Advice for the future?

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

<p>Hello everyone. I’m a long-time reader of the forums here but this is my first post in a long time, so I’ll start with some introduction. I’m an 18 year-old male student in Arizona, preparing to enter college as a freshman at Arizona State. My current tentative major is psychology, though I’m hoping to change that. </p>

<p>I recently decided I want to study (musical) theatre in college, and I’m posting here for a little guidance. I’ve had enough experience to know that I love theatre/performing. I was involved in theatre all throughout high school, in 6 shows total with a variety of ensemble and larger roles. Also, my director is one of the top administrators at our school, so arts are a big deal. Of course, as many of you would know, there’s a big difference between the amount of experience needed to know you love this stuff and the amount necessary to have a chance at doing it for a career.</p>

<p>I have strong music training. I started on the piano and I’ve been playing for 10+ years. I have great proficiency in theory as well as a good ear, and I’m a decently strong singer as well (made regional and state choirs as junior/senior), though I’ve never taken voice lessons. Other than that, however, I have no theatre or dance training. I’ve never been able to be in a community production or taken a dance lesson, and improvising still scares the crap out of me. I’m a decent dancer and actor, but I’m 98.9% sure that I wouldn’t be able to expect any acceptance letters were I to audition for any serious programs at my current skill level. This is why I didn’t apply to schools for theatre in the first place, though I had to eventually admit that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at the very least give my best, strongest fighting effort to make MT my life.</p>

<p>My most recent plan was to stay at ASU majoring in psychology, meanwhile taking voice lessons, auditioning for shows at the community theatres, taking the most applicable theatre and dance classes that would help me prepare that ASU offers to non-majors, and then transferring to another school to do an MT/psych double major, or at least doing the same at a school in-state. I’ve recently learned that ASU’s theatre major (a BA in Theatre with no particular MT focus) is a non-audition program that admits students as “exploratory theatre majors” and a few months later has an application/interview process to admit students as BA Theatre students. </p>

<p>Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of my post! My questions now are this. What more should I be doing to prepare for auditions? Should I switch my major at ASU now? All of the options are absolutely overwhelming, and as frightening as it is, I refuse to let it deter me from trying to make my dreams real. Thank you all so much for your time and help.</p>

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<p>Hi saturnstudent11!</p>

<p>While I’m only an incoming senior in high school, I’ve done MT/dance classes/voice lessons/etc. for a while, so here are my thoughts.
I think it’s a great idea to jump into voice lessons and auditions as soon as you can. A BA in Theatre is good for your acting training, but like you said, since it doesn’t have a MT concentration it won’t do you any good as far as dancing and singing. Thus, you need to actively seek out dance classes and voice lessons, whether offered through the school or nearby somewhere.
I’d definitely look into some other schools with MT degrees, both audition and non-audition. If that’s the one thing I’ve learned from this forum, it’s to make sure your potential school list is full of variety: conservatory programs, big universities, non-audition, audition, out-of-state, in-state, etc. While you still want to enjoy your year (or semester) at ASU this fall, it’d be good to start researching other places you’d like to audition/apply for.</p>

<p>Sorry if that wasn’t super helpful, but I just thought I’d throw that out there :slight_smile: Good luck with everything!</p>