Within the Theater and Media Arts department at Boston Arts Academy, there has been a discussion between students throughout the 2025-2026 school year surrounding the current state of the Multimedia and Entertainment Production major. The current structure of MEP places disciplines with distinct educational goals under a theatrical framework. While this arrangement has enabled collaboration, students have been experiencing tensions, not only between Theater and Media Arts, but within their individual concentrations. During the drafting of this proposal, students from theater, audio, and film were consulted regarding their experiences in the current departmental structure. Common concerns have emerged regarding project ownership, artistic identity, and access to opportunities.
We, the authors of this proposal, have noticed grievances from both theater students and media arts students. Specifically, theater students experience frustration over the accessibility to more technical roles for theater students. Occasionally, there has been demand for specific technical roles from the theater students, only for those roles to be handed off to MEP students under the guise of experience or simply just a major requirement, which also produces friction from MEP, as students feel constrained by the abundance of technical roles within theater which do not align with their educational goals. Those in the lower house tech classes have mentioned that they've seen a decline in passion or respect for the art that students have been placed in. From what we know, the role of the academy is to allow students to pursue their desired artistic path while also allowing for meaningful collaboration across fields. Theater students and MEP students often possess differing perceptions of each other's disciplines, contributing to recurring interpersonal tensions and misunderstandings. We have also noticed that MEP students feel as though they have limited opportunities to initiate and lead projects aligned with their concentration. The current structure primarily positions MEP students as technical support roles for other majors rather than the creators of independent artistic work. This tension is worth addressing, as a department where students experience persistent friction with the rest of their environment is not a productive department, and fundamentally goes against meaningful collaboration across fields. It is important that students feel passionate about their art, and manage to make healthy connections with their peers.
To resolve these tensions, we would like to propose the transfer of MEP from the theater department to its own department, as it would open more opportunities for the major to expand its scope, and allow for the production students to self-author their own projects instead of solely supplying technical support for other majors. We ask specifically for an organizational change, not a facility expansion. The objective of this proposal surrounds the way MEP handles projects, aiming for further creative efforts from the production students while also keeping inter-major collaboration, not only within the department, but with the other departments. We envision this transition occurring gradually, initially consisting of the existing audio and film concentrations as majors, preserving the current staff, facilities, and equipment, possibly evolving in majors as student demand develops over time. The primary change would be administrative classification and departmental governance, allowing the existing concentrations to develop independent curricular and project pathways while preserving interdepartmental collaboration.
MEP contains different disciplines, currently audio production and video production, as well as a now-nonexistent live production submajor, and we have heard demands for a game production concentration as well. All of these concentrations have distinct educational goals which are not inherently theatrical, and students applying to programs which are not inherently theatrical but still align with their concentration would require portfolios that differ significantly from those of theater. Because MEP is housed inside of theater, student work is routed towards theatrical support, limiting opportunities for independent production work. An independent department would allow curriculum, project development, and resource allocation to align with the actual disciplines being taught, as well as reduce friction between groups in a shared space. This would also allow for stronger student portfolios aligned with their desired concentration, allow for clearer pathways into audio and film careers, in or outside of strictly theatrical work, increase student retention by expanding the scope of options a student may wish to place their time in, and allow greater student ownership over creative work. We strongly believe that MEP's work, be it recording, engineering, editing, directing, post-production or another form of media creation, constitutes not just technical support, but artistic practice in its own right. This proposal does not immediately expect new facilities, equipment, or staffing in its initial phase.
There also exists a lack of collaboration between not just the audio and film submajors, but between production and other majors outside of theater. By splitting MEP into its own department, visibility between both concentrations may improve, as students may have a simpler shared space for the cross-coordination of both fields. This means students working in film may be able to more frequently receive audio-related technical support from the audio students, and audio students may have easier accessibility to engage in a film's production if they wish. The goal is not to obstruct collaboration between theater and production, but to allow production work to be mainly independent without consistently rerouting work to theater. Ideally, it would strengthen the bonds between production and the rest of the majors through project partnerships, technical commissions, and shared productions being the manner in which interdepartmental collaboration is organized. On the side of theater, more consideration can be put on the demand for certain roles, choosing between a theater student willing to take the role or booking the production department to follow through or provide technical support. On production's side, there would be more of an option to serve as support for theater rather than have most of the production work be routed to theater. We also seek to promote the collaboration between production and other departments theater, for example, production students using and developing their skills in studio engineering to record and produce albums for the music department, as well as independently, as many of the audio production students are interested in the creation of music, both synthetic and recorded. We do not seek to sever the ties between film and the rest of the theater department, as from what we know, the film concentration benefits greatly from the presence of theater. Additional consultation with the film students would be valuable in refining the structure of an independent department and ensuring that their educational needs remain supported. The intention here is to promote collaboration with other departments, not just theater.
We understand if the demands being made in this proposal are too hefty for the administration to carry out, but we respectfully ask that the administration review the feasibility of establishing an independent production department, and if such a transition is not currently possible, we would like to ask for the discussion of intermediate measures that could expand MEP's autonomy and visibility while preserving existing collaborative structures. We recognize that district policies, staffing requirements, budgetary considerations and scheduling constraints may limit the feasibility of a fully independent production department in the immediate future.
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