<p>i figured out the quote box
as you can see</p>
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However, I do not agree on that working MT actors can be weak in acting.
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<p>All I can say is that I believe you are contradicted by the evidence, since so many of them ARE weak actors. Very weak. Laughably weak, even on Broadway, I'm afraid.</p>
<p>^ True dat, but this again? LOL I've already said my peace here. ;) Time between Acting, Music, Dance, and Gen Eds divided equally or 85% Acting? Do the math. Takes twenty years anyway, right? However, my understanding is that the one MT program with acting that compares to the acting conservatories is Carnegie Mellon. But ... I've heard it said that they're not particularly strong in dance. Can't have everything, ya know ... Just gotta pick what's right for you. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, fishbowl. Interesting that OSF came up. My old stomping grounds, and my wife's, too. That and ASF, Seattle Rep, Guthrie, and a few others.</p>
<p>You made your point better than I have.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, when I said I do not agree that MT actors can be weak in acting, I was trying to say that they cannot afford to be weak in acting, NOT that there are not weak actors gracing the MT stage (or any stage for that matter). My point is that they need to be trained in acting and need to be good at acting, not just singing or dancing. Acting is a critical skill any stage actor needs, including those who perform in musicals. That was my point after you mentioned that a MT actor can fudge on the acting. I don't think they can afford to. Some may, but that is not a great performer then. So again, I wasn't saying you won't find a MT performer who IS weak at acting, but that a MT performer can't afford to be weak in acting. They CAN be weak, but ought not to be. Thus, acting training is a very important component to the training of a MT performer. There are many MT roles where one need not dance, but I can't think of any MT roles where one need not act, except in certain chorus parts but even they should be portraying characters, not simply dancers. </p>
<p>Look at certain musicals that have no dance at all where each actor must be able to act: Les Mis, Putnam County Spelling Bee, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Merrily We Roll Along, Nine, Jekyll and Hyde (with a couple of exceptions), Bat Boy, Marie Christine, Grand Hotel (with a few exceptions), The Last Five Years, The Light in the Piazza, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Violet. Then, of course there are lots of musicals that have dance AND acting. I can't think of any musicals where not being able to act would be a good thing. </p>
<p>I am aware of Fishbowl's past discussion. It doesn't matter that a straight acting program has more hours of acting training as it relates to THIS discussion. This is not meant to be a comparison as to who is the better actor, the BFA in Acting performer or the BFA in MT performer. It only makes sense that a BFA in Acting actor train primarily in acting. A MT actor needs three skill sets to succeed in the MT field. A MT actor may be able to get work in straight drama (I know many who have). But the point here is not a comparison between these two degrees or two kinds of theater work. It is about MT performers and the importance of acting training and skills in order to be a good MT actor. It is not enough to just be able to sing and dance. A singer who can't act, just doesn't make for good theater. </p>
<p>Needless to say, this thread really was about dance training. That, too, is very important, in my opinion. Someone training for the MT stage should not spend 85% of their education on acting training because that would not be enough skill to make it in musicals. So comparing the training one gets in MT to that one gets in a BFA Acting program is not so relevant as the objectives are not the same. One is trying for roles in musical theater and one for simply acting roles in straight theater. If one aspires to work primarily in Shakespearean theater, it makes sense to put their focus into acting training. If one is trying for the MT stage, one should obtain training in voice, acting and dance, even though such a trained person may end up being in straight plays as well. In fact, it makes sense to get acting training to not only be a great MT performer but to be versatile and be able to act in dramas. Being able to act seems important for anyone who performs in theater, whether it is a musical play or a dramatic play. I can't see "fudging" on acting. I believe acting to be a critcial skill for ANYONE in THEATER, musical or otherwise.</p>
<p>soozie:</p>
<p>I think my point is made by the fact that so many MT performers work consistently when they are such terrible actors. Obviously, if you can work and be a terrible actor, it's not all that important to your livelihood to be much of an actor, is it? That's not to say that improving ANY skill isn't useful. I'm just saying that most MT productions could put up a sign at auditions that says something like, "Singers wanted. Some dance is helpful. No acting training. skill, or experience necessary."</p>
