Hello, I’m a sophomore in high school in California and I really love tech theater, especially stage management. I have stage managed 3 shows at a local theater (though my job during rehearsal is thst of an SM, during production I am functionally more of an ASM due to the small size of the theater. Hopefully that doesn’t cause problems in making a portfolio and such as I don’t have scripts to show thst I have called ftom because this theater doesn’t call shows, it’s a one man tech booth) and I plan on more as well as hopefully SMing a show at my school my senior year (getting to SM a show at my school is real competitive). Hopefully I’ll have enough experience to be considered for a good program, but aside from that my main concern is finding a good program in the first place. I’ve looked at the following colleges:
NYU ( a dream, but $$ and I don’t think I’d get in with my 3.5 that’s falling fast)
Manhattan Marymount
UC Irvine
UCLA
Pepperdine
Loyola Marymount (CA)
USC (this is kind of a joke. Biiiig stretch)
Clairmont
I’d like to hear more about both the tech theater programs of these colleges as well as the caliber of the school itself and any other details. Also of course if anyone knows other good tech schools it would be good to know about those too, right now I’m just trying to get as much info as possible
Welcome! And congratulations for starting your search at a good time and not waiting until senior year.
It seems like you have a set of California schools and a couple of NYC schools. Are those the geographies you are looking in? In NYC I would suggest looking at Wagner College (BA Theatre with Design/Tech/Management concentration) and Pace (BA Stage Management). For lots of other suggestions, check out the other thread on this first page titled, Schools that Have Theatre Tech (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/theater-drama-majors/1860699-schools-that-have-theater-tech-p1.html)?
To gauge the caliber of the schools I would suggest checking out the various sites that rank schools and give data about them. US News and Princeton Review will both give you the stats such as the range of SAT scores for the 25th-75th percentile (my advice – go somewhere you will be around the top end of that range or higher). They also have cost information and such for free. I wouldn’t bother paying for memberships that get you more details.
And I always recommend playbilledu.com, which is a side with information about colleges and their theatre, dance, and music programs. It’s a great way to search (just don’t be too restrictive – search for BA one time, BFA another for example) and you will get the basics about the facilities, the programs, and the curriculum at each college. For example, a quick search for BFA in Stage Management in California shows
Academy of Art University in San Francisco
Azusa Pacific University
CalArts
Cal State Hayward
Cal State Fullerton
Cal State Long Beach
Chapman University
and there are another 17 schools in California that have BA degrees in stage management.
Oh BTW, my daughter was accepted to both NYU Tisch and Marymount Manhattan for BFA Acting (she ended up choosing Pace University). We did visit Marymount Manhattan several times and we enjoyed it each time. It’s an urban campus, so you’ll want to know whether you like that kind of setting. But the people were universally nice, they were well organized, the information was always accurate and candid, and they have a great track record of successful alumni. They aren’t the most difficult school academically, and are pretty generous with financial aid, so it’s worth keeping on your list if you end up looking at NYC schools.
My D does stage management and we just went through the process and made lots of mistakes, so hopefully I can help you. First you need to decide if you want a BA or a BFA. With a BFA you will take more theater classes and fewer gen eds, though some schools have a BA that have a lot of theater requirements. It’s good to look at the curriculum of each school.
One mistake we made was to only look for SM degrees, and a lot of schools will have SM listed under theater design/technology/production. Then you might think about the type of show you want to work with. My D loves to call musicals, so she only looked at programs that also had a strong MT department. Also, that you can decide if you want a program that is more academic, such as NYU and MI, both of which will look at academic stats more than other schools. In addition, look at location, conservatory or not, campus size, and whether you would prefer a regular college campus, a LAC or an arts school. Another thing to think about is if you are ok with a school that also offers an MFA in SM, because you may have to compete with masters students for work (this is true at CMU, but not at NYU where the MFA program is completely separate) I’m sure there are a number of other important considerations as well that I’m not coming up with at the moment.
The portfolio is important and should include different types of paperwork you have created - everything from call sheets, to mic check to sign ins, and a few photos to show the scope of the production you worked on. My D originally had hers in a binder, but then switched to an 8.5 X 11 portfolio she got at Michaels which looked more professional. While it’s good to have experience, the schools also look for potential, work ethic, drive, etc. you will have to do a portfolio review for most schools, and a lot have times available at Unifieds. Some schools you will click with the faculty, and some you won’t, and even though it’s difficult, try not to take it personally.
Here is a list of schools we came up with, though there are many more that we didn’t look at closely.
BFA programs:
Emerson
NYU
U of MI
CCM
Penn
CMU
Cal arts
UNCSA
Otterbein
Webster
De Paul
Point Park
Boston U
TCU
Rutgers
SUNY purchase
LIU-Post
UCF
U of Miami
Shenandoah
Cornish College of the Arts
Southern Oregon University
Viterbo
U of Rhode Island
U of Utah
SCAD
Drake
Nebraska Wesleyan
U of N Kentucky
Western Michigan
Milliken
Montclair
USC
BA programs:
Manhattan Marymount
Pace
Baldwin Wallace
Ithaca
Fordham
Elon
Indiana
Delegator, Playbill EDU isn’t working for me right now and hasn’t been, so I can’t go directly to the source. You said that Academy of Art U in SanF had a BFA in stage management? I can’t seem to find anything aside from acting on their website.
