<p>Yes, very well put! That’s pretty much what I have been trying to say, too.</p>
<p>Ironically, the two student shows on D’s campus that I assume have the potential to be the worst each year (I’ve never seen either) are also among the largest. They also probably provide some truly amazing learning opportunities and have helped launch stellar careers for many actors, writers, composers, directors, designers and choreographers. </p>
<p>I’m guessing one of these might be the “only slightly better than embarrassing” show amtc mentioned earlier.</p>
<p>The first has been going on for over 80 years, and involves ~50 students composing music, lyrics, book and orchestration for ~30 original songs each year. When I think of the logistical challenges in coordinating that effort my head explodes, so I think it’s a miracle that they get anything on stage every year, nevermind the quality.</p>
<p>The second show has happened since 1940 and, billed as “the largest student musical in the country”, involves ~150 students mounting a fully-produced and from what I hear very elaborate musical each year. Again, mounting a production on this scale must create very memorable learning experiences, but obviously also provides ample opportunities for kids to get in way over their heads.</p>
<p>I love that both of these projects embody “Go big, or go home”! Risk and failure are an integral part of any worthwhile creative life. Where better than school to stretch the limits of your artistic capabilities?</p>
<p>^^ Absolutely. If you read through the thread, you’ll see that several of us noted that what we look for in student productions is exactly what you cite above: willingness to take risks, and to stretch in terms of craft and concept, on the part of both faculty and students. I won’t repeat the comments posted earlier, but for me that is the point of seeing shows at prospective schools: not to look for “professional” production values and performances, but to discern evidence of imagination, voice, and vision. I can’t imagine a better way to assess this in a college program than by seeing the work in person rather than relying on second-hand reports or perceived prestige. My son and I are planning repeat visits to see performances this month to schools where we have already seen shows–and we couldn’t be more excited!</p>
<p>My D did not see any productions at any of the schools she was accepted to before she decided. We simply could not fit it in.</p>
<p>Would this have changed her mind? Probably not. She has seen probably ever production at her school, both school and student, and is now a senior. Each year, she has been cast in at least one school show and has done some student shows. </p>
<p>Often the student shows are better than the “school” shows. A major, shall be unnamed “celebrity” directed a show she was in and it was not even close to as good as the student show she was in the next term. </p>
<p>Also, casting is often not based upon talent. It is based upon how people “look” and whether they fit the idea of the cast in the mind of the director. Unfortunately, for people of color, this can lead to less roles in routine productions. </p>
<p>What I will say is a school should be evaluated based upon the quality of the training. There is absolutely no denying the training my daughter has received. The actor of today is markedly better than the one who walked in the door four years ago. </p>
<p>My D decided to attend her school for the academics. But she also decided to attend because of the sheer number of successful actors and performers in the real world (known) who attended her school. That fact, not the productions, told her that she had a better chance when she hit the real world. She also liked the proximity to an outstanding film school.</p>
<p>So, I think attending performances is not essential and should not impact your decision. It could actually make you decide not to go to an otherwise great school. Had my D seen the production she was in last year, she may not have gone to her school. Big mistake.</p>
<p>I completely agree that if you really can’t discern the difference between a professional production and a student show, then you probably should refrain from attending productions. I guess in this case you base your decision on what you hear and read about the program. For many of us, the additional information is helpful. I know that my son would have ruled out at least two programs if he based his decision on the website, tour, and info session presented by faculty, but superb productions convinced us that excellent work is being done there. I hope everyone can be confident in their own ability to judge programs fairly with the understanding that the college stage is not Broadway. From the analytical thought reflected by many CC posts, I believe most of us are smart and sensitive enough to make intelligent judgments about what we see on stage. To infer otherwise is frankly somewhat insulting.</p>
<p>I don’t think the intent of any of these posts is to insult anyone’s ability to judge what they see on stage, or to infer that one student’s method of evaluating schools is better or worse than another method. </p>
<p>It sounds like you and your son are sophisticated theatre patrons, as I assume most folks here are.</p>
<p>Choosing a place to spend 4 years is intensely personal, and I know our D’s decision initially caught us all off guard and in retrospect seemed made though some magical alchemy that we barely understand.</p>