<p>OK. I"m exaggerating a bit, as you can see. But for my next piece of evidence, I'd like to submit the fact that, in the theater world, it's common coin that most MT programs give short shrift to acting skills. Please understand, soozie, the fact that someone attends a few acting classes and learns how to pronounce "Stanislavsky" (or spell it for that matter) doesn't really impress me too much. What counts is what skills come out on the other end of that training, and most MT programs don't produce very admirable acting skills.</p>
<p>And the fact is, MOST MT scripts don't produce roles that require much of the actor. They are to acting what "Happy Birthday to You" is to singing. It's helpful if someone singing "Happy Birthday" can carry a tune, yes, but it's hardly necessary to be really, really good to render an acceptable version.</p>
<p>I know we can agree that it SHOULDN'T be this way. But it is. It's the nature of the MT beast.</p>
<p>As I said, I am sure there are plenty of MT performers who are weak at acting (and for that matter, are not good dancers, etc.). But I believe a truly viable candidate for casting is going to be someone who is well skilled at singing, acting, and dancing, a true triple threat. Yes, some are strong at two skills and weak in a third. But the ideal is a triple threat when it comes to being cast for a variety of roles that exist. Some roles require no dance. Some chorus parts require no acting to audition. But versatility is crucial. And to take on any actual ROLE, you really need to be able to act. So, while the number of hours in acting training in a BFA MT program do not compare to the hours in that one discipline in a BFA in Acting program, the goals are not the same. What prospective applicants need to compare is the acting training in one BFA in MT program with that in another BFA in MT program. In many BFA in MT programs, acting is a core component every semester. In my D's program, they study Shakespeare and Chekhov and acting methods and voice/speech and scene study and monologues and musical scene study, etc. The point is not to be prepared to enter the Shakespeare regional theater circuit, but rather the MT audition circuit. </p>
<p>To be successful in an audition for a role in MT, one must sing, dance, and read from sides. I know many MT actors who are very good at straight theater and I also know many people trained in straight theater who are good in MT. In any case, I much prefer to see a MT actor who can ACT and not just be able to sing well. I'd prefer a good but not great singer who is believable in the role and has the acting chops and stage presence to one who is a fab singer but can't act the song or script. That is why acting training is an essential component to a MT training program, in my opinion. Yes, weak actors get work. Weak singers do too. Weak dancers do too. This is not only true of the MT stage but in the entire entertainment industry!</p>
<p>In any case, those seeking BFA programs in MT should fully examine the curriculum as it VARIES widely from program to program. Some offer very little dance or not every semester or not every discipline and others offer all three disciplines each semester. Some offer music theory, some do not. Some offer voice/speech and some do not. Some make acting a priority, some do not. And so on. </p>
<p>For those contemplating NYU/Tisch/CAP21, acting is part of every semester. Further, for those who want, they can train two years in CAP21 as their primary studio and then two years in an acting studio. Even though my D is in CAP21 currently, she is studying with a person from ETW as well. </p>
<p>Anyway, I agree that there are MT performers who are weak actors. I believe, however, that the goal should be to be skilled at acting. I know my kid cares about that area a lot. While she has done more MT than dramas, she has played leads in dramas. Last summer she was in a final callback for a play off Broadway and so that audition only involved acting. I think if you want to be a versatile performer, it is best to hone your skills at singing, acting and dancing as it opens up more possibilities. You can attend dance calls, chorus calls, principle roles in MT auditions, acting/plays auditions, etc. So, my point isn't that all MT actors are GOOD actors but that the goal should not be that you can "fudge" acting in MT but that you should aim to receive good acting training as ONE component of the MT training (which must be split between voice, acting and dance). No, the acting training won't be the same amount as someone in a BFA in Acting program would get but the objective and goals are not quite the same either.</p>
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And to take on any actual ROLE, you really need to be able to act.
