Exploring the UCLA Musical Theater Program: A Comprehensive Guide

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT) offers a comprehensive Theater program designed to provide students with a liberal arts education and pre-professional training. The undergraduate theater program ensures students graduate with a sound humanistic and experiential base for further pursuits in education and life beyond the university. This program combines a critical study of theater with experiential practice in one or more of its component parts. Here, academic rigor fuels creativity, and performers, designers, directors, playwrights, and scholars are supported by world-class faculty who champion collaboration, critical thinking, and innovation. The department’s training engages with our complex, changing world and integrates the unique opportunities available at the nation’s top public university.

Overview of the Theater Program

Students may apply to the Theater major as first-year or transfer students. The definitive listing of all departments, programs, majors, minors, and courses offered, the Catalog includes degree requirements, as well as academic and administrative policies. The UCLA General Catalog is published annually in PDF and HTML formats. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in the UCLA General Catalog. However, all courses, course descriptions, instructor designations, curricular degree requirements, and fees described herein are subject to change or deletion without notice. Consult this Catalog for the most current, officially approved courses and curricula. Other information about UCLA may be found in materials produced by the schools of Arts and Architecture; Dentistry; Education and Information Studies; Engineering and Applied Science; Law; Management; Medicine; Music; Nursing; Public Affairs; Public Health; and Theater, Film, and Television.

Emphasis Classes

All emphasis classes require instructor consent to enroll. The faculty may elect not to continue a student in the emphasis at any time. This could be due to poor performance or poor citizenship (excessive absences, not working up to the standards of the class, poor grades in the class, etc.).

Musical Theater Courses

The UCLA musical theater program offers a variety of courses designed to develop students' skills in acting, singing, and dancing. These courses cater to different skill levels and cover various aspects of musical theater performance.

Introductory Courses

Introduction to Basic Music Theater Dance Technique: This studio course, lasting four hours, is designed for Theater majors. It introduces basic music theater dance techniques and may be repeated once for credit.
Introduction to Interpretation in Theater and Performance: This seminar, also four hours, introduces basic methods of interpretation in theater and performance throughout the world. Topics are illustrated by faculty members and guest speakers, visits to off-campus theaters, and reading from contemporary plays.
Interpretation of Drama Through Art of Actor: This four-hour studio course introduces the interpretation of drama through the art of the actor, focusing on developing individual insights, skills, and disciplines in presenting dramatic material to audiences.

Advanced Performance Skills

Advanced Performance Skills: This studio course, lasting three to four hours, requires course 27A as a prerequisite. It is designed to build confidence and ease in advanced performance skills. The course explores the art of physical comedy through the lens of American Vaudeville traditions, acts, and performers, examining the importance of rhythm, timing, delivery, speech, and body language in American comedy. Emphasis is placed on imagination, physical improvisation, and the integration of diverse art forms such as stunts, music, dance, storytelling, clowning, and tumbling.

Vocal Technique and Performance

Sight-Singing: This three-hour studio course requires course 23A as a prerequisite. It covers more advanced sight-singing, incorporating minor keys, chromatic scales, internal key changes, and bass clef. The course also includes an exploration of song form, musical theater score formats, and harmonic/contrapuntal singing.
Vocal Technique: This one-hour studio course requires course 35B as a prerequisite. It is designed to advance proper vocal technique, focusing on breath support, vowel shape, range expression, and overall mastery of the vocal instrument. It may be repeated four times for credit.
Musical Theater Duets: This three-hour studio course is designed for Theater majors. It focuses on the study and practice of musical theater duets, with an emphasis on establishing, exploring, and maintaining relationship and intention while singing. The course also aims to develop vocal technique and the ability to hold melody and harmony lines while singing in relationship. It includes research of duet history using song selections covering the history of musical theater from the early 20th century through contemporary, incorporating and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion values while not being restricted to original casting models in practice.
Gospel and Rhythm and Blues Singing: This three-hour studio course is designed for Theater majors and is part of a five-course series of musical theater performance techniques. Students explore and master a variety of vocal styles and/or acting approaches necessary to be competitive in the field of professional musical theater, with a focus on strategies and techniques for singing gospel and rhythm and blues music, with solo and group improvisation as a foundation.
Vocal Challenges in Devised and/or Post-Realist Texts: This three-hour studio course explores the vocal challenges associated with devised and/or post-realist texts.

