Applicable only to students admitted during the 2024-2025 academic year.

Theater

School of Theater, Film, and Television

Graduate Degrees

The Department of Theater offers the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Theater and the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Theater and Performance Studies.

Theater and Performance Studies

Doctoral Degree

Admissions Requirements

Advising

Upon entering the program, each student is assigned a member of the Ph.D. faculty who will serve as the student’s adviser. Students regularly confer with their advisers as needed to discuss curriculum choices, program changes and other concerns.

Assessment of student academic progress in the program is made by the Ph.D. faculty during the final examination week of each quarter. Advisers then notify students of problems in writing, when warranted, and assist in planning solutions.

Major Fields or Subdisciplines

The Ph.D. student in theater and performance studies is expected to be knowledgeable regarding theater history and theory, critical methods, theatrical production and dramatic literature.

Foreign Language Requirement

None.

Course Requirements

During the first six quarters (two academic years), students must complete 13 courses, including Theater 220, 216AS, 216B, and 216C, as well as nine elective seminars or tutorials (200 or 500-level). Students are regularly enrolled in one seminar within the department and one outside the department. No more than two electives may be tutorials. Electives must augment the required courses so as to constitute a definable area of study associated with the dissertation topic. The dissertation is a historical, critical, analytical, or experimental study of a theater or performance studies topic.

All courses applied toward the doctoral degree must be taken for a letter grade, with the exception of those that only have an ‘S/U’ grading option.

First-Year Examination
During the winter quarter, a committee of PhD faculty administers a screening examination based on the course work the student has completed to date. Depending on the results of this examination, a student may be required to complete additional background courses, or the student may be recommended for academic disqualification. The exam may be retaken once.

Teaching Experience

Most students will acquire teaching experience over the course of their studies. Teaching is not required for the degree.

Written and Oral Qualifying Examinations

Academic Senate regulations require all doctoral students to complete and pass university written and oral qualifying examinations prior to doctoral advancement to candidacy. Also, under Senate regulations, the University Oral Qualifying Examination is open only to the student and appointed members of the doctoral committee. In addition to university requirements, some graduate programs have other pre-candidacy examination requirements. What follows in this section is how students are required to fulfill all of these requirements for this doctoral program.

All committee nominations and reconstitutions adhere to the Minimum Standards for Doctoral Committee Constitution.

After completion of course requirements, students are required to pass a written qualifying examination scheduled for three days followed by one oral examination. Students first constitute an examination committee, which may also serve as the doctoral committee, including the potential dissertation adviser and three other faculty members. Students submit a short description of the dissertation project to the Ph.D. faculty for review. Typically, the majority of the committee members will be from the student’s home department, and one member with complementary research interests will come from beyond the department.

The written examination concentrates on three subject areas that will inform the dissertation and constitute the main foci of the student’s specialization. These areas may be chosen from: a field of critical theory; a historical period; the performance of a genre, or of social or cultural traditions of a given geographical region. The student, together with the examination committee, prepares an exam list in each of the three fields, covering the leading concepts, methodologies and examples seminal to the field. Along with the three exam lists, the student also composes a dissertation prospectus of approximately 25-30 pages. The prospectus argues for the topic of the dissertation and for the pertinence of the three fields to the dissertation, and concludes in a brief description of the proposed chapters. Both the prospectus and the three exam lists must be approved by the examination committee at least one quarter prior to the date scheduled for the examinations. The written examination questions are derived from these materials. The written examination date is chosen jointly by the student and the committee members.

The written examination is a take-home exam consisting of three questions, one pertaining to each exam list. The writing period will consist of three days. The three essays combined should not exceed 30 pages. The completed examination will be distributed to and evaluated by the committee. Students who pass the written examinations submit a departmentally approved nomination of doctoral committee to the Graduate Division for approval. Upon approval, the University Oral Qualifying Examination is officially scheduled.

The University Oral Qualifying examination focuses on both the written examination and the materials in the prospectus. If the student fails the doctoral examinations, there is one opportunity to retake them.

Advancement to Candidacy

Students are advanced to candidacy and awarded the Candidate in Philosophy (C.Phil.) degree upon successful completion of the written and oral qualifying examinations.

Doctoral Dissertation

Every doctoral degree program requires the completion of an approved dissertation that demonstrates the student’s ability to perform original, independent research and constitutes a distinct contribution to knowledge in the principal field of study.

The dissertation committee may contain the same members as the examination committee, or a student may choose to alter the membership.

Final Oral Examination (Defense of Dissertation)

Not required for all students in the program. The decision as to whether a defense is required is made by the doctoral committee.

Time-to-Degree

The maximum time for completion of degree requirements is 21 quarters, with the following timelines:

From graduate admission to the approval of the dissertation prospectus: six to nine quarters.

From graduate admission to the written and oral qualifying examination: six to nine quarters.

From approval of the dissertation prospectus to the oral qualifying examination: one quarter.

From graduate admission to the award of the degree: 15 quarters.

DEGREE	NORMATIVE TIME TO ATC (Quarters)	NORMATIVE TTD	MAXIMUM TTD
Ph.D.	6	15	21

Academic Disqualification and Appeal of Disqualification

University Policy

A student who fails to meet the above requirements may be recommended for academic disqualification from graduate study. A graduate student may be disqualified from continuing in the graduate program for a variety of reasons. The most common is failure to maintain the minimum cumulative grade point average (3.00) required by the Academic Senate to remain in good standing (some programs require a higher grade point average). Other examples include failure of examinations, lack of timely progress toward the degree and poor performance in core courses. Probationary students (those with cumulative grade point averages below 3.00) are subject to immediate dismissal upon the recommendation of their department. University guidelines governing academic disqualification of graduate students, including the appeal procedure, are outlined in Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.

Departmental Probation

In addition to the standard reasons outlined above, a student may be recommended for probation/academic disqualification whose various creative projects or work in courses in research methodology and history seminars are indicative of insufficient talent, development, imagination or motivation.

If a student’s work in this area is found to be insufficient, by recommendation of the appropriate committee, the student will be placed on probation by the department.

The student will receive notification of probation in writing, which will outline:

• Identification of the issue to be corrected.
• A suggested plan to correct the issue.
• An agreed upon schedule and timeline towards expected correction, generally in the following term.
• Consequences of failure to correct the issue.
• At the end of the subsequent term, if the student does not provide sufficient evidence of improvement to remove the probationary status, the committee may recommend academic disqualification to the faculty and chair of the department.

Appeal of Recommendation for Academic Disqualification

A student may appeal a recommendation for academic disqualification through the following steps:

1. The student submits to the departmental chair and the chair of the appropriate committee a written appeal stating the specific causes for reconsideration.
2. The chair of the committee submits a response to the departmental chair and the student.
3. The departmental chair appoints an ad hoc committee consisting of three tenured members of the faculty to review the student’s appeal and committee’s response. The ad hoc committee also meets separately with the student and the committee. The ad hoc committee forwards its written recommendation to the departmental chair.
4. The departmental chair makes the departmental recommendation and informs the student and the Graduate Division of the decision in writing.
5. A departmental faculty representative may be present at each review hearing within the department.