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<p>And I reiterate, I have seen many MT actors, maybe even the majority, in roles when their acting skills are absolutely rudimentary. That would suggest that "to take any actual ROLE," you do NOT need to act well.</p>
<p>I saw Les Mis in New York. The JVJ was a decent actor. The Marius was your basic juvenile lead stuff. Easy to do. He was adequate. I wouldn't have followed the Enjolras to Sardi's if he was paying. The Fantine way over-emoted. The Javert never changed his stance. He just came out and sang. The comic relief parts were OK. The Eponine liked to look very pretty. The Cosette ... well ... that's a nothing role that could be done by just about anyone off the street who can sing and indicate. This is pretty par for the course, in my experience.</p>
<p>Part of our issue might be definition. I have a sister-in-law who, in her youth, won several international piano competitions. Her whole family achieved a great deal in music. I listen to things that seem perfectly all right to me that they find simply awful. Perhaps that's what we're disagreeing about when it comes to acting. I see lots of MT people who can move their hands and feet and indicate. Maybe to a musical person, that would be like a guitarist who can strum and play three chords?</p>
<p>Once again, I'm sure we agree that it would be very useful if MT did a better job of teaching acting, or admitted better acting talent to begin with. But, from what I've seen, they do neither.</p>
<p>Wow, that "innocent" dance program question turned into a fierce acting discussion! I think at the end of the day the question of whether someone is a good actor is really more related to someone's personal opion and of course everyone has their favorites :)
I do believe that for an MT performer it is important to have solid acting, voice and dance training. It is difficult however to get an actual feel for the level of training offered by the different colleges by simply researching information on their websites (I realize that their respective MT curriculae do offer some detail), which is what prompted the thread.</p>
<p>Hi</p>
<p>I've been gone awhile.</p>
<p>To respond to the initial question - I am sure there are others - but I have current and reliable information that would allow me to suggest that, in no order, FSU, Elon, Point Park, and Oklahoma City are particularily good at dance training. they are also good at preparing young people in the areas of singing and acting.</p>
<p>On this acting question - if anyone cares to look, I have been down this road before. Here is my new angle. I wonder is those who believe that good MT and good acting cannot peacefully co-exist understand this - in many instances what is called for, intentionally so, in MT is presentational acting. It derives from melodrama and vaudeville - and it is properly straight up and straight out acting. Subsequently, it is not a truthful response to an imaginary circumstance, not involve with sense memory, nor does want to approach an "I-Thou" relationship with another actor on the stage. This on-purpose - I don't think anyone would be successful doing comedy if they work working the subtext and exploring their characters next truthful response - the moment would be lost - it does not work with what we call comic timing. Of course, there are musicals, like Les Mis" that do call for a different style of more realistic acting. </p>
<p>My point is - I wonder if , on occasion, folks who become "True Believers" in one or another acting method do not then allow that to color there perception of what constitutes good acting in the context of a musical.</p>
<p>This leaves us to ponder - what is god training for an aspiring MT performer? I think one should endeavor to find programs that do a good job at cross-pollinating between acting, dancing, and singing. This is a triple threat business - be all that you can be.</p>
<p>I would add CCM and Michigan to the list of schools that prepare dancers well, based on the most competitve Equity summer stock hiring (MUNY and PCLO) over the past 4 years. Yes, both schools have students who come in as great dancers, but those dancers (and less-advanced dancers) get far better during their years at school based on the strength of their regular faculty and, at least in Michigan's case, the amazing guest faculty they bring in for short (2 weeks - 3 months) teaching spans. (don't know if the latter is true at CCM)</p>
