<p>My name is Arya Arabshahi and I have been waiting to be able to write this for so long. Everything about the U of A stated on this board is true. I do not wish to dispute with anyone. </p>
<p>I was cut last year, as a freshman auditioning for sophmore status. I was one of the upward of 20 people cut from the program, a ridiculous number that has yet to be explained by the U of A. </p>
<p>But the reason I am writing this is to strongly discourage anyone that has been accepted by the U of A to actually go there. The training is fine yes, but any school with a good set of teachers and a stanislavski textbook will give you fine training. After losing a year as a freshman at the U of A, and a year of my life as a sophmore (unprepared by my teachers for my sophmore year as a BA), I am very proud to say that today I recieved acceptance letters from both The Theatre School at DePaul AND The BFA Acting Program at Carnegie Mellon University.</p>
<p>The University of Arizona has proven to be a school that does not pride itself in its students, but instead the POWER it has over its students. Having grown up in Tucson Arizona, The U of A has always been where I wanted to be, sadly, that dream was ripped away from me last year for no good reason. As you can hopefully see by now, there were a number of tremendously talented kids that were cut from the program last year, and many of them were minority students. There is simply something wrong at the U of A School of Theatre.</p>
<p>Congrats on your recent acceptances, you are obviously very talented. Often things happen for a good reason. I'm just sorry you had to waste your time (and money) to hopefully end up in a better place for you in the long run. Best of Luck!!</p>
<p>Everything happens for a reason... and now I can say that if I was not cut from the U of A acting program, I would not have been accepted now to Marymount Manhattan's and Pace University's B.F.A. acting programs. I plan to attend Marymount Manhattan in the fall and couldn't be more extatic. The program had one of the most extensive auditions I've ever been to, which makes them confident enough to not hold cuts, and that makes me very happy. Hooray to new beginnings.</p>
<p>Wow, reading this makes me exceptionally grateful. </p>
<p>I had ever intention of applying to the U of A for acting, but ran out of time to make my audition video. So I didn't send one in. So, yes, I lost my $65 application fee, but hey! I saved money I would have spent on the video's shipping! </p>
<p>I had no idea they had such an extensive cut system.</p>
<p>Whatever they did, the personnel they have now are terrific: I saw the preview performance of The Who's "Tommy" last night and it is fantastic -- better than many professional musicals I have seen (and my kid isn't even in it!)</p>
<p>Quit being a crybaby and be a man Arya. Face up to the fact that you were not good enough and stop your whining. Someone needed to tell you that you are not talented enough to make the cut and they did, even though art is all about opinion and that is their opinion. Perhaps you can succeed to make them think twice about their evaluation of you!</p>
<p>And do not pay any attention to Alismom who is obviously a friend and whose opinion is biased. A better place? I think not. A private university which is going to take your money and tell you what you want to hear is more like the explanation in this case. Regardless, Good luck to you as you are going to need it.</p>
<p>That is a mean spirited post. Do you also realize that the posts you are responding to are over two years old??? In any case, please do not tell this young man he is not talented enough. Anyone observing this thread can clearly see that he has talent as he was accepted as a transfer into a top BFA program in drama (CMU) and another highly regarded one (DePaul). For that matter, several students cut from U of Arizona have gone on to be accepted at several other strong BFA programs. These programs are extremely difficult to get into (even if private) and even more so as a transfer student.</p>
<p>John Davis’s post (only one of his ever, I notice) is an obvious apologist for the department, it would seem. </p>
<p>Hate to revive an old thread, but does anyone know if this is still the case? I’ve read a lot about the MT cuts and am wondering if the same system exists in the Actor Training program. Or if the system still exists at all-- after all, DePaul just abolished their notorious cut program as well. I was just accepted to the school and I’m trying to decide if it’s worth a seven-hour drive to audition when I already really like my non-auditioned (and more generous!) safety-- Southern Utah-- if the system is really brutal as it sounds.</p>
<p>This is a very old thread and I am not one to typically revive old threads. However, I remember the OP, Arya, quite well here, and his name came to me once again. Arya went onto CMU. He is one of the founding members and performers in the theater company called Pigpen Theatre Company. They currently have a show off Broadway called The Old Man and The Old Moon. My daughter went to see it two days ago and said she was deeply inspired by their work and also thought the young men in the group (all CMU grads who formed this company while at CMU) were incredibly talented (and she has seen a LOT of theater). I noticed that Arya is one of the actors/members of this company.</p>
<p>I think this is a good tale to tell because here this young man was cut from U of A’s program, went onto the highly selective CMU Acting program and is now quite successful with his theater company that is getting rave reviews.</p>
<p>I must preface by saying that my information is not first hand, but from a reliable source, a personal friend of a freshman female who was cut from the BFA MT program this past year. As it was relayed to me, there were only 2 people cut this past year in total. (Can anyone confirm this?) The other was a freshman male who is reported to be very talented, but who failed to attend his classes regularly and failed most of them. This was not true of the female who I am sure was a diligent student, but the department staff just did not see her as a fit there for some reason. My D, a HS senior now, is planning to apply to U of A for next year so I would love to learn more about this from someone who knows the current “cut” policy and practice.</p>