Hi! So I want to go to school for acting, not musical theatre. However, musical theatre is something I love and having the opportunity to do it in college is very important to me. I know some schools (like Carnegie Mellon) keep their programs strictly separate -unless you’re there for MT you can’t and won’t do anything musical. Does anybody know if this is the case with Pace?
Hi! Here at Pace it is true that our musicals are mostly cast with MT majors, the plays with those in the BA and BFA Acting programs, etc. However, every year there are exceptions and it completely depends on the casting breakdown. Last Spring the Acting programs produced HAIR. So we try to “cross-pollinate”, so to speak since so many of our students have multiple talents.
I just wanted to mention that I recently saw the 20th anniversary tour of “Rent,” and the character of Roger was played by a Pace alumnus who was BFA Acting, not MT (his name is Kaleb Wells, http://kaleb-wells.com/). As somebody with a daughter at Pace in the BFA Acting program right now that gives me even more of a good feeling about the quality of training and the ability of Acting majors to have diverse careers. If you are a prospective acting major, then you also should know that there are
- your classes on “Vocal Production for the BFA Actor” which includes vocal training for both speaking and singing
- student production groups such as Stand Up Productions (a Pace student organization) and The Dare Tactic (an off-off-Broadway company run by Pace students) which put on shows during the year as well. These are open across majors.