<p>An addition to the acting debate that is significant to those who are most passionate about the musical aspect of MT: I have observed a qualitative difference in acting a SONG (my main area of focus when I watch musicals as an audience person as well as my professional area of focus) among students of several top programs. In my opinion, no one can beat Michigan for both understanding the objective-driven, "I-thou" relationship which is particulalry challenging to recreate in solo songs (i.e. audition pieces - yes, even 16-bar cuts). Of course this is not what is "required" of all types of MT singing, but Michigan is truly expert at eliciting truthful and connected acting from even the most presentational of musical styles. This is why I am such a promoter of their program - they have won my allegiance as an educator with the development they elicit in their performers. Carnegie Mellon does this with masterfully with their "straight" acting (I just saw their 2007 NY Showcase dress rehearsal, which was cool after having watched their current seniors "grow up" over the past 4 years), but no one beats Michigan for non-indicate-y :), connected acting of a song. I agree with Tarhunt that many well-known MT performers can't really ACT - this is the current conventional wisdom among NY casting people, which is why when an MT performer comes in to audition, the casting people will often circle any straight theatre credits (this comes directly from a good friend in top-level casting) - such credits begin to legitimize those performers in the eyes of the casting world. </p>
<p>Yes, there are many MT actors who CAN act - but there are many who CAN'T - just like there are many film and TV actors who can't really act! :)</p>
<p>BTW, when this discussion has arisen here before, debate has ensued about an actor needing to be marketable in all areas of acting performance, not just song acting, in order to give himself the best shot at a viable career. I agree completely - but in my experience, people who can REALLY act a song - not "present" or "perform," but ACT - can also REALLY act realistic straight theatre. (Absurdist theatre, Shakespeare, the Greeks, etc. are all STYLES that requires specialized training, much like the specialized, convention-driven areas of MT song performance.) And sometimes they develop those skills primarily through acting a song and transfer it to non-musical text - because it is generally more challenging to make a song truly CONVERSATIONAL than it is to make spoken dialogue conversational. A singing actor who can both use and transcend the music is truly an actor!!!</p>
<p>Thanks for the wonderful insight CoachC. I always enjoy your post.</p>
<p>Thanks for bringing me back on track, Coach. Going over my posts, my second one was about the increasing difficulty of crossing over from MT to straight theater, and vice versa. I don't think many MT programs do a good job of giving their students the acting wherewithal to get work outside MT, and that is where most of the work is.</p>
<p>Yes, there are many MT actors who can act, and MANY TV actors who cannot ;-). I will take your word for it that UM actors are better trained as actors than other students. But let me just walk a ways with you on the idea that, if you can act a song well, you can act well (Note: my own training involved taking written text and singing it, because it was considered easier to feel if one was singing).</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, I worked with an actress from one of the more noted MT programs in "Streetcar" in a semi-pro production (she was on an Equity guest contract). I would say that her moments as Blanche were pretty good. What wasn't good was the way she shaped the role. She didn't seem to understand (and didn't have a director who could help her) that she needed a place to go ... that much of the play doesn't work without some uncertainty about her mental imbalance up front. She didn't seem to know how to do the intellectual work on structure, to figure out how what she is doing fits into the play, and how her relationships, and the way she plays them, advance or detract from the play's momentum.. She also didn't seem to know about making active choices for every line, so that sometimes, what she was doing seemed like non-specific, aimlessness.</p>
<p>At least she wasn't faky, but she'd been out of school for a number of years, so I don't know how much she learned on the job.</p>
<p>She was disappointed with her reviews. She thought she'd played the moments well, and I concur that she did. But the problem is that what she was doing was often undirected and at odds with the play, itself. With a better director, I think she would have been brilliant but, as I tell aspiring young actors, you must learn this stuff for yourself, because you cannot depend on the director!</p>
<p>I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think there is more to acting that just "feeling it."</p>
<p>Coach C I totally agrre with on CCM and Mich - and there are probably another half dozen!</p>
<p>Tarhunt - </p>
