Is it possible to minor in musical theatre. My daughter LOVES MT and is seriously thinking about going to school for it. However, she also understands how competitive it is to get into a MT program and the reality off living a life with periods of no income. She absolutely wants to continue doing Theater her whole life, and just like everyone else, she dreams of making it to Broadway… but just to go audition for roles is a huge expense in and of itself… HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS!!! I am just trying to be realistic here and not get caught up in the excitement and honeymoon feeling of MT. Anyway, she is considering just getting a degree in Education and minoring in MT if that is even possible… or minoring in Theater or Voice? Anyone have a child who minored in any theatre aspect that could share their story with me? She is also interested in stage management ect… In fact she just played the part of Annie in her school play and choreographed and managed the whole thing! She attends a small Christian School with hardly a budget for the arts department… but the students raised the $$ and worked hard to put this show on, and it was very good!
Help!?!?
There are not many minors in MT, but they are around. Catch is that many require you to be majoring in theatre or music (maybe dance?) to take that minor. Minor in theatre is in many schools and would be much easier to get into, but might not be able to get much MT training. There are some schools that offer minors in music performance, but again you need to look around for those.
An option to consider is a BA in theatre and double major in something else (or even in theatre ed). BAs usually (not always) have more flexibility to accommodate other majors. But again the question is whether you can study MT stuff or is that restricted to BFA students. Need to check out the programs carefully to see whether they meet your interests.
This stuff can take a lot of time to research, but that is part of the journey. Also look at the sticky threads here for some good info to get you started.
SOME BFA MT programs allow you to double major. It’s a ton of work, but it’s doable. I know for a fact that Viterbo, Ohio Northern, and some other schools allow you to. You’d obviously want to ask faculty within the department, but it is very doable in instances. Wish I could be more help!
Not sure where you are from, but California State University Northridge (CSUN) in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles has a wonderful School of Education – the Michael Eisner School of Education – and also offers a MT Minor throughs he Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communications. Additionally, I believe in the Theatre Department you can also “Major” in a way that gives you a single subject credential in English/theatre. If you are a CA resident, you would get in-state tuition.
Montclair State in NJ has an MT minor, but I’m not sure if it is an auditioned minor or not. A quick phone call or look on their web site would tell you. And it has a great education program; the school (which is on “Normal Avenue”) started as a teachers college way back when. Another place to check out would be Muhlenberg in PA.
If you do some research, you can find many options. Here are some examples:
- Western Kentucky has a non-audition minor in Musical Theatre
- The University of Kentucky has an auditioned Certificate in MT (audition after entry)
- Michigan State has a minor in MT
- USC has a minor in MT
Unfortunately, I have never seen a comprehensive list of these compiled anywhere.
Sure, they are out there. Recently saw Miami of OH has one. But there are a lot fewer minors than there are majors. Also in OH, Ashland has a BA in MT (need to audition) that includes a minor in vocal performance. So there are options like that.
OP mentioned stage management. On that theme, 2 thoughts. Those behind the scenes degrees can be a little easier to get into because there are fewer people looking at those compared with MT. Still have to interview, etc., so they aren’t a slam dunk, but still an easier option. Second, in most of those degrees they still include some performance classes (like Acting I, etc.), so you can still get on stage a little bit (but for the big shows you will likely do behind the scenes stuff). So look into that if her interests are in those areas. Just be aware that you still need to interview during the same timeframe as the MT folks are auditioning, so plan accordingly.
Theres a dual major program in Education and Theatre at Wagner College! Not sure if it requires an audition/interview - the website is a bit unclear on that.
You might want to have a look at some Educational Theatre programs. I know that NYU has an excellent one through Steinhardt which is its music school. Students would also be eligible to take Open Arts courses through Tisch, which might satisfy a desire for direct MT classes. Worth a look.
Also, gotta plug one of my acceptances down here in Alabama. Samford University has a new BFA program that is Theatre For Youth! Very education based!
As a speech pathologist in the California public schools with a daughter going into MT BFA, I wanted to suggest that if an applicant knows what state she might be interested in working in as a teacher, she could check the requirements through the state’s teacher credentialing agency. Many teachers here have an accredited Bachelor’s degree in their area of interest, with add-on (or elective) teacher credentialing courses. Our family requirement was that any program she applied to would result in an accredited Bachelor’s degree that could then be the basis for a Master’s or certificate in another field if she ever decides to make a change.
@SpchTchr57 Thank you for the advice! I will check into our states teacher credentialing courses. 
My D and I were just at Rowan University in NJ to audition for the BA in musical theatre. There was talk about how their theatre program has a education component and I must confess that I didn’t absorb all the details, but that might be one to check out.
James Madison University has a Theater Education concentration with certification, under their Theater major.
University of Tampa has a Dance/Theater minor so would be very possible there, also they just changed to a BFA in MT but they strongly encourage either double major or minoring outside theater. They are great about accepting college credits as core so it frees up the space to double major.
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