Playwriting MSc

Please note that this programme is not running in the 2025 to 2026 academic year. Applications for September 2026 entry are expected to open in October 2025.

Led by award-winning playwright, director and dramaturge Nicola McCartney, our MSc in Playwriting offers a high level of contact with the theatre industry. It will appeal to emerging playwrights, directors, dramaturges, performance artists and critics.

The programme focuses not only on the craft of writing for performance, but also on how a script plays out in real space and time, and in front of an audience.

You will be taught through a dynamic combination of seminars, workshops, one-to-one supervision and professional masterclasses by some of Europe’s leading playwrights and theatre artists.

Previous collaborators include world famous and award-winning practitioners such as:

• Cora Bissett
• Sir Michael Boyd
• Gregory Burke
• Kai Fischer
• Tanika Gupta
• Philip Howard
• Rosie Kellagher
• Lucy Kirkwood
• Matthew Lenton
• Linda McLean
• Orla O'Loughlin
• Adura Onashile
• Robin Soanes
• John Tiffany

A core component of the degree is a series of workshops, facilitated by Playwrights' Studio Scotland, to develop your own work with professional actors and directors.

Why Edinburgh

Edinburgh is a theatre city, home to the world’s largest theatre festival and a lively, thriving and diverse year-round theatre scene.

As a student on the Playwriting MSc programme, you will benefit from established links with leading theatres and organisations, including:

• Traverse Theatre (Scotland’s new writing theatre)
• the Royal Lyceum (one of the UK’s leading repertory theatres)
• Playwrights' Studio Scotland

The University of Edinburgh has a long and rich tradition of student drama. Based in Bedlam Theatre, the oldest student-run theatre in the UK, the Edinburgh University Theatre Company has helped to develop an array of outstanding theatrical talent over the years, with alumni making reputations and careers in professional theatre.

By the end of the programme, you will have written at least two short works and one full-length piece for live performance.

These entry requirements are for the 2025/26 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2026/27 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2025.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in a relevant discipline or equivalent professional experience.

We require a portfolio of work of around 45 minutes playing time or 30 to 40 pages. The portfolio must contain original writing for the stage. Screenplays, fiction and poetry are not accepted. We recommend that you offer extracts from more than one work.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency which will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 73 with at least 65 in each component. We do not accept PTE Academic Online.
• Oxford ELLT: 8 overall with at least 7 in each component.

Unless you are a national of a majority English speaking country, your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start of the month in which the programme you are applying to study begins. If you are using an IELTS, PTE Academic, TOEFL, Trinity ISE, or Oxford ELLT test, it must be no more than two years old on the first of the month in which the programme begins, regardless of your nationality. (Revised 14 January 2025 to include Oxford ELLT.)

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

Offering a high level of contact with the theatre industry, our MSc in Playwriting is an immersive introduction to the theatre scene in Edinburgh, Scotland and internationally.

Over the course of the programme, you will explore your individual creative voice, developing the self-motivation and focus necessary to work as an independent artist within the theatre industry.

Not only will you develop in the craft of playwriting, but in the transferable skills of dramaturgy, and script analysis.

On completion, you will have written at least two short works and one full-length piece for live performance.

The transferable skills you will gain, such as communication, research and project management, will be valuable to your career development whatever path you choose, including advanced study, if it interests you.

Our graduates have gone on to be professional playwrights but also to careers in arts management, journalism, performance art, screenwriting, teaching and socially-engaged arts practice.

Meet our graduates

The programme is incredibly comprehensive and gives you all the tools you need to actually write. The hands-on approach is amazing. I got my dissertation play developed at a theatre in Washington DC and my writing samples have gotten me in front of some pretty important people - executive producers at Netflix, Viacom, and ABC. I now have a scriptwriting job for YouTube company Wisecrack - my videos have over 15 million views.

Thomas Ambrosini, scriptwriter for Wisecrack and script reader. MSc in Playwriting, 2015

• Francisca Da Silveria
• Laurie Motherwell
• JD Stewart
• Amy Rhianne Milton