<p>I agree with the premise of the thread, though, that it is interesting to hear the varying role that seeing school productions plays in folk’s decisions, though. There was a similar thread on the MT Forum about the role of YouTube, both in evaluating schools and in general, and I found that similarly interesting.</p>
<p>Yes, YouTube is even more problematic for me–nothing EVER looks good to me on YouTube! Not only is there the huge variable of video quality, with all of the many ingredients that contribute to or detract from it, but there’s just that…buffer, I guess, like a slightly blurry filter, that makes everything seem muffled and uninteresting. I try to avoid it. My son did look at YouTube videos from some schools, and actually ruled out a couple of places after watching several clips (not just one or two, but half a dozen or more) that just seemed unoriginal and blah. His call, not mine, and I understand his thinking but am not sure it was the best basis for making a decision. Still, as some people point out, it’s better than nothing. I know there are some families who don’t even believe in VISITING a school before their son or daughter is admitted, so clearly there are all kinds of viewpoints on this. To me, the more DIFFERENT kinds of direct experience you have with a school, the better; it’s the principle of triangulation, where you look at a situation from several points of view rather than just through one fixed lens, so to speak. The school website, for example, is a first glimpse and can provide plenty of nitty-gritty information, but it’s often neither comprehensive nor current. When you’re talking about art, there’s no substitute for seeing the work in person and for talking to the people who are teaching and learning.</p>
<p>As always, regardless of major, every kid and every family has a different process about what works for them in making this important decision. For my D, she decided early on that it was important for her to see a production (or two) at the schools in which she had the most interest based on her research up that point. She was even invited to see a rehearsal at one of her favorites, which gave additional perspective. She thought it was important, so we did what we could to give her the opportunity, but only at the schools that were close enough to make it possible. I don’t think it is absolutely mandatory, but FOR MY KID, it was important, as was sitting in on a class.</p>
<p>Bottom line, if you can do it and it is important to your child, it is a wonderful process. Those road trips we took to see shows and visit schools are some of my sweetest memories of her last year at home and brought us closer in the process. I felt blessed that I had the time to do that with her, but not everyone does and that is ok too. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to answer this question for everyone.</p>
<p>Great discussion though! Thanks for starting the thread!</p>
<p>I may have lost the thread of this conversation.</p>
<p>As a Directing student at Columbia College Chicago, I directed a handful of shows. These would be called “student-directed” because I was a student when I directed them. My actors were other Columbia College Chicago students. Many of these already had some professional experience, and since they were CCC students they were all being trained by professionals. Quite a few did professional acting work, had agents, and so on, even while students at CCC. Many were very close to graduating, and becoming professional actors “full time”. I also was being trained by professionals in the Directing program.</p>
<p>As a Directing student, I was given access to CCC’s extensive stock of costumes and props. These were the sort of costumes that were often rented by professional theatres in Chicago.</p>
<p>I was also given access to dedicated theatre space, including professional lighting equipment, that normally would only be available to theatres with a very high budget. In many ways, the spaces I directed in were the best theatre spaces in Chicago.</p>
<p>What I am trying to say is, for the most part, if you didn’t know that these were “student productions”, there would be very little reason to think they were anything other than “professional productions”. That was certainly what I was shooting for, and as a director would not settle for anything less than “professional” quality.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
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<p>If D had used YouTube to help with her decision she would absolutely have ruled out her current school, which would have been a terrible shame as it’s PERFECT for her and has an amazing program. </p>
<p>Some schools very carefully post only their very best work, but for copyright and possibly other reasons the only things from D’s school that show up on YouTube are pretty darn horrible and not AT ALL representative of the work being done on campus.</p>
<p>I know of another highly respected program where everything on YouTube looks amazing, but we personally know many kids there and all arrive ultra trained and talented, yet we’ve seen at least two whose acting got noticeably WORSE after 4 years in the program. YouTube shows nothing about student progress, which is the best true indicator of training.</p>
<p>I love YouTube, but I hope everyone is extra careful about using it to evaluate schools as I know in at least one case, in my opinion, it is far worse than nothing.</p>