Dance and Movement

Dance and Movement Techniques for Musical Theater: These five-hour studio courses are designed for Theater majors and focus on the development of dance and movement techniques for musical theater.

Production and Design

Visual Interpretation of Drama: This course consists of three hours of lecture and six hours of studio work. It explores the visual interpretation of drama, studying styles and techniques of design, the collaborative role of the designer, and principles of design for scenery, lighting, costumes, and sound. It provides both technical and aesthetic groundwork for further study.
Design and Technical Theater: This four-hour lecture course involves group study of selected subjects in design and technical theater and may be repeated twice for credit.
Pre-Renaissance Architectural and Interior Décor: This four-hour lecture course requires courses 14A, 14B, and 14C as prerequisites. It studies pre-Renaissance architectural and interior décor as a manifestation of cultural, social, economic, and political influences to provide a historical framework for the design of scenery, costumes, and lighting for theater, film, and television. It may be repeated once for credit and is concurrently scheduled with course C404E.
Costume Rendering Techniques: This four-hour studio course requires course 147A or 147B as a prerequisite. It studies techniques for rendering theatrical costumes, with an emphasis on figure, clothing, and fabrics. It may be repeated twice for credit and is concurrently scheduled with course C455F.

Acting and Directing

Art of Acting: This four-hour lecture/studio course requires course 20 as a prerequisite. It involves the study and practice of the art of acting through perfecting techniques and applying those techniques to acting problems.
Dialects in Performance: This three- to four-hour studio course requires courses 24, 25, and 124A as prerequisites and focuses on the development of techniques in approaching dialects in performance.
Directing: These courses (160, 163A, 163B, and 163C) may be taken concurrently with enrollment by audition or instructor consent. They include workshops that provide students with the opportunity to rehearse, perform, criticize scenes, and reflect on actor-director collaboration. The courses may be repeated once for credit.
Play Direction: This two-hour lecture and four-hour laboratory course requires course 15 with a grade of C or better. Course 121 may be taken concurrently. It covers basic theories of play direction and their application through the preparation of scenes under rehearsal conditions.
Directorial Method: This four-hour lecture/studio course requires course 15 as a prerequisite. It involves further development of craft elements of the directorial method, with additional emphasis on psychological aspects of director/actor communication. Students direct scenes under laboratory conditions in alternative stage configurations.
Conceiving, Researching, and Developing Full-Length Plays: This three-hour studio course requires course 130A as a prerequisite. It introduces the process of conceiving, researching, and developing full-length plays, with students beginning to draft full-length plays. It may be repeated twice for credit.
Motif Development: This three-hour studio course is a continuation of course 125C, with motif development as it relates to the actor's process.
Asian Weapons for Stage and Film: This three-hour studio course focuses on movement-based skill sets for the actor, emphasizing the use of Asian weapons for stage and film.
Classic Texts: This six-hour studio course requires course 126A as a prerequisite. It involves advanced study of characterization, approach to verse, scansion, and the use of embodiment in classic texts, with personalization within heightened reality.

