Institute for Advanced Theater Training

The American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theatre (ART/МХАТ) Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University was founded in 1987 as a training ground for the new American Theater by Robert Brustein.

The institute has been resident for thirty years at Harvard University in the Loeb Drama Center. It lasts for two years (five semesters) including a three-month residency at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Moscow, Russia. The most recent program director was Scott Zigler. New York University director and acting teacher Marcus Stern and Julia Smeliansky, alumnus of the Moscow Art Theatre School, administer the Harvard master classes with Russian master teacher and film star Igor Zolotivitsky (Esteemed Artist of Russia) and dean of the Moscow Art Theatre School and Bulgakov scholar (People's Artist of Soviet Union) Anatoly Smeliansky.

The program accepts about 22 students per year in acting, dramaturgy/theatre studies, and voice and speech who learn both through classroom activities and numerous opportunities for stage-experience including Institute productions as well as direct involvement in American Repertory Theatre productions. As of September 2016^[update], recent Institute productions have included Young Jean Lee's The Shipment, Moira Buffini's Dying for It, and a stage adaptation of They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. In addition to performances during the students' academic year, graduating second year students also put on a set of showcase performances to aid their transition into professional work. As of 2016^[update], they are presented in New York City, and Los Angeles.

Up until 2003, the institute also hosted a directing program, and formerly offered a Playwriting program as well.

Lacking a department of drama or even a drama concentration, Harvard was understandably reluctant to accept a graduate professional school of drama on the Yale model. When the A.R.T. came to Harvard from Yale in 1979, Robert Brustein originally proposed such a model for actors, directors, and dramaturgs connected to the theater and were quickly advised that the idea would never fly. It wasn't until 1987, after noting the incidence at Harvard of institutes (e.g. the Nieman and the Bunting Institutes), that Brustein submitted the proposal again, under the name of the American Repertory Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training. Brustein was permitted to develop a training program in acting, directing, and dramaturgy. From 1999 to 2016, graduates received a Master of Fine Arts from Moscow Art Theater School and a certificate from Harvard University. The graduating classes of 2017 and 2018 received a Master of Liberal Arts from Harvard Extension School and a Certificate of Achievement from the Moscow Art Theater School, which became associated with the school in 1997. The institute's acting program is an intensive combination of classroom exploration and practical production experience. Acting students follow a two-year sequence carefully designed to help them incrementally increase their knowledge of and facility with text analysis, character development, spontaneity and impulse, period and aesthetic style, and overall expressiveness.

In January 2017, the institute announced they would not be taking on any new admissions for the next academic year after the United States Department of Education gave the graduate program a failing grade due to the oppressive levels of student debt.

In June 2017, the institute's director, Scott Zigler, announced he was taking the job as the dean of the School of Drama at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

In July 2017, the graduate-level theater training program announced they would be taking a three-year hiatus of accepting new admissions and they would be working on a strategic plan for the school. In the announcement, Director Zigler said, “What we’re looking at is taking a three-year hiatus so we can come back stronger, better, and with better funding.”