In a bare fluorescent-lit room at The New School in Greenwich Village earlier this month, three writers peered into their laptops as moans wafted in from the acting class next door.

They took turns reading one another’s television scripts, talking about how to pace their episodes, the kinds of visual cues they could offer the camera, and whether theirs was going to be the kind of show where the audience would see characters naked.

“Well, HBO is showing full frontal now,” offered one student, Jeremy O’Brian, before saying, yes, his characters would probably be nude.

O’Brian and his classmates are not aspiring TV writers, at least not primarily: They are getting their Masters in Fine Arts in playwriting. But the New School’s drama program, like those at a number of schools, has been making more and more space for a medium once considered too lowbrow for M.F.A. holders.