Can anyone out there provide feedback regarding Penn State’s Summer High School Musical theater program? It looks great from the website description but not many details given. Thank you!
What questions do you have? My S attended this summer and I’ll answer what I can. He loved the program - the faculty, the current BFA students who worked with them and the level of the training that was provided. There was very little down time because they try to pack as much as they can into those two weeks.
Thank you so much for your response. I am so appreciative and that is great that your son enjoyed the program so much.
My questions are:
Are the faculty or students the main ones providing the group and private teaching?
Is there a significant acting instruction component or is the focus mainly singing and dancing?
Is a lot of the time there spent on preparing for the performance at the end of the program?
Does your son recall where most of the kids were from who attended? We are California so definitely a long trip which is probably why I have so many questions!
-Gail
- Faculty and graduate students (in vocal pedagogy) do all of the teaching. Current students served as RAs and helped keep things running and provided support for the kids. My son has stayed in touch with and continues to work with one of his private vocal instructors from the program via skype.
- The focus is on all three disciplines - there was equal time in acting class.
- Not really. Maybe more for the dance part of the closing program but they did a lot of other dance instruction unrelated to the final dance numbers.
- The kids were from across the entire country. There was at least one student from California last year.
My daughter also participated in the STATE program last summer and loved every minute of it, despite the exhaustion, lol. She too has stayed in touch with some of the people (current Penn State students) and teachers, she loved everybody involved with the program.
Thank you so much for this really helpful information, mindatwork and El-Cee! It is incredibly helpful! It sounds like the program’s quality is top-notch. Now the challenge will be seeing if my daughter will be accepted. I really appreciate your letting me know this information and your opinions about the program.
I would urge your daughter to consider other programs as well so that she has a better shot at getting accepted to one. My daughter did the program at PACE the year before and loved that one equally. She also applied to MPulse, TPAP and ArtsBridge last year. She was fortunate to gain acceptance to all 4, and chose Penn State over the others based on feedback she had gotten from peers who had done several of the programs and were able to compare them. She had friends for instance that had done Penn and UMich and other friends who had done ArtsBridge and Penn and they felt that Penn was the best training they received. I’m sure the other programs are also wonderful but we only have firsthand experience with Penn and Pace. Another great option is something like BAA which offers excellent training as well, but accepts many more kids to the program. My daughter did that one for a few years when she was younger and did work-study there last year after STATE for a few weeks. The faculty are all top-notch there. It’s audition-based but a higher percentage of kids are accepted. Best of luck!
Yes, my daughter will definitely apply to other programs. She did TPAP last year and she loved it, but she is hoping to find something a bit more intensive/rigorous for this year. I really appreciate all of your feedback regarding the programs your daughter and her peers have done. It is incredibly helpful! Best of luck to your daughter!