After many auditions and a few visits, my S decided on LIU Post. Just looking for more feedback on the program since it does not have its own listing. Current student’s thoughts.?Prospect thoughts? Parents thoughts?
There are a couple threads about LIU already and they have some of the info you may be looking for. You can do a search for them.
Here is one. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/2171852-liu-post-decisions-p1.html
@MTDad2024 My D was accepted to LIU Post last year. We visited the school (she got to sit in on classes), and we also saw the freshman showcase. It’s not far from NYC by train, as you probably know. My D really liked the faculty: David Hugo, Maria Porter and Valerie Clayman-Pye. The acting training seemed really good. LIU has a focus on the Suzuki Acting program, although that is not the only type of acting training. The negatives for my D were the class size and facilities. We visited in Spring 2019: the freshman class of 2018-19 had 48 students in Acting and MT (most were MT; approximately 9 students total in the class were men). The junior class had 19, but had started with 35, so there was some attrition in that class. I think the 2019-20 freshman class is larger than 48. It would be helpful to know an estimate for the size of the freshman class for 2020-21. (My D wanted a smaller class size-personal preference thing). Regarding facilities, the theatre building, where a lot of theatre classes are held, is a very small building-only 5 classrooms I think (and some smaller rooms). It didn’t seem like there is enough room to train all those people. There are classes in the humanities building as well, I believe: we didn’t tour that building. For performance spaces, the only regular performance space is the Little Theatre which holds a Black Box Theatre (108 seats) and the Rifle Theatre (53 seats). LIU focuses on training, not performance per se, so they feel the facilities work for them, but my D really wanted the ability to have a “MainStage” performance experience. (Again, a personal thing.) There is an amazing theatre space on campus, the Tilles Center, but we were told it is used for touring companies: the theatre department can’t use it regularly. (Although the theatre department did get to use a space within the Center for a cabaret, and the dance department holds its finals on the stage.) In general, the theatre department at LIU didn’t have the appearance of a theatre department which is being adequately supported by its university. For future students, they were very generous with scholarship money: it would have been the least expensive option for my D, but she just felt one of her other options was a better fit. Please PM me if you’d like to ask any other questions. Congrats on your S’s acceptance!
@MTDad2024 - Just to add to the conversation, last year’s MT class will be 80 and this years class will also be ~80. That is a lot of people in that very small building. That was a deal breaker for my kid who also really liked David Hugo and the proximity to NY and the overall philosophy David Hugo has but the size of the program and training opportunities were not aligned with what my kid was looking for.
@Ontheverge – I thought the 80 number was MT + Acting + BA, Theater. David Hugo told my D that they were expecting a class of 40 for MT
@StanfordAI2019 - maybe my kid got it wrong but from the call they had with David this week (can’t remember the day) my kid heard 80 was the goal but maybe they just did not break it down for them in terms of MT/ACT/BA. I will say, the campus itself was just lovely and all the kids seemed really nice.
I have a question for a current MT student. My daughter is close to committing but is a bit hesitating about the dance opportunities. From what we can see, it doesn’t seem like the program is dance heavy. I don’t know if that is accurate or not but can anyone speak on that? Is there a possibility of a dance minor? Extra dance classes? Any info would be appreciated!
@theatredancemom it’s true that LIU is acting heavy and dance light. David Hugo acknowledged this at the callback meeting and suggested that students who want more dance should use all their electives for additional dance opportunities.
Thank you!
Current LIU sophomore, here to talk about class sizes.
While the overall class size is large, all of my acting classes have been less than fifteen people, which is pretty standard for theatre programs. The class sizes tend to go down as time goes on, as students take more electives and there are just more differences in upper-level requirements. Currently, I think there are 14 people in my acting class, but next semester (fall of my junior year) there will be 12. The only classes that really go above 15 are dance classes (which, again, is pretty standard and this only really changes in terms of the upper level classes) and theatre history courses, which have something like 20 but they’re taught in a classroom discussion-lecture setting, so it isn’t really a concern.