<p>I think one of the downsides of the abbreviated nature of posting here is that we tend to talk in superlatives - the show was “great,” “fantastic,” etc. I think it’s hard to know IN WHAT WAY we thought it was great: that it was “practically Broadway quality” (whatever that is!!!), that it looked like a great learning experience, that people were excited and invested, or what??? </p>
<p>I’m trusting that if people loved a school show, they loved it for all kinds of reasons, most importantly that it included what they are looking for in a school production. And if we saw lots of weaknesses, maybe we still were pleased that it showed risk, learning opportunities, variety of casting, etc.</p>
<p>KEVP - I would disagree that the goal of any school production is to be as “professional” as possible. My D was in a senior capstone play last year that had flaws and definitely did not use every possible production resource (eg they wore their own clothes), but they worked very hard for a short time and she had a great learning experience. I think I can say confidently that everything my D does at her school is a great learning experience - positive and “negative.” She will be involved with lots of shows she would be proud of, but she’ll also get a lot of perspective from the clunkers, and also the more “casual” productions.</p>
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<p>Two excellent points. Although I think it can be informative, and fun!, to see a show at colleges on your list, I wouldn’t allow it to have any more influence in your decision as to where to attend (or apply) than any other piece of research you may do in the process. I honestly don’t remember what, if any, college shows we saw prior to my D attending her BFA program, even at her school. During her time there, we certainly saw many shows but her school had such a variety of productions, ~100 a year, that it would have been impossible to see all of them, or to form a definitive idea of what a particular show portrayed of the program as a whole.</p>
<p>The second quote I’ve noted above probably explains my position almost perfectly. Knowing as many actors as I do, and having seen so many professional productions, it’s unwise to base an opinion on one show on one night. We have often travelled to various cities to visit with friends while they’re on tour, and seen their show on successive nights. We’ve done the same at well-respected regional theatre festivals, as well as at Broadway and off-Broadway shows. Same with some of the college shows we’ve seen through the years. It’s amazing, even among professionals, how a show can vary from one night to the next with the same cast. To think that that doesn’t also happen at college shows would be naive, and is a reason for not placing an amount of importance on that one show that is more than warranted.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that you should ignore every aspect of a show you attend, but rather that you allow it to be added to all of the other research you will have accumulated by the time you apply/audition about a program. It’s one piece of the large puzzle that will assist you in compiling your list but, in my opinion, it’s not one that should override any other information that you may glean about a school.</p>
<p>I’ve always thought that looking at the list of shows that a school has done, the types, the variety, and ideally over several years, is far more enlightening and practical/useful information about a program than seeing one show will.</p>
<p>My daughter found it very helpful to see a rehearsal of a show at schools she was interested in.</p>
<p>Here’s another benefit from attending a show at a college you’re interested in - you receive a flyer in the mail for their upcoming season! I’ve gotten quite a few recently, and even if we can’t squeeze in a show, it’s nice to see what they have planned.</p>
<p>One thing that impressed my son about BU’s College of Fine Arts is its “Keyword Initiative” program. The theme for last year’s collection of artistic programs and shows was MONSTER. This year’s theme is RESILIENCE, “focusing on the buoyancy of the human spirit”. It just makes him want to be a part of that!</p>
<p>EmmyBet - LOL! It’s taking me a lot longer to write this post because I found myself using all those superlatives you mentioned! . . . I know I have a thesaurus around here somewhere . . .</p>
<p>The Boston University College of Fine Arts keyword theme last year was “Violence,” not “Monster.” ;)</p>
<p>For anyone who’s interested, the BU School of Theatre’s first-quarter shows are listed below. (Note that these are the first quarter productions only. Generally speaking, all of the season’s BU productions are not announced at the beginning of the year.)</p>
<ul>
<li>“Camille” by Alexandre Dumas.</li>
<li>“Erin Go BRAGH-less” by John Shea.</li>
<li>“Tongue of a Bird” by Ellen McLaughlin.</li>
<li> Shakespeare’s “Henry V” with all-female casting.</li>
<li>“The Vanek Plays” by V</li>
</ul>
<p>EmmyBet:</p>
<p>I certainly would not claim to know the goal of every student production, all I can do is share my own experiences. And theatre is important enough to me that when I direct a show I try to make it as good as possible, and remove any flaws. I don’t understand your point about wearing their own clothes, for example I once saw a production of Hamlet at the National Theatre in London (now I believe called the Royal National Theatre)–Britain’s premier theatre, perhaps the best theatre in the WORLD–where it certainly looked like the actors were wearing their own clothes.</p>
<p>When I was a student at CCC, all the student directors took their work very seriously and often the student plays were better than the mainstage faculty productions.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>Yes - that’s right! It was Violence and they did a production of Monster!</p>
