Department for Drama

  Head of department:          Univ.-Prof. Dr. Karoline Exner
  Vice head of department:  Univ.-Prof. Estera Stenzel

The foundation of acting
Is the reality of doing.
(Sanford Meisner)

Training

The department for Drama at the MUK provides a dual education for stage and film at an internationally recognized level. The full-time acting course offered is completed after four years with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Within the curriculum, students aquire a professional, practical and goal-oriented working attitude and continuity in personal artistic development is encouraged.
Learning the craft is fundamental in order to be able to build on it to make all further artistic approaches possible. The focus is on ensemble work as well as on the profiling of the individual artistic personality. Confronted with the demands of the profession, self-confident and self-determined actors are trained. Students experience the ability to work in a team in the daily teaching routine through respectful cooperation. The department is committed to the idea of diversity: Everyone is welcome and can participate equally in artistic processes.
Students are excellently prepared for their profession by experts in their fields. Renowned guest lecturers supplement and enrich the range of courses with workshops, projects and in the central artistic subject.

Artistic Research

The development and appreciation of the arts as well as artistic research are an integral part of acting education at the MUK. In various courses and projects of the department, socially relevant topics and their theoretical references are explored through art. The department also cooperates with various partner universities and institutions.

Social relevance

The training reflects current, constantly changing trends in theatre and film. Sociopolitical discourse is taken up and dealt with in artistic projects and theatre pedagogy. This encourages students to take up critical positions. New forms of theatre are explored within the framework of the course, and synergies and polyesthetic projects are created through the spatial proximity to other courses of study at the MUK (music and performing arts). Furthermore, the MUK is part of the European ERASMUS exchange programme.
In addition, the public events and presentations of the student projects enrich the educational and cultural offerings in Vienna and thus reach a broad public.
The MUK cooperates and co-produces with leading and established Viennese theater and film institutions in order to provide graduates with an optimal transition into professional life.

The department for Drama is a member of the Ständige Konferenz Schauspielausbildung (SKS), a working group of state and municipal training institutions in the German-speaking world. The communication between the training institutions serves the purpose of cooperation and quality assurance across national borders. In addition, central graduate auditions and the meeting of German-speaking drama students are regularly organised for students of the member institutions.

You can find the latest news and trivia from the field of drama at www.muk-schauspiel.at. This website isoperated and designed by students, and the MUK accepts no responsibility for its content.

The sedcards of the final year 2024 Drama of the MUK can be found here.