And it’s not just talent. It’s whether your type and skill level match what is needed for the role. Those may or may not have been a focus of your training at school.
NYU Steinhardt does not focus on dance, but some of their graduates needed superb dance skills to get the roles they have on Broadway. They may have natural dance talent, they may have come to NYU already having dance training, they may have taken additional dance training while at NYU or upon graduation they may have worked hard to get better. But graduates of Steinhardt are not leaving the school ready for a lead in On the Town or in most dance ensembles as a result of their NYU dance classes. And some of the women cast on Broadway were trained by classically oriented voice teachers, but yet the roles they have require them to belt–a skill not really focused on at Steinhardt, too.
So ultimately it comes down to whether your talents/ type match a role (regardless of how you got them) and whether there are realistically enough roles out there that match your talents or type.
I think it’s totally normal to fixate on these articles during the early stages of the process, when you are trying to figure out where your kid stacks up against the competition and how likely they are to succeed later on. Once your kid gets out into the world a little bit and starts auditioning and succeeds or fails (or more likely succeeds AND fails) on his/her own terms, you worry less about this stuff. It’s interesting, but as people have said, no school can guarantee your kid a career and no school can prevent him or her from succeeding.
Any lists that show top schools for performing on cruise ships and performing at Disney World, which are also goals my daughter wants to achieve…lol. She’s a dancer that can sing…and she just wants to perform, no matter where it leads. I’m proud no matter what…well unless it’s illegal or pornographic, then…not so much…lol…
Thank you for linking to the Playbill article. I was excited to recognize a couple of my S’s cohorts (one of whom has a mom who has posted on CC!). I love seeing ALL of these talented and hardworking actors being recognized.
I recently read that fewer than 38% of paid actors are female. If I had time it would be interesting to see how this random data set fits those percentages. It would take work, though, since I can’t easily tell which names here are female.
That statistic makes sense to me- I read a long time ago that 75% of the rolls in musicals (or maybe theater as a whole) are male. Anyone who has done youth theater and has had to scrape for enough guys (which roles HAVE to be male, could it be a “mother” instead of a “father”?) has seen this
@vvnstar, there is no need to apologize. I know you were not suggesting anything negative and I thought your post was great. Just thought I’d quickly correct the number but really wanted to focus on the location point which you brought up as well and I agree with. To me, that is really the relevant reason. If it were only about size of the program, then you could also expect correspondingly higher numbers from Northwestern which has about 100 freshman theatre majors as well as a VP majors who do MT. Similar to NYU not all of the freshman in NU’s theatre program are performers or performers who sing but some who do are outrageously talented, well trained… and working in Chicago’s hot theatre market like the example I gave.
By the way, I’d venture a guess that location explains AMDA’s presence on this list too.
I think this thread has gone in a healthy and realistic direction which is good to see. Place on this list or lack of one really doesn’t mean much and shouldn’t be a source of defensiveness nor pride. It’s just yet another list. Good rant in #38@monkey13. Agree with all.
One thing I don’t think anyone has mentioned (though has been mentioned in similar discussions in the past, but I’ll repeat since there are anxious new people here wondering where they or their kid should apply) is length of time the program has been around. The larger the program and the longer it has been around, basic raw numbers mean more graduates and the greater chance there will be a network of alumni out there working. Of course that is just a small piece of the puzzle, but one worth mentioning. Notice Pace (a relatively new program) is in NYC but is not on this list. Texas State (also new), which we all know is impossible to get into, is not there. And there are other factors we will never know. How many of these people come from families that helped support them in NYC so they could spend more time auditioning? How many of these schools have “cut” programs (AMDA is one) that weed out the kids less likely to succeed so that the alums are perhaps more likely to get on lists like this? There is so much that goes into how schools end up landing on these kinds of lists, quality of the program being just one, albeit a deserved one. And as Soozie (and others) have said, lists like this attract applicants, which allows those schools to be more selective. But people turn down programs on this list all the time for programs not on this list, so I truly hope that newbies with kids in high school really look at the big picture and, though their kid would be lucky to get into ANY of these programs, understand that there is a whole lot more to it.
I think like someone said earlier when you’re starting this process the where to apply is so hard. You look at a list like this and think that’s where I need to go. I think that makes it harder to find those hidden gems and a balanced list. Then as someone else said there are new programs that pop up all the time. Then you have to decipher is this a solid program, am I going to get good trading there and be prepared to go out into the world after graduation.
As a side note…just noticed after this article came out a teacher we know brought up this article as good to know info. A lot of people look at the article strictly at face value and say “well that’s where you should strive to go to school for MT” without noting the extremely low admittance rate or high financial cost of some of those schools. Of course it’s on playbill so that gives it credence too for people randomly reading it.
Actually, the point about AMDA graduates being on Broadway correlates with something I suggested earlier. It is often more about someone’s talent, skills, drive, type, luck, etc. and ultra talented people can be in any program. I don’t think that you can conclude necessarily that those who get cast on Broadway can attribute it to what college they attended all that much. Many of them are simply very talented in the first place. And then some of the long time renown programs, there is often a high concentration of talent in the accepted pool.
With regard to AMDA, I would not choose it for training. However, there are some very talented graduates of the program who have been successful over the years. I’m not sure that is due to their training at AMDA but possibly due to their sheer talent. When my D graduated college, she was selected to be in something called Broadway Rising Stars in NYC that was a big concert showcase of sorts at Town Hall Theater, and it showcased chosen graduates of various MT programs. A few of the 16 or so in the concert, were graduates of AMDA and were truly talented.
I was being facetious…sorry…it was just a clear indication that it is not about the program per se as it is about talent, drive, opportunity, skills etc. @soozievt we agree!
Anytime I go to a show, I peruse the bios to see where people trained. If I ruled the world, they would be required to include that information!
I would also (if I ruled the world) edit out all those annoying “…is thrilled to be working with this talented and fantastic cast” comments, and the wording “Favorite roles include” would be prohibited. And religious references too.
@prodesse post #56…
Why would you want favorite roles to be prohibited in a bio? One of the main points in a Playbill bio is to include past credits. If someone has a lot of credits and the allotted bio length is limited, they will include just some favorite roles to date.
Also, where one trained is typical in bios of younger actors and less typical in older actors, where that is far in their distant past.
Frankly, I like that bios can be whatever a person wants to include.
