Mason Gross School of the Arts

As of 2005, MGSA had expanded to more than 20 buildings, mainly within Rutgers' Douglass College campus and including studios at the Livingston campus. The Bettenbender Plaza outdoor space was dedicated in 2002 to honor founding dean John Bettenbender. The square is a gathering spot for students between classes, the site of impromptu performances and an outdoor setting for evening events. Actor and director Avery Brooks gave the dedication eulogy. Bettenbender Plaza sits in front of Nicholas Music Center, a 704-seat music hall designed by Pietro Belluschi.

Slightly up river from the primary MGSA campus and south of the train station is the City of New Brunswick's downtown Civic Square. This arts and theater district is home to off-campus Mason Gross studios, galleries, and stages. The Civic Square Building at 33 Livingston Avenue contains studio facilities and classrooms. It stands next to the former silent film movie palace which is now the State Theatre for performing arts.

The newly built New Brunswick Performing Arts Center opened in Civic Square in 2019.[6] It hosts theater performances at Mason Gross alongside professional companies American Repertory Ballet,[7] Crossroads Theatre,[8] and George Street Playhouse.[9][10][11][12][13][14] George Street Playhouse and Crossroads are Actors' Equity companies which can provide theater students with professional opportunities in order to obtain their Equity card.

Mason Gross Galleries at Civic Square shows graduate and undergraduate student work.

Mason Gross offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater and the Master of Fine Arts in Theater. Rutgers Conservatory at Shakespeare’s Globe in London provides Mason Gross drama students with the opportunity for classical conservatory study abroad.[15] The drama training at MGSA is built in part upon the Meisner technique.[4]

MGSA established the Rutgers Filmmaking Center in 2011. Though it is a relatively new program, Rutgers' BFA film program has been ranked highly among the nation's film schools.[16] Variety named it “one of the top programs in the United States." The Documentary Film Lab, led by Academy Award-winner Thomas Lennon, and intensive production classes and advanced technical workshops are among the notable features of the program. The conservatory-style model has a low student-teacher ratio of around 12-to-1. Graduates of the program have gained admission to top-tier graduate programs, and notable visiting filmmakers to the program have included filmmaker Robert Eggers.[16] The first film graduating class at Mason Gross was in May 2019.[17] The Rutgers Filmmaking Center, alongside other Rutgers organizations such as the Rutgers Film Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center and the Cinema Studies program, presents a number of film festivals.

MGSA offers the Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, Doctor of Musical Arts, Artist Diploma in Music, and MA and Ph.D. in composition, theory, and musicology. Modernist composer Robert Moevs taught at the school.[18]

MGSA offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design and in Visual Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Design and in Visual Arts.[19] Kara Walker currently serves as an endowed chair. Visual artist Didier William, photographer Mark McKnight and conceptual artist Park McArthur are among faculty.[1]

In the early 1950s, artist Allan Kaprow taught at Rutgers University and helped start the Fluxus group alongside professors Robert Watts, Geoffrey Hendricks, and Roy Lichtenstein; artists George Brecht and George Segal; and students Lucas Samaras and Robert Whitman.[20][21] The department has alumni like Joan Snyder, Clifford Owens, and Pope.L and students exhibit their thesis work in New York City annually.

The school offers a BFA in Dance with Master's Degree options in Dance Education and Pedagogy.

Mason Gross collaborates with Rutgers at large in exploring the role of the arts in analyzing and explaining facts and ideas. Mason Gross has three research centers dedicated to arts-integrated research and pedagogy: the Documentary Film Lab, the Integrated Dance Collaboratory, and the Rutgers Printmaking Collaborative.

The Blanche and Irving Laurie Music Library houses approximately 15,000 recordings and 30,000 monographs and scores, serving as a research and reference library at all levels.