Media.

MFA concentrations

Courses you might take

What courses would you take as an MFA Stage Management student? Browse the courses offered in the School of Theater, one of the preeminent theater training grounds in the US.

School of Theater courses

Meet the faculty

At CalArts, faculty and students are collaborators, teaching, learning, and working together as members of our community of artists. 

Notable School of Theater alumni

Tonys, Obies, and Ovation Awards aren’t the only things distinguishing our alumni—it’s the way they’re collectively changing their industries through their creative practice.   

Meet our alumni

What will you create?

Student projects

Browse the portfolios of CalArts Stage Management students, whose work spans the range of performance environments.

Actors in period costumes on a stage gather around a woman laid out on a desk.

An Experiment with an Air Pump, 2024. 

Gallery

Want to learn more?

We got you. Our Admissions team is all about providing the information you need to decide if CalArts is right for you. We’re excited to connect with you for a tour of our legendary campus, a virtual info session, or at one of our admissions events across the country or around the world. Take the next step—we’re here to help.