At CalArts, we nurture and inspire visionary actors who aspire to work on stage, film, television, voiceover, and across all media platforms. Through rigorous study and performance supported by mentorship from our renowned faculty, you’ll develop as an emerging performer prepared to pursue—or create—your own creative and professional path.
School of Theater
Related programsBFA Experience Design and ProductionMFA ActingMFA Directing Connect with usThe intensive, four-year BFA program in Acting is designed to prepare you for the demands of a professional acting career across a variety of media. With a focus on the tools needed to succeed across a shifting creative, social, and professional landscape, the program combines rigorous classes in acting, voice, speech, movement, and artistic practice with a wide range of performance and production experiences—each tailored to your individual needs and ambitions.
The curriculum is structured progressively with a strong emphasis on movement and physical expression as a means to unlock the imagination.
In your first year, you will study and perform significant texts across a vast landscape of the American canon. Emphasis is placed on developing students’ process and technique while expanding your imagination and artistry. The second year is devoted to the study of classical world texts in performance, with an increased focus on defining, developing, and deepening each student’s craft and individual vision.
In your third and fourth years of training, you and your peers will engage modern dramatic classics as well as contemporary film, television, poetry, and other narrative sources. Special emphasis is placed on developing camera technique as well as advanced scene study, all meant to address the importance of media to the actor.
Benefitting from its position within CalArts’ dynamic School of Theater, the country’s only independent institute encompassing the breadth of performing and visual arts under one roof, this unique program offers you the opportunity to collaborate with and learn alongside directors, designers, writers, dancers, musicians, filmmakers, animators, and visual artists. Our singular ecosystem of the arts enables you to follow your impulses beyond the traditional definitions of theater, build a lifelong network, and discover a myriad of professional pathways.
As a BFA actor, you’ll he the opportunity to work on projects and participate in workshops presented by the School of Theater and the CalArts Center for New Performance (CNP), and will be encouraged to collaborate with your peers throughout the Institute.
All BFA Acting students are required to pass a mid-residence and graduation review in order to complete the program and obtain their degree.