Hello! I am a recent graduate holding a Bachelor of Arts in Music. During my sophomore year of undergrad I experienced a newfound passion for musical theatre by participating in musical production at the college. However, my institution did NOT have a musical theatre major. I majored in voice, took an acting class, and did opera coaching courses. I have participated in 3 musical productions and 4 operas.
Opera isn’t my passion, but as a voice major I feel like I’m stuck. There are just not many graduate programs in musical theatre out there and I fear I am not eligible because of my overall lack of experience. Would getting a BFA in Musical Theatre be a wise move, or should I go for one of the few grad programs out there?
Go get some experience. Move to NYC (if you have the funds) or Chicago or Boston or DC- any place you can take reputable classes in the MT field with professionals- and then apply for grad school or a certificate program. Your talent is more important than what your degree is in. You have one for the future and having a college education under your belt is great.
I agree with AlexaMT. Don’t spend your time and money on another degree if the goal is to perform. Get out and audition, find out where your weaknesses, and work to improve. You can take year-round dance classes, MT voice lessons, and acting classes and spend far less than another undergraduate degree–without the stress and with the opportunity to audition whenever you please. My daughter is graduating next year with a vocal performance degree. Since freshman year, she has taken outside dance and acting classes, worked as an student teacher with a theatre company, auditioned almost every weekend, and performed in several shows outside school. If you are certain MT is for you, get out and audition. If you are right for a part, casting directors will not care that you don’t have a BFA.
MrBlevins, I’m pretty much in the same exact boat that you’re in. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Radio/TV Communication from Cameron University here in Lawton, Oklahoma (where I currently live), but I was really thinking about trying to go for a second bachelor’s in musical theatre. I’ve always been involved with music since I was 7 (I’m 24 now and I’ve been playing piano since 7, along with singing, violin, percussion instruments, keyboard, and learning cello now), and I’ve done just a handful of theatre productions as an actor, and I’ve been the stage manager for many productions. I absolutely fell in love with musical theatre. It encompasses everything I want to do - music, acting, and dance.
The only big audition so far that I’ve gone to was the Hamilton open call in New York.
So AlexaMT and Claire74, you both bring up interesting points. My thought was that since I haven’t had any technical training school-wise, along with the fact that my network of friends and colleagues are in the communication industry (such as news, which is NOT what I want to do AT ALL), going to a musical theatre school would not only give me great training, but allow me to network with countless people who plan on going in the industry as well as people who are in the industry (such as guest speakers, connections of people I’ll meet, et cetera.
PylonPrince, I completely agree with AlexaMT and Claire74. A far cheaper alternative would be to keep auditioning, work in a day job, and take classes. There are so many excellent acting, singing and dance classes, especially in NYC and LA, but also in other cities like Chicago etc., that offer the same training, the same connections with the industry that you are seeking and the same networking and the same guest speakers.
If you were set on going to school, you could also get your MFA or MA. But you’d need to build your experience first anyway, so regardless, you should still start with the classes and auditioning.
Thanks so much, Connections! You have great point as well. As I said, those were my initial thoughts on why I was thinking of going back to school, but in all honesty, since I already have a degree, you all are right - I could indeed get everything I am seeking through classes and auditions. I definitely wasn’t ‘set’ on going back to school - more so of what I would get out of school. But if I could really jump in and take advantage of classes while going on auditions… I think I’m leaning more towards that now, really thinking about it.
I haven’t really looked yet obviously… but Connections, Alexa MT, and Claire74, would you perchance happen to know a good place to start to begin looking for classes? Is it something that I need to just constantly search and be on the lookout for, or are there resources you know of that may list different acting, singing, and dance classes in different places? Just curious.
You can do much more research than that of course, and it would depend which city you ended up in. Also schools like Circle in the Square, Stella Adler, and many others, offer classes you can take. In NYC, Broadway Dance does dance. There are many private singing coaches, many well connected. With targeted classes, you can hone your comedic acting or your classical acting or your on camera acting or your improv or your audition technique.
As AlexaMT points out, you can move to whichever city your funds permit, as long as they have a vibrant professional acting community (many cities do).
You could work in a day job, take the classes (many are fairly reasonable as long as you budget), and audition. The top classes and studios have connections you can build from. Good luck!
@mrblevins, @PylonPrince I was taking in consideration to pursue a degree in MT as well, but having a degree and starting over was something that I really did not want to do. I just want to say that I found my path 3 years ago! And MT is my passion! It has been pretty hard for me to cope with this situation because I have a day job where I spend mostly of my day time and I am even older than you guys! So I am optimistic and just let me share you what I have done so far.
All of the advices that @connections@AlexaMT and @claire74 are totally right. Once my daytime job is over I take private coaching in ballet, singing and acting. I have been doing this for 2 years and I can tell you that the results have been great! I train from Monday to Saturday, plus I take different MT workshops. The advantage to have a job is that I can afford private lessons with top professionals, this is pretty important because these 3 disciplines are the core of MT and with a solid basis of these disciplines from professionals I could move then to train for short periods on MT. My vocal coach (who is a pretty recognized tenor in Europe, he sang indeed with Renee Fleming) recommended me to train very hard locally with high profile coaches and take MT courses from 3 weeks up to 3 months in NY or London. Going into a BFA program may be extremely expensive so this option I am telling you may be a good choice and it may be affordable for you guys too.
What I highly recommend you is to contact some students of the programs you are interested in. You can find those kids on facebook and you can ask them everything you need to know. Or you can also download the resumes of those kids and send them an e-mail. Also you can contact the schools and their former graduates. Everything I am telling you I did it and it worked pretty well, because they gave me some ideas about pursuing a career on MT and where to study.
Every program has a different approach. You can check CITS, CAP21, Pacific Conservatory Theatre in CA. Take also a look into Randolph Academy in Canada, also there are 2 other colleges in Canada where you can apply. Have you thought about Australia or England? There are more options there. Going abroad could be another option for you guys because in London for instance there are Masters in MT that lasts 1 year and the schools look awesome!
I only recommend you the following: Train the much as you can. And do community theatre. I am from Mexico btw. Fortunately some of the people I have been training with have been coached by Broadway professionals. One of these actors is now playing Mufasa in the Lion King Mexico and another actress played in Mama Mia! Chicago, Sweet Charity and Les Miz, and Wicked… These actors have the Broadway school, they have met Stephen Oremus and Schcwatz and all of these people we are dying to work with!
What I read from you guys was that you have had experience in theatre and in the arts, so I suppose it will be even better for you to start training. If you see the resumes of the MT actors you can see that some of them did not pursue a MT degree, this is more about talent. It is always good to have networking but first I believe you can train pretty hard and get some experience on the field. I believe it is never late to start a new career. Oh and I almost forgot to tell you that having this training and thanks to the money I gain from my day job I produced my first play! There are always options out there, it depends on how deeply you want this career. My coworkers always ask me if I am not tire of doing theatre after work and I said no, and if even I feel tired I push myself to take ballet from 9:pm to 10:30 pm.