September 17, 2025

Bennington College is proud to announce the launch of its MFA in Screenwriting, a premier low residency program that prepares writers for a leading career in film and television. Applications are open through December 1.

“This is a unique screenwriting MFA, perfectly suited to our times,” said Theodore Braun, acclaimed filmmaker, University of Southern California professor, and director of the program. “It blends the rigor of residential education with the flexibility of low residency, giving writers anywhere access to Bennington’s humanistic tradition of the liberal arts, elite screenwriter mentors, and the immersive professional energy of Los Angeles.”

Braun brings to the program decades of experience as a screenwriter, director, and educator. His debut feature Darfur Now won the IDA Award for Emerging Filmmaker and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary. His films have earned multiple Writers Guild of America nominations, premiered at major festivals, and been distributed worldwide. He concurrently holds the Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair in Cinematic Ethics at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and in 2018 was named one of Variety’s Top Ten Teachers in Film and TV.

The two-year program is built upon a set of intensive in-person residencies—four ten-day residencies, with two held during the summer at Bennington College in Vermont, and two in Los Angeles, the heart of the film and television industry—and a final four-day showcase residency in Los Angeles. In between residencies, students complete eight synchronous ten-week online courses, which allows them to live and work wherever they choose.

The MFA in Screenwriting at Bennington College is small, elite, and focused. Just twelve gifted, driven writers—students who are serious about building a body of work and launching a professional screenwriting career—will be admitted to the inaugural class.

“We’re looking for students with imagination and hunger—those who want to develop a foundation for a decades-long screenwriting career,” said Braun.

Prospective faculty include top practitioners working in the industry today:

• David Hemingson: Academy Award-nominated writer of The Holdovers, creator and executive producer of Kitchen Confidential (starring Bradley Cooper), and writer and producer on How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, and Black-ish.
• Aaron Rahsaan Thomas: co-creator and executive producer of the CBS reboot of S.W.A.T. and Peabody Award winner for Friday Night Lights
• Malia Scotch Marmo: Writer of Steven Spielberg's Hook
• Janet Lin: Emmy-nominated writer on Bridgerton, The Orville, and Bones
• Alexa Alemanni: SAG-winning actress for Mad Men and writer on Leverage and The Librarians

Students will produce six major pieces of work across the program. This work includes two original features, a spec episode, and an original pilot and series bible in the first year. In the second year, they will produce either another feature (original or adapted) or another pilot/series bible, a full revision of one piece of work, and an original feature or series thesis project. By the end of the program, they’ll have a portfolio of work that demonstrates established mastery of the two fundamental screen forms—feature screenplays and series. The program culminates in a capstone industry showcase in Los Angeles.

Across the two-year program students develop foundational capacities in both imagination and technique that are essential to the collaborative arts of cinema. Through deep mentorship and hands-on work, students learn how to communicate about a story with clarity and nuance, collaborate with directors and actors, and create emotional, unforgettable, and cinematic work. The low-residency component offers the flexibility to live anywhere and reflects today’s hybrid working and living environments.

This program reflects Bennington’s tradition of sustained excellence in the arts. The College is home to the renowned Bennington Writing Seminars, one of the nation’s top low-residency MFA programs, and a long legacy of writers and creators, including Melissa Rosenberg ’86 (Twilight), Tracy Katsky Boomer ’91 (Malcolm in the Middle), and Sofia Alvarez ’07 (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before).

“I think what Bennington excels at—its whole reason for being—is to find, nurture, and empower original voices,” said Rosenberg. “That and the spirit of collaboration make it a wonderful place to launch this new MFA in Screenwriting.”

Applications are now open through December 1. Upcoming virtual information sessions are scheduled for this fall. Learn more and apply at bennington.edu/screenwriting.