Other Specialized Courses

Applied Theatre: This four-hour laboratory course investigates applied theatre and methods through which the arts are used to address social issues. Emphasis is placed on culturally sustaining practices and communal activities supporting people to speak toward their experiences through the transformative process of theatre-based techniques.
Embedded and Wearable Technologies in Live Performance: This four-hour studio course highly recommends course 119A as a prerequisite. It involves hands-on exploration of the expressive potential of embedded and wearable technologies in live performance, using puppetry as a practice through which to examine how these technologies can engage with agency, presence, and interaction. Students build responsive systems that sense body and object and actuate through sound, light, and mechanics, focusing on the practice of critical making to support narrative intent and develop emotional resonance.
Asian American Theater: This two-hour lecture and two-hour discussion course explores Asian American theater through a critical lens of aesthetics and politics, studying race in intersectional contexts with particular emphasis on technology and migration.
New Plays: This three-hour seminar is required for students in the playwriting sequence. It focuses on how to approach a diverse range of new plays currently changing the landscape of theater, offering a contemporary look at plays written in the last 15 years and how they reflect society. The course involves reading plays to build skills of manuscript analysis, developing a working vocabulary of dramaturgical concepts, and exploring different styles of acting, directing, and design that playwrights of today draw from.
Stories and Technologies: This three-hour seminar requires course C112A or C112B as a prerequisite. It explores how stories, particularly in embodied speculative fiction, shape the way technologies are imagined, built, and used in real life. Through theory, discussion, and experimentation, the course examines the interplay between fiction and reality, focusing both on how 20th- and 21st-century speculative fiction has impacted the technology that we use today and how staging new and different fictions could impact collective imaginaries and future technologies. It is concurrently scheduled with course C212C.
Stage to Film Acting: This four- to six-hour lecture/studio course requires course 116B as a prerequisite. It is designed to aid the actor in the transition from stage to film work, examining film production and its physical characteristics and the acting style needed for work in film and television. Students may perform in a simulated studio setting on camera and may repeat the course once for credit with an instructor change.
Interactive Theatrical Events: This three-hour lecture course focuses on the conceptualization, design, and prototyping of interactive theatrical events, exploring original forms of media-rich entertainment experience through lectures, presentations, and seminar participation. Students form collaborative teams to conceive and propose interactive entertainment events and is concurrently scheduled with course C446A.

Laboratory Courses

Theater Production: These laboratory courses (50A, 50B, 50C, 50D, 150A, 150B, 150C, 150D) offer laboratory experience in various aspects of theater production, including stage management or member of a production crew, performance in a project or production, assistant director, dramaturg, member of crew, or assignment as designer or assistant on production. The combination of courses 50A, 50B, 50C, and 50D may not be taken for more than 8 units, and the combination of courses 150A, 150B, 150C, and 150D may not be taken for more than 16 units. The number of hours varies, ranging from three to 16 hours per week.
Assistant Designer Laboratory: This six-hour studio course requires courses 14A, 14B, and 14C as prerequisites. It offers laboratory experience as an assistant designer, including participation in the preparation and realization of scenic, lighting, costume, or sound designs and may be repeated twice.
Designer Laboratory: This six-hour studio course requires courses 14A, 14B, and 14C as prerequisites. It provides laboratory experience as a designer, including preparation and realization of scenic, lighting, costume, or sound designs and may be repeated twice.
Assistant Stage Manager Laboratory: This nine-hour studio course requires course 174A as a prerequisite. It offers laboratory experience in the professional duties of an assistant stage manager, including participation as an assistant stage manager in the preproduction, rehearsal, and performance phases of productions. It may be repeated once for credit.
Stage Manager Laboratory: This 12-hour studio course requires course 174A as a prerequisite. It provides laboratory experience in the professional duties of a stage manager, including participation as a stage manager in the preproduction, rehearsal, and performance phases of productions.
Production and Postproduction Practice for Entertainment Media: This three- to eight-hour studio course offers exploration and laboratory experience in one or more various aspects of production and postproduction practice for entertainment media, including theater, film, video, and digital media. It may be repeated for a maximum of 24 units.

