Here's what a leading theater AD had to say about theater education.

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

<p>I met with an artistic director at a leading US theater recently. He has a great deal of experience in some of the most prestigious theaters in the country as well as in academic theater. </p>

<p>Since I once made my living in theater, I'm often asked about the "best" theater programs. Since he currently makes his living in theater, and is in charge of acquiring and casting talent, I asked him for his opinion.</p>

<p>I was taken aback at his extremely quick and strong response:</p>

<p>"Tell them (the high school kids) to get an education!!!"</p>

<p>He went on to say that he has had little success with BFA program students. His feeling is that they are too poorly educated to really grasp the subtleties of scripts, psychological interactions, or even to grasp the symbolism of various authors and how this should be incorporated in their performances or their direction.</p>

<p>He also said that top MFA programs look more favorably on BAs than BFAs, and that the real meat of theater training should occur in MFA programs.</p>

<p>I can't emphasize strongly enough how accomplished and informed this man is, or how strong his advice.</p>

<p>So, I thought I'd pass it on.</p>

2

<p>I have been digging around this site and found this gem…nice to read this…</p>

3

<p>This is a strong statement of opinion regarding one of the subjects that is often debated on this forum.</p>

<p>Neither the BFA nor the BA+MFA combination is better. They are just different. One approach works better for some students and the other works better for others.</p>

<p>Other things that are often debated here for which there is no “right” answer:</p>

<p>-- Do students need an audition coach? Some really do need one, and some do just fine without one.</p>

<p>-- Is it better to attend a program with an emphasis on training that delays casting for a year or more, or a program in which students can be cast right away? It all depends on the student.</p>

4

<p>Then how does he explain the success of all the British trained actors that don’t take any academic classes at all. If his theory was valid, they should do worse than BAs or BFAs.</p>

5

<p>That post is from 2006. If it was true, then it may be less so now, 7 years later. Many BFA programs have been refined during that time.
I think this also needs to be a personal consideration. My D is a very strong student and will continue to grow in this area on her own. Other students may need more guidance. Some students may enjoy the extra academic work and others may not. We all just need to understand the types of programs we are looking at and the curriculum and make sure it is what we want.</p>

6

<p>No telling which BFA graduates this man worked with. Their are graduates who got A’s and graduates who barely squeaked out a diploma. You can’t blame a program for kids who may not have utilized all that was offered to them.</p>

7

<p>Well, aren’t MFA’s usually in their 30’s and have some professional work under their belts between BA and MFA? They probably are and should be better trained than your typical BFA grad by then; but that’s a silly comparison IMHO.</p>

8

<p>I think the best most engaging and successful actors have a certain intelligence and cognitive ability that makes us fascinated with them, that makes them so much more than someone just pretending to be someone saying some lines on a stage.</p>

<p>I think it takes a combination of innate ability and then the right training and education (and eventually, experience) to bring it out.</p>

<p>An education can range from an autodidact who had to make use of the library and school of hard knocks on the street, to a pedigreed education starting with prep school, an Ivy league undergrad, and an MFA from the finest program in the country, and anything in between.</p>

<p>There are no doubt some academically weak BFA programs out there and also some academically weak BA programs too - and there are kids who are not going to take advantage of a rich buffet right in front of them even if they are in a great program, and there are kids who will make the best of any place there are, and just so many individual factors to consider. There are probably some programs with a professor out there who will end up changing the life of a kid who wasn’t really on fire before, who comes out the other end having had an epiphany along the way and found their real passion. That’s the quality of professors we all hope for our kids even if they already have passion, isn’t it? </p>

<p>Like just about any advice on this forum, it has some truth to it in some cases, does not apply at all in others, but is entirely qualified by the particulars of the situation!</p>

<p>In my daughter’s case, we felt that a fairly rigorous academic background with a quality theatre program was what she needed and wanted and we found several BA programs which had both those qualities and several BFA programs that also had very high academic rigor as well as a great artistic reputation.</p>

<p>I personally fell in love with Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, just a half hour or so from the school she did pick, which has a really wonderful liberal arts core program that would produce a critical thinker and learner who I believe could hold his or her own against any ivy league graduate (if they applied themselves, of course!) And it was a BFA program. (BFA by review second year IIRC.)</p>

9

<p>I too noted this was from 2006, and the programs are so different now. I can tell you that the curriculum at the school my son is attending is a well rounded one, 25% of the classes are outside the Drama school. And he is getting a BFA. I think this is a very sweeping condemnation of programs that may not have even existed in 2006 (7 years is a long time in the academic world).</p>

10

<p>I know that this year Chapman has changed its admissions policy and no matter how well you do on your audition you must have the grades and test scores to get into the university . No more squeezing by because of a good audition. I know this is old I just thought it was an interesting find. Good to know that programs have changed over the years.</p>

11

<p>

I remember Tarhunt. If you’ll read the rest of his posts, you’ll find that his experience as a professional actor was primarily in the world of regional repertory theatre where it is true that the majority of the people playing the leading roles do hold MFAs. And although he hadn’t actually worked as a professional actor for many years, his general attitudes were reflective of a large number of the gatekeepers to that realm of the theatre world. Sadly, those same attitudes are partially responsible for the slow death of that movement and are a big part of why young actors like myself who originally set out on that path with the highest of ideals but for whom other opportunities arose didn’t flinch in turning our backs on it. </p>