Also, you said you and your student toured Marymount Manhattan, I’m curious about any more detail you could give me about you and your kid’s impression of the school. It seemed like a dream school for me when I first looked into it, but the more I look at message boards and reviews, the more I worry. The school seems to get a lot of mixed reviews and I’m sort of hoping they aren’t true
Oh, also. Like I mentioned I am in a tech theater class at my school and I have quite a bit of design work (mostly costume, some set and makeup), would that be something to put in a portfolio?
thanks again!
@Rlandeb Playbilledu is fun to look through, but it is wildly inaccurate about SM schools. If you search for schools with a degree in SM, it lists many schools that do not have the degree, SF Academy of Art is one of them. I have yet to find an accurate list on any website, though mine above will give you a good start. It’s best to look for schools with a good theater program and then see what they offer in terms of SM. Check out the curriculum for each school in which you might be interested and see what looks good to you.
I don’t know much about MMA, but there should be people on here whose children are attending, plus a number of threads about the school. It would be great if you could visit the school and set up a meeting with the head of the SM program. It would also be good to visit some other schools as well for comparison (also in that area are Pace, NYU and Fordham, with Rutgers, LIU-Post and SUNY Purchase nearby). My D had very different feelings about some schools after visiting them, and then some of her opinions changed again after the portfolio review.
As far as your portfolio, it’s best to read what each school wants, but if there is leeway then I think it’s nice to show them your other artistic accomplishments. I would just make the SM material the primary part. My D was able to get her portfolio reviewed by a professor at a top performing arts high school by reaching out to the school. They only had a few suggestions, but I do think it made for a more professional presentation.
You are correct from what I can tell. While a search on playbilledu specifically for a BFA in Stage Management does indeed include Academy of Art University in the results, I can find no evidence of a technical degree on the school website. I think you just proved that search results are not always trustworthy. But it might be worth asking the department about that.
We toured Marymount Manhattan, and then my daughter auditioned there, and then we went back for an accepted students day. So, I think we got about as much exposure to the school as you can get without actually going there.
I still have a very positive view of the place. The people we met, from students to administrators, were unfailingly nice and helpful. There is a real performing arts vibe that infuses the school – you’ll see people dancing in their spare time, hear music wafting through the halls, and generally any performing arts kid is likely to feel very at home.
It is not, from what I can tell, the most academically challenging school. Looking at test scores and GPAs, its accepted students come in a level below the Pace/Wagner level and a couple of steps below the NYU/Emerson/Ithaca level. But that’s OK for a field like stage management or acting.
The school is VERY focused on training. This is an important note, because one thing you may find is that a student may get limited opportunities to perform (or in the case of stage management, to be the stage manager). Compared to a place like Wagner that puts on 4 musicals and at least as many plays per year, that may seem limiting. HOWEVER, that focus on training seems to pay off when you look at the list of alumni working, and in many cases excelling, in the industry. From what I can tell, Marymount Manhattan can hold its own with really any school in terms of successful alumni (the latest being the girl who will be Tracy Turnblad in the live Hairspray! production later this year).
We also made sure to actually see productions at every single school to which my daughter applied, and I can vouch for the quality of the training from that respect. We saw O Pioneers, a “musical” that was really more of a play with incidental songs between scenes. The actors were incredible, with very good linguistic work on accents including French, German, and Swedish. I believe that the strong Speech Pathology program at the school really helps in such areas. Along with the acting, the staging and lighting was truly professional quality. I saw the show about 2 years ago and can still vividly see the stage…it was that good.
The neighborhood in which Marymount is located is nice…but it’s really a residential neighborhood more than a typical college area. It certainly doesn’t compare to Cooper Square (where the upper class dorm is now located), Washington Square Park and the NYU area, or the financial district around Pace when it comes to buzz and excitement. It seems perfectly safe, but bland.
The only downside to the school is the distance between dorms and the campus building. The dorms themselves are very nice, and are no more expensive than any NYC college. But, given the commute of ~15 blocks you would expect that your student would basically spend all day on campus, then go back to the dorm. It’s not a place where you would drop back by your room to pick up a book.
I hope that gives a good sense of what I found at Marymount Manhattan. My daughter would have been happy going there, but Pace was her first choice ever since doing the summer program there, so she chose Pace instead. But Marymount would have been perfectly fine for us. If you would like any further thoughts on it, please feel free to message me. And best of luck!
Great suggestions, thank you! I have done some additional research and visited Chapman and UC Irvine in southern CA. I’m still also considering NYC (Pace, NYU, Marymount Manhattan) but would like to hone in on schools in CA or the West coast at this point with the following:
Stage Management degree or emphasis (preferably a minor/honors program within Tech Theater or dedicated SM program)
BA or BFA but prefer a strong academic program (but not over the top since I'll likely not have a 3.8-4.0 GPA)
Medium size is ideal but would consider large as well (eg. UC Irvine)
Prefer traditional college versus an Arts school
Prefer an urban location over a suburban/rural one but would consider the latter for the 'right' school
I’m at the point of having to dig into each school’s curriculum because most school comparison sites are either inaccurate or incomplete in terms of SM offerings as noted above. Any West coast recommendations that fit well with the criteria above would be much appreciated!
@Rlandeb, the ones that come to mind are Loyola Marymount, University of San Diego and Occidental in S. California (not sure they offer SM specifically, but they do offer tech theater), Willamette in Oregon (not an urban area, but a very serious theater program that offers an emphasis in SM) and U of Miami in FL ( not west coast, but seems to fit the other criteria and has a top SM program).
You said you don’t really want an arts school, but both CalArts and Cornish have BFA’s in SM.
