Featuring: Duncan McIntyre (MFA Acting Student)

Why did you choose UMKC’s MFA program?

I attended the URTAs in Chicago in February 2015, and I met our Head of Acting, Theodore Swetz, in my callback. This callback was my favorite by far, because I entered the room and Ted said to me “We’ll talk about the program and stuff later, but now lets work.” We worked on one of my pieces for the first ten minutes of our meeting and it was wonderful. It was just what I was looking for in Graduate School–a place where we focused on getting to work on myself as an actor. After the URTAs, Ted called me the next day and we talked for quite a while and set up meetings/phone interviews with all our wonderful faculty, and I felt like they were interested in me as an actor. After being here for a year, I know that what was expressed to me in the URTA recruiting process was completely true. The faculty here are dedicated and focused on making me a great actor.

What is your favorite class at UMKC?

At UMKC our faculty come out of the tradition of working in an acting company, and that is how they have set up our program. Even though we have separate voice, movement, mask, acting studio, and audition classes, everything feels like one big class. Frequently the faculty will drop by each other’s classes to see what we are working on, constantly linking everything we are learning into building our own creative technique. My class consists of me and seven other actors, and we form our own company. We are cast in all the same productions, we work in the same classes, we devise things together and train together. So for me everything is one big class, and it’s all great.

What places do you like to go in Kansas City?

Kansas City is a wonderful little city. We have a vibrant theatre and art scene. There are art walks, the plaza art fair, and several exciting professional theatres (KC Rep, Unicorn, Coterie, KC Actors Theatre, to name a few) where we are able to see work for very cheap–or most of the time free, being students at UMKC. Kansas City is known for it’s Barbeque!!! We have excellent BBQ and specifically known for “burnt ends” (They are seriously amazing). My favorite BBQ places are: KC Joe’s (formerly Oklahoma Joe’s), Char-Bar and Jackstack.