Greetings,
My name is Brian DeMaris. I am the new director of the MT program at Arizona State University in Tempe. I came here just last year from Ithaca College, where I used to be the music director of the opera and musical theatre programs.
ASU is not prominently featured on this site, so I’d like to take a moment to tell you all about our MT program.
Some things I think you should know about the ASU MT program:
As a B.M. MT degree, this is a place where the musical training is rigorous. But we have also recently DOUBLED our acting and dance training in the degree, and added crucial audition training and career entrepreneurship courses, as well as multiple technical theatre courses. Students can study either or both opera and musical theatre, yet still be involved in all areas of theatre, film and dance and digital media engineering, across our incredible Herberger Institute - the largest arts and design school in the country.
Along with the Theatre, Film an Dance main-stage season, ASU produces nearly 20 full productions of operas, musicals, dance performances and plays each year, with almost half of it being entirely new works. ASU Film Spark produces countless films annually, many of which involve our MT majors. In addition to our main-stage season, we also offer student lab productions, new works readings, scenes programs, and two showcases each year. Our program also features formal collaborations and professional performance and study/cover opportunities with Arizona Opera and the Phoenix Theatre. ASU was rated #1 in Innovation for the past two years in a row by U.S. New and World Report, ahead of MIT and Stanford.
We’re the country’s largest public research university, which means we have courses in pretty much anything at all levels.
It’s pretty easy to double major here and several of our MTs are double majors, many with their other majors outside of the arts.
We have an amazing faculty and staff in addition to numerous faculty associates who are active professionals regionally and nationally. All of our MT faculty are professionally active performers.
We have an incredible facility with shops, warehouses, rehearsal studios, offices, and our own theatre - five full stories dedicated entirely to our opera and musical theatre program.
Dozens of national tours come through ASU each year, and cast members talk to our students and even take our classes while they’re here. Music direction students observe performances from the pit and meet the conductors and musicians involved with each production.
Our tuition is among the lowest in the nation, we have plenty of scholarship, and our class sizes are small (about 10-14 students in each MT class). The entire undergraduate musical theater program has about 50 students combined. This helps us stay focused on individual student learning and provide abundant performance opportunities, both of which are our pedagogical priorities.
While our students have plenty of opportunities to take dance and acting classes, our philosophy of integrated training is seen in our team-taught classes offered every semester in every degree, which are aimed at synthesizing acting, singing and movement skills from the very beginning.
Through our formal professional collaborations, students can receive credit to participate in productions with Phoenix Theatre (where they can also earn Equity points). Our class and production schedules actually work around local professional production schedules in order to help you take advantage of every opportunity.

We perform for dozens of elementary and secondary schools each year through our specially funded outreach performance program, which brings students from across the region to see our shows in our own theatre, many gaining exposure to opera and musical theatre for the very first time.
We have a 50-member Guild that directly supports opera and music theatre students by providing grants for additional study opportunities, summer programs, and emergency funding.
We bring in numerous professional conductors, directors, designers and other guest artists from around the world each year to work with our students on productions and in classes.
Phoenix is the nation’s 5th largest city and still growing. It’s incredibly diverse, and so is our student body. It also happens to be a vibrant theatre community, with a lucrative professional musical theatre scene. Phoenix Theatre (our educational producing partners), Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Broadway Theatre, and Childsplay, are just some of the nationally recognized organizations nearby where many of our currently enrolled students and alumni have been able to take professional contracts, even while enrolled in the program. Many of ASU’s alumni are founders and leaders of the incredible theater companies here in the Sun Valley.
This year we will be launching a Phoenix Industry/Alumni Night Showcase at the Phoenix Theatre, and we will also be taking our graduating students to NYC for our program’s first New York Showcase.
Also this year we’ve launched a new works initiative, that will give our students the experience of being part of musicals in development from their first to final stages. We’re partnering with nationally recognized composers, writers, producers and production companies to make this happen.
While the weather worsens throughout the year in many places, in Phoenix it gets better as the school year goes on. Just wait till you’re sitting outside memorizing your lines in January under the cacti and palm trees and 70-degree sun!
I endearingly refer to us as the “hottest MT program in the U.S.” I’m referring to the temperature of course 
We put students first in everything: season selection, casting, teaching, scheduling, guest artists, you name it.
Interested in stage direction, stage management, marketing and publicity, or something else outside of your normal course of study? You can expand your skills through the annual LAB productions. These are entirely student-proposed and student-led productions (up to 4 per year) that seek to reach beyond ordinary boundaries and explore new ways of opera and musical theatre art-making in our community.
ASU has modeled itself as the New American University, which you can learn about at newamericanuniversity.asu.edu. Lyric Opera Theatre is part of the School of Music in ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, the largest arts and design school in the world. This institute’s main purpose is to foster collaborations and interdisciplinary work between music, theatre, film, dance, design, digital media, visual arts, and more. We are as much about collaborating and thinking outside of the box as we are about individual artistry. No matter where you are on your personal and professional path, no matter how you envision the future of our art form and your role in it, you will find a place to start, explore, grow, and continue here.
See everything we have to offer at https://music.asu.edu/opera-musical-theatre. Call, write, or come visit us at anytime.
