School of Arts
Dr. Amy Cook, Dean
Amy brings a deeply interdisciplinary perspective to Emerson, with work spanning theatre, performance, cognition, Shakespeare, and the ways in which people create meaning together. Read more.
For the creators, writers, performers, publishers, scholars, comedians, and artists ready to get to work—welcome to your creative playground, launchpad, and home. Here, you’ll strengthen your craft, find your community, and build the creative courage necessary to share your story, in whatever medium(s) are right for you.
Housing three departments—Performing Arts; Writing, Literature, and Publishing; and the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts—as well as the cross-departmental Comedic Arts program, the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies is for creatives who want rigorous training and room to take risks.
Whether you’re laser-focused on a specific field or shaping a path that crosses multiple, you’ll make ambitious work here—and leave with the portfolio, practice, and network to thrive as a true professional.
Programs
The School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies offers 13 undergraduate and graduate majors, plus 25 minors.
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Acting (BFA) -
Comedic Arts (BFA) -
Creative Writing (BFA) -
Creative Writing (MFA) -
Design and Stage Management (BFA) -
Interdisciplinary Studies (BA/BS) -
Musical Theatre (BFA) -
Playwriting, Directing, and Dramaturgy (BFA) -
Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing (MFA) -
Publishing and Writing (MA) -
Theatre Education and Applied Theatre (MA) -
Theatre Education and Performance (BFA) -
Writing, Literature, and Publishing (BA) -
4+1 in Publishing and Writing
Add Another Dimension to Your Degree
Pursuing a minor gives you more ways to shape your Emerson experience around what you want to study, make, and do. Explore options within the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, or branch out to the School of Film, Television, and Media Arts or the School of Communication.
Ethos
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Miguel Cervantes ’99
Actor -
Taylor Jenkins Reid ’05
Author -
Lauren Nicole Chapman ’13
Actress
Real Work for the Real World
Creative careers are competitive. That’s why our students graduate with proof they have what it takes to make it.
Performing Arts students rehearse and perform in professional-level venues like the 1,200-seat historic Cutler Majestic Theatre and state-of-the-art Paramount Center. Writing, Literature, and Publishing students pitch highly regarded journalists at Emerson’s annual Pitch Slam, or copyedit real novels through Emerson’s Penguin Random House Mentorship Program. And at Emerson Los Angeles, Comedic Arts students take part in the Comedy Conservatory, where they write, perform, and produce original material in a community that treats comedy as serious creative work.
And if your work lives between disciplines? Even better. Through the Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) major, Emerson gives students access to resources across our three schools, so they can combine performance with research, writing with media, comedy with social impact, or build any other path their ideas call for.
Find Your People. Do Your Thing.
With 100+ student organizations and co-curricular activities, you’ll never run out of opportunities to strengthen your craft outside of the classroom—and to find the people who make your work braver, weirder, clearer, and stronger.
Collaborate in Emerson Stage productions. Publish your work (or your friends’) in one of Emerson’s student magazines and literary journals. Build stand-up routines. Join a co-curricular that supports your self-designed major. Create the story—and your story—in every form it demands.
On to Even Bigger Audiences
At Emerson, the work adds up. The role you played. The poem you revised. The production you managed. The manuscript you shaped. The set you designed. The project you carried from first idea to final form.
These experiences become your portfolio, your network, and your next step. Graduates of the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies go on to build careers across theatre, publishing, comedy, education, arts administration, writing, performance, design, media, nonprofits, and creative paths they define for themselves.
Recent students and alumni have found internships at:
