How realistic is it to go for a BFA in Acting and supplement private voice and dance?
Interested in NYC area schools like Pace, Rutgers, Marymount Manhattan, SUNY Purchase (BA not the BFA), Montclair, New School and Fordham.
Would a (motivated) student find time?
Would the school allow them to audition for musicals or just straight acting?
Do any of those schools allow nonmajors to take upper level dance?
Marymount actually does allow the possibility of a BFA in Acting combined with the musical theater minor (which includes a daily dance class Monday through Friday all four years, musical theater classes, and a weekly private voice lesson). It’s tricky because there are a lot of required classes to fit in, plus gen eds, so it’s helpful to take some AP classes in high school to get some of the gen eds out of the way if you want to go that route. But it IS possible. We have seen a number of shows there, and there are always one or two people whose Playbill bios say “So-and-so is a senior in the BFA Acting program with a minor in Musical Theater.”
Pace does not allow non-majors to take dance. My daughter is currently a junior there and is a Commercial Dance major.
At Marymount Manhattan it is actually the BA Theatre Performance Concentration that combines with the MT minor. It is difficult to pursue the minor with the BFA Acting. A BFA Acting student can take dance classes (not the MT dance classes which are at a location across town) and can take voice at Hunter college as part of the electives and liberal arts bade.
There are a couple of dance classes at Pace for non-majors, but the dance minor requires commercial level dance skills and an audition. They do not offer voice classes to non-MT majors but many of the professors will offer private voice lessons on the side. The Pace BFA is something like 84 credits in major compared to 60 for Marymount.
So, how realistic your idea is depends heavily on the program of the BFA Acting and the courses offered outside that program. But it should be perfectly fine preparation for a career if you can make it work from a scheduling perspective.
CCM Acting Majors can take the same dance classes and private voice lessons as the Musical Theatre Majors. You do have to advocate for yourself as it won’t be handed to you but if you request and talk to the professors, they will let you in. I have done this both years here so far.
We are not able to be in the musical productions, however we as a department have put up a couple different lab productions of musicals and there are opportunities around Cincinnati to be in musicals if you have the time.
New School is a dramatic arts/straight acting program. Not sure of any dance/voice add-ons readily available in that program. Marymount has a great BFA Acting/MT minor program.
The New School actually partners with AMDA for the musical theatre component. Overall I would say tha tthe New School is the most unique of any place we visited – very much a roll-your-own, flexible kind of a place more than a set curriculum. I would strongly urge anybody considering them to visit, because it’s “the kind of place you’ll like, if you like that kind of place.” But it wasn’t the right fit for my daughter.