<p>But oh all those poor young BFA conservatory grads rounding out the rosters of basically every major regional theatre in the country as well as On and Off Broadway who are too poorly educated to really grasp the subtleties of scripts, blah, blah, and blah WHEN THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY SPENT FOUR YEARS BEING TRAINED TO DO! And as I recall, his explanation as to why the British drama school grads who took zero conventional academic classes during their training are often the true masters of that realm was his belief that their having completed their A Levels is so vastly superior to an American high school education that it’s enough to make up for it when anyone who has actually met some of them knows full well that they’re no better off in that light than an intellectually curious American who’s taken a few APs or IBs.</p>

12

<p>I think fishbowl is basically right. These actors with BFAs are the ones getting hired. This AD is basically “wishing” his actors had different skills. But would he really hire people who had an “education” instead of being able to act? I doubt it.</p>

<p>A levels are superior to American high school, but yes it is indeed the equivalent of “an intellectually curious American who’s taken a few APs or IBs.” That intellectual curiosity is indeed enough to lead you to educate yourself. I have both an intellectual curiosity and a childhood in England, and I do think this put me to a place where I didn’t really need to take academic courses after high school (although I took a few). But that’s what worked for me, your mileage may vary.</p>

<p>The “audition coach” thing is really a non-existent argument. It’s pretty clear that everyone who is succesful at these college auditions has worked with SOMEONE on their monologues. Maybe this person was called an “audition coach”, maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were paid, maybe they weren’t. These are the things that vary. But every auditioner should be working with someone.</p>

13

<p>I think it’s our kids’ responsibility to continue to educate themselves, through school and out of it. If they’re intellectually curious and hard working, willing to read outside the assignment list, to expose themselves to interesting things (theater, art, music, science, politics, whatever), to make time for other people…they’ll have plenty of the “soul” type qualities that it sounds like this guy is looking for. Which I agree are important as hell, regardless of whether you’re an actor or not. </p>

<p>Almost everything interesting I’ve ever learned has been off the curriculum anyway. Why should it be different for our children?</p>

14

<p>I don’t know. When Woody first went to Bonnie’s house in Toy Story 3, he was more than capable of keeping up with the rest of the toys in Molly’s rigorous improv scenes in spite of his lack of classical training. Actors come from many, many backgrounds and experiences.</p>

15

<p>My father was an engineer at Hughes Aircraft and would hire a lot of young kids out of engineering school. He used to tell me that he often hired the B students over the A students because he found them more well-rounded, easier to work with and more social (as much as engineers are social) LOL I agree that education is what you make of it and a person can be successful coming out of a BA BFA or even no college at all. I think I mentioned that I have a friend who has starred in 3 Broadway Musicals and never went to college or had any formal training.</p>

16

<p>CollegeSearchDad, I haven’t seen Toy Story 3.</p>

<p>But I did go through a theatre training program that heavily emphasized improv. The main focus of improv training really is to try to remove our “adultness” and return to the unbridled creativity that we had as children. This creativity isn’t somehow “put into us” by the training, it something we naturally had when we were children, and is still inside us but we may have lost touch with.</p>

<p>I can certainly imagine someone being good at improv simply because they never lost that childhood creativity, and so doesn’t need to go through improv training to get back in touch with it. But most of us need the training.</p>

17

<p>KevP, I’m not sure what to make of your response to my tongue in cheek response to the original post. But here goes. You see, Woody, a toy coyboy doll, and Mr. Pricklepants approached acting in six year old Bonnie’s scenes very differently. Pricklepants, in spite of being a stuffed hedgehog wearing lederhosen, fancies himself a serious actor, attempts to stay in character even when Bonnie is out of the room and is fascinated with Woody’s “acting chops,” and asks him if he “is classically trained.” Woody, on the other hand plays along with Bonnie’s scenes to fulfill his role…nay…responsibility as a toy, which is to make children happy at all cost, even when faced with the daunting task of getting back to his true owner, Andy, and the other toys. One could argue that Woody’s approach, while more utilitarian in nature, shows his true understanding of the subtlety, symbolism and psychological underpinnings of the work, while Mr. Pricklepants self-important approach proves that he is out to lunch…I digress.</p>

<p>OK, now that my tongue is no longer in cheek…</p>

<p>My point is that the Artistic Director referenced in the original post, although obviously much more very experienced and knowledgeable than most, made a broad and sweeping generalization. </p>

<p>Oh, and watch Toy Story 3. It’s tremendous.</p>

18

<p>what was your take on Monsters University? I need the deep read on that one. I kept over-analyzing throughout it, cuz I had been up too many late nights reading College Confidential…#downloadstoystory3</p>

19

<p>Fair warning: if you are going to watch Toy Story 3 and you have just taken your child to college, have a large box of Kleenex close at hand! ;-)</p>

20

<p>I’m going to up austinmt’s warning – absolutely do not watch Toy Story 3 unless you have gone at least six months without even a pang of a sense of loss after taking your child to college.</p>