<p>Totally agree with you - as I tell my students, "we don't 'play' emotions!" ;) Active choices, the character's arc as it fits within the play's overall arc, how to do the text work that reveals this - the things which your Blanche was lacking - all of these are things I see within strong young MT actors who are ASBORBING the lessons of top programs. That having been said, actors CAN get through ANY of the top programs - MT OR acting - without really assimilating these lessons and without "flunking out." (Juilliard may be the only exception I know of.) So I hate to judge a program based on a single grad or even a few grads - not saying that's what you're doing! I reserve my judgment for programs which I know well - ones I am lucky enough to watch for several years, so I can gauge individual actors' development as well as the overall quality of the groups as a whole.</p>
<p>I am reminded of one of my favorite stories along these lines: one of my best friends has both undergrad and Master's degrees in Voice Performance from CMU. He is an AMAZING vocal technician - no one I know understands more about the workings of the singing voice - as well as artist. He says he often comes across former classmates who are out working in major performance venues - who have "big" careers - and in the course of "talking shop" with them, he will often say something that causes them to say, "Wow, where'd you learn THAT?" You have to see him deliver his response - he's a pretty sardonic guy at times, and he'll look the person in the eye and say, very deadpan, "At CMU" - with the implication being, "and YOU learned it there TOO!" The point is that he absorbed and knows how to apply things many of his classmates who "walked through" parts of their training did not. This is ultimately not because of lack of rigor among the faculty, etc. - it's always ultimately the students' responsibility to understand, apply and continue to apply the fundamentals. I LOOOOVE that story as an illustration of this for my own students. :)</p>
<p>If it is OK I'd like to add my two-cents worth about MT programs with strong dance programs. My S is currently a freshman at Otterbein. He is part of the "BFA in Musical Theatre with a concentration in Dance" (MTD)program. My son comes to college from the competitive dance circuit. He is a very accomplished dancer holding many national dance titles including Dance Masters' of America Mr. Dance 2006. When we were looking at programs we too were searching for one that would allow him to continue his dance training while working on his singing and acting. Otterbein fills the bill perfectly. He dances everyday for 1 1/2 or two hours, depending on the day, and each week has 2 ballet, 1 modern and 1 jazz class. In addition, depending on the quarter, he also takes tap or musical theater. Otterbein runs three levels of dance similtaneously so there is nothing stopping a freshman being in the advanced level classes.
My son loves the head of the dance dept, Stella Kane, and she is very supportive of the students in her program. At the moment Otterbein has 11 of its MT kids in the MTD program. In addition, there are 42 dance minor students. Every year Otterbein presents a dance concert. My husband and D and I had the pleasure of attending "Encore!" the 2007 dance concert. It was spectacular! My son was in 7 pieces and danced modern, lyrical, jazz and tap. There was also an all male ballet number - "Goose Pond". I'll probably be shot down for saying this but, in my humble opinion,the technical level of the dancers at Otterbein is higher than the dance majors I have seen at UMich (We have friends who are dance majors there). I should add that I'm a UMich graduate (School of Music) so I'm not simply bashing UMich.
My S also dances more hours per week than a good friend (she's "Miss Dance of America 2007") who is a dance major at a well-known dance school in CA. If you think that something has to "give" in an MT program that allows so much dance I would beg to differ. My S takes the same classes as the other MT kids and, as far as the acting goes, the BFA Acting, BFA MT and BFA MTD kids take the same core curriculum.<br>
BTW my son has been to BTP twice. He was there in 2004 and 2005. He couldn't attend last year because of dance comflicts. He will be returning this year as an assistant.
I hope this helps,
MTaussie</p>
<p>There is a discussion about Elon's dance under the Elon thread from this weekend. My son is dancing at least 2 or 3 hours a day in classes at Elon (ballet, tap, and 2 different jazz classes this semester) and is also in rehearsal for a dance concert at the end of the semester. Early in March, they also did a student choreographed dance concert which required much rehearsal. They have amazing dance teachers at Elon.</p>
<p>In addition, as mtdog said, they have excellent acting and voice / music teachers.</p>
<p>I double checked my son's schedule for the semester, and the above was basically correct, except that 2 days a week, his dance classes last more than 4 hours. The rehearsals for dance shows are over and above the dance classes.</p>