Application Instructions For Doctoral Program (Autumn 2007, To Begin Study Autumn 2008)
Please note that the following items:
Statement of purpose in graduate study
Duplicate transcripts from each college attended
Graduate Record Exam report (taken within last 5 years)
Summary of your production work
Statement on directing
Samples of your written critical work
should be sent directly to the Department of Drama
PhD Admissions Committee 2007 Department of Drama
551 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Statement of purpose
Please write more than a brief paragraph. Obviously the purpose for most students entering a doctoral program is to teach at the college level. Perhaps it is not for you; if so, explain your goals or, if you are as yet unsure, your possible options and/or your hopes. No matter what your career “purposes,” please tell us enough about yourself so that the Graduate Studies Committee can have some sense of who, and where, you are, and how you plan to benefit from our doctoral program. It could be helpful, for example, to know of studies that have particularly challenged you, of special talents that you have developed or would like to develop, of movements in the theater that particularly intrigue you, of areas in dramatic literature in which you might like to do special study. This statement in no way commits you, and the Committee realizes that you cannot define yourself in (say) two typewritten pages. However, we would find very helpful anything that might set you apart from other highly qualified students who apply.
Summary of production experience
Please submit this information in list form, noting all significant work on productions including acting, directing, design, technical work, crew work, stage managing, and the like. Please include a statement indicating your experience attending live theater so that the Committee knows what kinds of theater you have been exposed to at this point in your life.
Statement on directing
Provide the Committee with a brief (no more than 3 pages double spaced) description of your approach to a proposed production of one of the following plays: Sophocles’ Electra, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Brecht’s Good Person of Setuzan, or Suzan-Lori Parks’ America Play.
Samples of written work
Please submit one or two papers that best demonstrate your potential for doing independent and sophisticated work in criticism. Please do not submit papers of historical research that is not subjected to analysis, reviews of productions, or original plays. We value historical study, journalism, and playwriting, but such work gives little indication of your ability to handle critical language or deal with abstract ideas or aesthetic theory. The paper need not deal with drama; critical studies of another genre could provide the evidence we need.
Titles of papers recently submitted include the following: “Towards a Cruel Double,” “The Artificial Tradition: Escaping Representation,” “Disseminating Dissent,” “Dialectic, not Epic Theater in Late Brecht,” and “Trapped in The Infernal Machine: Cocteau Seeks the Fourth Dimension.” We request that you do not send M.A. theses. The Committee does not have the time to read them with care, and often theses attest to the editing ability of the adviser more than to the potential of the student. If you must, submit your thesis, but please indicate which chapter the Committee should read.
Interview
We would welcome the opportunity to meet any applicants who live in, or plan to visit, the area. After the initial screening of files, an invitation to interview may be extended by the end of January to visit the campus in February. Individual meetings with faculty and current graduate students over a 1–2 day period provide an opportunity to learn more about the program and its goals. Decisions regarding graduate study at the Ph.D. level should be the product of informed consideration on both sides.
The deadline for applications is December 11, 2007. To ensure careful consideration of your dossier, be sure that all materials have arrived at the Department of Drama at Stanford by that date. If you have any further questions about the Ph.D. program, please write directly to:
PhD Admissions Committee 2007
Department of Drama
551 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
