<p>"When I'm looking for musical theater people, there are a couple of schools that are good. If I'm looking for people to do legit theater work, I happen to like SUNY Purchase, Rutgers, Juilliard, and North Carolina School of the Arts." -Merritt Blake, The Blake Agency</p>
<p>What</a> Schools or Coaches Catch Your Attention?</p>
<p>It's always interesting to hear different perspectives from industry personnel. Sometimes schools can have an amazing reputation in the college world, or have great training, but their success in the industry can vary. </p>
<p>This agent is obviously not "the end-all, be-all," and it's one person's opinion. There are successful people from every school. I'm not trying to offend anyone, I just came across the article and thought people interested in pursuing acting would like to read it!</p>
<p>*Misspelled Juilliard in the title. Woops!</p>
<p>An extra “l” in Juilliard is refreshing! Many people omit the first “i.” I used to do it myself! :)</p>
<p>I followed the link to read the full article because I am interested in what industry folks have to say. I believe the agent being quoted above is actually Sue Winik, Sheplin-Winik Artists, New York. (Merritt Blake specifically mentioned USC and American Film Institute.) So just for fun, I Googled some of Ms. Winik’s clients to see how often those schools showed up on their resumes, Keeping in mind that this was a very non-scientific search (just went through the first 5 pages of Google matches), I found the following schools listed by her clients: Yale, Vassar, Emerson, U Minnesota, U Missouri, Cornell, CCM, Niagra University, CCPA, Rowan University, Hartt, Skidmore, NYU, Washington University St. Louis, RADA, Hofstra. Some listed no college program but did list other training programs.</p>
<p>I am not trying to nitpick here - I found the article interesting. I just thought I would do a little research test and see what I came up with.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight:)</p>