<p>KEVP, I think I understood your point about striving for quality - and I do think students do that pretty much everywhere. I was just remarking that they don’t always have to use the most intensive production resources - I think you’d mentioned using the university’s costume department, for example - for the learning experiences to be good ones. I haven’t seen enough shows at my D’s school to have much of an opinion, but she certainly feels everyone works very hard. </p>
<p>You know more than I do, but I’ve always thought that even when I see “street clothes” in a performance, they are still carefully chosen costumes. Some actors have told me that they’ve been lucky enough to keep the “real” clothes someone bought for them for a show, if they weren’t going to be useful in a costume closet.</p>
<p>Of course no one has to use these intensive production resources. The Hamlet I saw in what I would call “rehearsal clothes” at the National Theatre (Tim McInnerny played Hamlet) I am sure in reality had carefully chosen the costumes, although it looked like everyone had just come for a rehearsal. Similarly at a production of Romeo and Juliet with the Royal Shakespeare Company that we went to, my brother turned to me in the opening scene and said “I could just walk on stage, dressed as I am now, and fit right in.” That was more what I would call “street clothes”, but again the director and designer had chosen a contemporary setting, and the opening scene takes place in a street.</p>
<p>But the point is that even when I was at CCC, I was free to make these sorts of choices, just like a professional. At CCC I was an assistant director for a production of Tony Kushner’s adapatation of Corneille’s play “The Illusion”. If you know the play, you will know that it pretty much needs period costumes, and most of the actors need THREE period costumes apiece. (If you don’t know the play, I won’t go into detail, because that would spoil it for you). Again, I don’t think there was anything “unprofessional” about that production, and many people in the school said it was better than that semester’s mainstage production of Midsummer Night’s Dream (even though we used many of the same actors!)</p>
<p>If you are looking at student productions at a college/university, I would not be too impressed to find that the students took the attitude of “Well, we’re just students, we can’t do professional level work, so there is no point in even trying”. These are not the sort of people I want to work with, so personally I would pass on that school.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>Excellent point! I would add that some students might be more motivated than others in this way. I don’t have that much experience with formal arts programs, but certainly in academics there are different levels of dedication and ability among the students, and different projects have varying amounts of time and resources available to them. I was an extremely intense college student regarding academics; there was one class, however, that I really loathed, so anyone seeing my work in there would have thought I wasn’t dedicated at all (actually the reason why I loathed it was precisely because I thought the prof and other students were taking a trivial approach - so I put my effort into other classes instead, didn’t feel in that case that it was worth pursuing solely my own satisfaction, although that’s something I commonly do).</p>
<p>I’d say because people are only human, my D has had a mixed bag for various reasons. Often at her school, they bring in extraordinary theatre professionals to enhance a production and the learning experience - and just as often they decide to have the students stretch their abilities and imaginations. Because they have a design BFA, sometimes the tech work is extraordinary - or sometimes it is someone’s first experiment with an idea that just doesn’t exactly work. My D has gotten to stand with gaping mouth watching a master at work, and she’s also gotten to take on projects herself that she really can be proud of. For example, when they did Little Shop of Horrors last year the students created their own plant puppets. This year, those puppets are going to be in a production at Yale. My D and her friends are very proud of them (and their pricked fingers from all of the hand sewing). </p>
<p>I have to laugh at the irony of saying “professional level” work, since in the real world professional work can also be shoddy and weak! But I think we all probably agree that the real value here is hard work and dedication, and using resources to the best of one’s ability. Sometimes a pervasive - or specific individual’s - attitude shows in a particular production. Sometimes you see where the attitude was there, but the follow-through didn’t quite succeed (like risky casting). And sometimes you see a show where things just didn’t click, for some reason. </p>
<p>I agree with trying to see rehearsals. We found that hugely helpful - not only did we see the kids act, but also we saw them interact with each other, heard them talking about what they were doing, took an “emotional temperature.” We saw them learn, and we saw the teachers teach. We also saw the absolutely stunning set that was the work of professional designers (on staff) and the students. So many questions of “how” and “why” and “who” that we would have when seeing a production got answered by being present during the creative process.</p>