<p>I have never really acted before, except for a few school plays, which I loved. Though, I am part of my school's improv group. I would love to do theater when I start college, but is prior experience completely necessary?</p>
<p>It does sound like you have some experience, but what do you mean by “do theater”? There are many levels of theater involvement available in college; at some schools you can be involved in shows even if you are not a student in the theater department. At others, only theater majors can participate. Some colleges require an audition for admission to the program, and these can be very selective. Other schools do not require admission. To what extent do you want to participate in theater?</p>
<p>Dear MarieTudor:</p>
<p>The best answer is, “It depends.” There are many schools out there which don’t offer Theatre as a major, but rather as an extracurricular activity or a club. Anyone can join, and everyone is welcome. The club exists because some students (obviously including you) love doing theatre, and this is a means to doing it while in college. Prior experience is not necessary. Desire and enthusiasm are.</p>
<p>Then there are schools which do offer Theatre as a major, but auditions are not required to become one. Just as students may elect to major in Philosophy or History or English, they may choose to major in Theatre or Drama. In many cases, the feel of the program is not unlike the first kind of school. Even among majors, most are doing it for the love of the artform and experience of working with others on plays. Some majors may go on to graduate school in theatre, or try to make a career in the profession, but most will go to work, or to law school, or medical school. For these schools, some prior experience is useful, but not necessary. The work you’ve done so far would be fairly common among your peers.</p>
<p>Then there are the schools which are the primary topics of these threads, schools which offer pre-professional training programs in Acting, Musical Theatre, Musical Theatre/Dance, various areas of Design/Technology, and so on. Most of these schools offer Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degrees, or BA degrees which are built along the same lines, where 60%-70% of the coursework is directly applicable to the training. “Love” and “fun” don’t necessarily disappear in these places, but they become a goal to be achieved through the training, which (I can guarantee) is not always fun in and of itself. You learn to love the work, and you learn how to create fun for the audience, and yourself and your playmates in the process. But the fun is at a completely different level at these schools than at the first type.</p>
<p>An athletic metaphor may help. You may love playing volleyball at the beach with your friends. Maybe you’ve even participated in a couple of tournaments. You’d like to continue it in college. Do you need any more experience than that? No, not if you just want to have fun playing with friends. At the right school, you’ll find volleyball as part of an Intramural Athletics program, and you’ll have a great time. But if you want to play varsity volleyball at a Division I school, then you don’t have the necessary experience.</p>
<p>Look at the schools close to you, and find out some of each type. Visit a couple. You’ll quickly learn to spot the differences.</p>
<p>HTH.</p>
<p>Hi MarieTudor – Since you are in VA you may want to consider visiting VCU (larger urban State School BFA program – with MFA programs in Theatre), GMU (larger urban State School BA program), Radford (smaller more rural State School BA program), JMU (larger suburban [for lack of a better description] State School BA Program), VTech (larger suburban [for lack of a better description] State School BA program – with MFA programs in Theatre). I think that visiting a combination of these programs in the late spring of your Junior year will help give you a sense of the differences DrJohn is talking about. </p>
<p>There are many other schools in VA and the surrounding areas as well… but as far as VA state schools the schools listed above will give you a great sense of the different types of training available. </p>
<p>UVA & William and Mary are also worth visiting if your HS guidance counselor thinks you might be competitive academically for these schools.</p>
<p>I teach at JMU – please feel free to contact me in the spring if you would like to pan a visit. We generally are pretty focused on auditioning seniors in January, but February through mid-March is a “down-time” for us in terms of visiting students. The accepted senior visits tend to pick up again in late March through the end of the semester.</p>
<p>:) Kate</p>