Is it impossible to become a Theater major after going in Undeclared?

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

I’m currently in my senior year, working on the application process, and I really have no concrete idea of what I want to major in. Earlier in high school I liked the idea of Computer Science, but that doesn’t seem as fulfilling to me anymore. Theater is the one thing I know I love, but don’t have a ton of experience in. I’ve only been doing it for about a year, but I love acting, designing, lighting, I admire directors, etc. I don’t want to risk applying to selective theater programs and getting rejected if there are possibly other things out there for me. But I also don’t want to get through a year and realized I’ve missed my chance.

Is my best course of action to apply to schools that don’t require an audition? (Tufts, Boston College, etc.)
What other thoughts do you guys have?
I’m just scrambling to pull all my thoughts together and figure things out before my deadlines. Undeclared seems like the easiest option but I don’t know if it’s the best.

2

Your best course of action is to get a BA in a liberal arts college/university that has a vibrant theater community and department. There are a lot of colleges where students don’t declare a major until their sophomore year, which allows time to explore. That sounds like the best option for you. Also, It may be a little late in the audition season for you to mount a serious BFA campaign.

My daughter, who is a BA theater major at a liberal arts college/university, has a comp sci major friend who is HEAVILY immersed in theater - along with many other non theater majors. We know of one fairly recent econ major who went on to work as a lead actor on Broadway.

If you let us know your financial and academic constraints and your state of residency and preferences, we may be able to suggest some colleges.

Best of luck

3

Thank you so much for your response. That’s basically what I was thinking was the right idea. Those types of colleges allow me to take that time to figure things out. I also like that many BA programs let me dabble in both acting and production instead of at first dedicating myself to one or the other.

I’m trying not to think from a financial standpoint when applying, but with the more expensive schools I’m going to need a lot of aid for them to be realistic choices. I have a 4.40 weighted GPA out of 5.0, ranked 7th in my class of something like 420 people. I live in Massachusetts, just north of Boston, and I’d like to stay close. I’d also like to attend somewhere that has some form of campus and a good sense of community. I’ve considered schools like UMass Lowell, BU, BC, Tufts, and even Harvard, though extremely unlikely. I also like that these schools are well rounded, leaving my options open. ( This is opposed to, say, Emerson, which doesn’t have a campus and is mainly a theater/communications school. )

4

BU has a great BFA program, but if I was not a BFA student, I’d be concerned about access to faculty, classes, productions etc…

Harvard’s program is new - I understand they have really good student run productions. You might ask @gibby, whose daughter participated in theater there. Also, probably one of the most generous financial aid programs in the country.

I don’t know much about the other colleges you listed, but others here on the board may.

If you’re willing to venture beyond the Boston metro area, a few suggestions:

*Any college in the five college consortium (Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst) would give you access to faculty, classes and productions at all five colleges. That’s a lot of theater.

*Brown Universty - near Boston - has student theater productions almost every weekend. From the Brown Theater Handbook: “As a student, you can be involved in the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies whether you become a concentrator or simply take a single course. Anyone who auditions (and all undergraduates can audition for our shows) can be cast. Classes are a key way to get to know faculty and other students well. But there are also shows to help out on. There are costumes to design and build, lights to hang, lines to memorize, muscles to stretch, voices to warm up, directing projects to propose. There are production boards to sit on and there are sets to design, dances to choreograph, reviews to write, plays to write, songs to write, philosophies to write, and always posters to hang.”

From WikI - Brown’s theatre and playwriting programs are among of the best-regarded in the country. Since 2003 eight different Brown graduates have either won (four times) or been nominated for (six times) the Pulitzer Prize—including winners Lynn Nottage '86, Ayad Akhtar '93, Nilo Cruz '94, and Quiara Alegría Hudes '04; and nominees Sarah Ruhl '97 (twice), Gina Gionfriddo '97 (twice), Stephen Karam '02, and Jordan Harrison '03. In American Theater magazine’s 2009 ranking of the most-produced American plays, Brown graduates occupied four of the top five places—Peter Nachtrieb '97, Rachel Sheinkin '89, Sarah Ruhl '97, and Stephen Karam '02.

Best of luck!

5

UNH? Brandeis? Northeastern?