Design-Specific Courses

Role of Art Director: This four-hour lecture/studio course studies the role of the art director, scenic design for single-camera and multicamera production, and set decoration. It may be repeated twice for credit and is concurrently scheduled with course C451C.
Lighting Design Practices in Television: This four-hour lecture/studio course studies current professional lighting design practices in television for single- and multiple-camera production and may be repeated once for credit. It is concurrently scheduled with course C452C.
Costume Design and Wardrobe Practices: This four-hour lecture/studio course requires courses 14A, 14B, and 14C as prerequisites (course 149 for transfer students). It studies current professional costume design and wardrobe practices in film and television, including the effect of differing media on design choices. It may be repeated twice for credit and is concurrently scheduled with course C453C.
History of Costume Design: This three-hour lecture course includes screenings lasting two to six hours. It covers the history of costume design within the context of 20th-century fashion and film history, including the evolution of the role of the costume designer since the early days of the film industry. It also explores the role of the costume designer and the contribution of costume design to cinematic storytelling and is concurrently scheduled with course C453E.
Sound Design for Theater: This four-hour lecture/studio course requires courses 14A, 14B, 14C, and C154A as prerequisites. It explores sound design for theater and techniques for mixing, reinforcement, and signal processing. Topics include the use of delay, equalization, and microphone placement for theater sound reinforcement with a focus on mixing musicals. It covers the paperwork needed to complete a show, tuning space, equalization, and some advanced projects involving programming and mixing on various consoles. It may be repeated once for credit and is concurrently scheduled with course C454B.
Sound Design for Themed Entertainment: This four-hour lecture/studio course requires courses C154A and C154B as prerequisites. It involves the study of sound design for themed entertainment and its unique needs, including how to organize and design for a non-linear attraction and advanced projects in programming and control systems. It is concurrently scheduled with course C454E.
Music Composition: This four-hour lecture/studio course requires courses C154A and C154B as prerequisites. It provides an overview of music, musical genres, and their structure with the goal of understanding music composition. Students use software to create musical ideas and sound design components and is concurrently scheduled with course C454G.
Drafting Techniques for Scenic and Lighting Designs: This four-hour studio course requires course 147A as a prerequisite. It investigates drafting techniques for scenic and lighting designs using Vectorworks and is concurrently scheduled with course C456E.
Three-Dimensional Lighting and Scenic Design Previsualization: This four-hour studio course investigates three-dimensional lighting and scenic design previsualization, including wire-frame perspective drawing and photo-realistic computer rendering techniques using Vectorworks and is concurrently scheduled with course C456F.
Techniques for Interpretation of Design for Theater: This six-hour studio course involves group study of selected subjects in techniques for the interpretation of design for theater. It may be repeated once for credit and is concurrently scheduled with course C455H.

Musical Theater Summer Intensive

UCLA also offers a Theater Laboratory Intensive. Students will rehearse and take classes daily in the areas of acting, dancing, and singing and participate in weekend guest workshops. Admission to the intensive is by digital audition and instructor consent. UCLA Theater Laboratory Intensive students will receive a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the program.

Application Requirements

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS: If you are an international student, a transcript refers to your complete secondary academic record. To learn more about converting your grades into a US-based GPA, please click here. Applications are reviewed and admission to the program is granted on a rolling basis starting December 1st. The application requirements include:

Essay: A 500 words or fewer essay responding to the following prompt: How do you define diversity?
Song: Prepare a song from the standard musical theater repertory. Your selection should not be an entire song; 32 bars are sufficient. Your selection must be sung with accompaniment. After singing your musical theater selection, demonstrate your vocal range by singing along with MTSI recorded vocal scales. For scales that go up, sing “eeee, eeee, eeee, eeee, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh.” Stop singing when it goes out of your range. Use a chest/mix voice and sing as high as you can, and then flip into your head voice and keep going. For scales going down, sing “yah, yah, yah, yah, yah”.
Dance Combination: A video audition of a 30-60 second dance combination in the style of Musical Theatre Jazz that demonstrates your technical and performance ability. This dance can be self-choreographed, from a previous dance class, or from a show that you were in.
Resume: A resume (if you do not have a resume, submit a brief description of your theatrical and/or artistic experience).
Slate: Say hello! Tell us your name, age, what voice part you are (i.e.
Video Recommendations:
- For best results, place your device (phone, tablet, etc.) on a stationary object such as a tripod or table. A three-quarter shot of your body is perfect.
- For the singing portion of the audition, you should have a good sounding speaker for the accompaniment backing track output.
- Do not send prior performances or tapings from plays.

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television: A Legacy of Excellence

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television (UCLA TFT), is one of the 12 schools within the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) located in Los Angeles, California. The School's enrollment, in 2014, consisted of 631 students. The roots of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television go back to 1947 when the Theater Arts Department was created at UCLA and chaired by German theater director William Melnitz. When the department became the UCLA College of Fine Arts in 1961, Melnitz was named the founding dean, and drama critic and film producer Kenneth Macgowan became the chair of the Department of Theater Arts. The College of Fine Arts grew in standing and within seven years, its two departments had moved into their own facilities: Macgowan Hall became home to Theater in 1963, and the Department of Motion Pictures, Television and Radio moved into Melnitz Hall in 1967. Melnitz Hall is one of the few film theaters in the country with the capability of projecting nitrate base motion pictures. Twenty years later, in 1987, The College of Fine Arts was disbanded. The School of Theater, Film and Television was created in 1990, and Gilbert Cates, a film, television and Broadway director, became its founding dean. In 1999, Robert Rosen became UCLA TFT’s second dean. A professor and film historian, Rosen had earlier spearheaded the expansion of the UCLA Film & Television Archive into one of the largest collections of moving image material. UCLA alumna Teri Schwartz became the dean of UCLA TFT in 2009. In January 2020, established and award-winning theater director Brian Kite became the interim dean of TFT. Kite is the recipient of the 2018 Joel Hirschhorn Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, for distinguished achievement in musical theater. He is a Los Angeles Ovation Award winner for Best Direction of a Musical for his production of Spring Awakening and was again nominated for his productions of Les Misérables and American Idiot. Kite is a chair emeritus of the Board of Governors of the L.A. In July 2025, award-winning filmmaker, scholar and Distinguished Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media Celine Parreñas Shimizu became the dean of TFT. A premiere scholar of race and sexuality in representation, her books include The Movies of Racial Childhoods (Duke, 2024), The Proximity of Other Skins (Oxford, 2020), Straitjacket Sexualities (Stanford, 2012), and The Hypersexuality of Race (2007) which won Best Book in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies which also awarded her the 2022 Excellence in Mentorship Award. Distributed by Women Make Movies, her films The Celine Archive (2020) and 80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance (2022) each won several festival awards. Her latest So To Speak (2025) is on the festival circuit. She received her Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University (which inducted her into its Multicultural Alumni Hall of Fame in 2023), her M.F.A. in Film Directing and Production from UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and her B.A.

The Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment

The Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment at UCLA TFT was created in partnership with Participant Media founder and CEO Jeffrey Skoll in 2014. Skoll donated $10 million for the center, the first of its kind dedicated solely to advancing entertainment and performing arts to inspire social change. The idea for the center came to Teri Schwartz, later dean of the UCLA TFT, in 2003; after meeting Skoll in 2007, she shared the idea for the center with him, and seven years later the center was founded. The work of the Center is organized around three pillars: research, education, and public programming and exhibition.

Programs of Study

The undergraduate program in Film, Television and Digital Media gives students the opportunity to learn about the history and theory of film and television while also teaching practical, creative and technical skills. Offering Master of Arts, Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees, the graduate program offers two main areas of study. A Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy degree are available for Cinema and Media Studies. Made possible by a $5 million gift from Audrey L.

The Geffen Playhouse

The Geffen Playhouse was founded in 1995 by former UCLA TFT Dean Gilbert Cates.

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