<p>Ericsmom/dramama/soozie - Thank you for taking the time to post. This is a bit more complicated than it appears. She wants MT but wouldn't be completely opposed to BFA acting. She received a call back from TCU at IL Theatrefest from her audition, however they wanted her to audition at the school and she couldn't fit it in so I sent in a DVD with all the requirements and she made the Theatre Performance program. The chair of the Dept has said she could be in the musicals, take voice lessons and try out at the end of the year for MT. At IWU you cannot audition for any main stage plays your first year. There are good points and bad points about this which I don't want to debate but anyway you look at it you are "on the bench" at IWU your first year. The big difference is that she would not be on the MT track at TCU and would need to work on her dancing and how do you do that? To complicate things more we have been offered a full tutiton scholarship to one of the BFA acting programs she was accepted to and they are throwing in voice lessons with the Music Dept! Now if this isn't complicated enough we are on a very short waitlist at her favorite MT program which she won't let me mention and I haven't posted. We have been touch with the faculty and while there and no guarantees it appears that she has a good shot of coming off the list. To add to the fun she is in full practice mode for the spring Musical at the HS which runs in 2 weeks so there is little time to go visit schools for a final decision before May 1. We are going to IWU for another visit next week but it will be Kaos the final week of April if one of the other options pans out. AND this is why I am typing this at 3 in the morning (can't sleep) :)</p>
<p>MTDad, I hear you! </p>
<p>I had no idea that this process would become such a daily drama as we get closer to May 1. Financial offers have been changing, there have been a flurry of emails and phone calls, last week's top pick has dropped to number 3 or 4 -- it is so stressful! We have a similar situation -- a full ride fell out of the sky last week, to a school we've never seen -- what to do? We're just trying to take it a day at a time and wait for a sign. At least your D has some good options. Hang in there!</p>
<p>I received some more information on the program and what some of the alumni at TCU have done or are working on and it's all extremely impressive!</p>
<p>No graduate program; so no competition from older, more experienced graduate students, nor graduate teaching assistants. Students get our full-time faculty from their first semester. We are undergraduate training specialists in Theatre.
- An outstanding faculty of working professionals who are deeply committed to teaching and mentoring students. You won’t find a finer, kinder, more demanding faculty anywhere, in my opinion.
- A great city in which to study Theatre. Dallas/Fort Worth is now the 4th largest professional theatre market in the US (behind only NY, Chicago and LA), where students can see lots of theatre, and also intern and work at local professional theatres, sometimes even while they’re in school at TCU.
- Tremendous study abroad programs, including a 5-week London Theatre course taught by TCU Theatre faculty each summer.
- A superb, comprehensive university that is highly selective (the second most selective school in the state of Texas…this year we will have more than 12,000 applications for only 1,600 spots in the freshman class), providing an exciting and challenging atmosphere of students who are extremely intelligent, motivated, ethical and true leaders.
- Great teaching throughout the curriculum. Theatre majors love to study Theatre, but our students consistently rave about their courses in History, Psychology, English, Music, Biology, etc. Excellent teaching is the norm at TCU.
- A gorgeous campus, tons of student leadership opportunities, great Greek system and extracurricular clubs, successful Division I sports teams, a new Student Union that will open this August plus many other new buildings and residence halls on campus.</p>
<p>Alumni info.................</p>
<p>TCU</a> Theatre Department - Alumni Responses</p>
<p>Probably our most prominent acting alumni are:
Tony Award winner Betty Buckley
Academy Award nominee Frederick Forrest
Character actor Dennis Burkley
Film actress Gayle Hunnicutt</p>
<p>You could look up their respective credits on The</a> Internet Movie Database (IMDb)</p>
<p>Just this past season, two recent TCU Theatre alumni appeared on Broadway: Jonathan Fielding in PYGMALION with Claire Danes, and Carman Lacavita appeared in CYRANO DE BERGERAC with Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner. Carman also won the 2004 St. Clair Bayfield Award given by Actors Equity Association for the best performance by an actor in a Shakespeare role in the NY metropolitan area. You can read about Carman and this award at:</p>
<p>actorsequity.org</a> | Actors' Equity Awards</p>
<p>Another prominent acting alum is David Coffee , who – among many other credits – has played Scrooge at Boston ’s North Shore Music Theatre for the last 16 years. You can see a YouTube video clip from this production and read David’s bio at:</p>
<p>North</a> Shore Music Theatre - A Christmas Carol '07</p>
<p>mtdad, Jonathan Fielding is a friend of a friend, and I saw both of them in Pygmalion last fall. He not only attended TCU, but also has an MFA from Mason Gross, as does Carman Lacivita, who was in the brilliant production of Cyrano. I'm not sure if you've Googled Jonathan or not, but he used to have an amusing website, entitled Will Act for Food. :) I would imagine there is contact information on his site, if your son might be interested in contacting him with any questions. Most actors are very amenable to answering questions.</p>
<p>MTDad - If you haven't yet visited TCU, you need to do so. I think getting a feel for each school is important before she makes her decision.</p>
<p>Will be a freshman at TCU next fall and trying to decide on a dorm. Considering Waits. Any comments?</p>
<p>My daughter is primarily a dancer and we plan to visit TCU, OU and Texas State this month. What do ya’ll think of their dance departments?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about TCU’s theatre department (but hopefully someone else does because this is technically the TCU thread) but OU’s dance department through MT is very well rounded, exceptionally strong, and respected in the MT world. Texas State is still fairly new, but Robin Lewis (Broadway veteran of shows like Beauty and the Beast and Fosse) is the new head of the dance department and he is INSANE. In a good way! Wonderful teacher with lots of connections and teaching ability.</p>
<p>We are visiting Texas State tomorrow - I’ll let you know what our impressions are.</p>
<p>I love TCU, but I believe that the dance and theatre / MT departments operate very separately, not integrated like at some of the other schools.</p>
<p>We got back from Texas State and my daughter was very impressed with the musical theater dance program. Robin Lewis has so many Broadway credits, you’re right AlexaMT. We wished we could have meet with him but his studio is in Austin. However, we met with Kaitlin Hopkins personally(!) and the program seems to be really taking off. We gained a lot of information from her and she suggested a book (she could tell I was green). I found it on Amazon when I searched college audition guide - I’ll share it with ya’ll on the book thread since this is about TCU. Going to TCU and OU next! And EricsMom I’ll ask more about the TCU dance.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, the MT majors do not get to dance with the dance majors at TCU. If you want to dance in MT, you need to check out what is going to be offered. I’m concerned it may not be as much dance as in some other programs.</p>
<p>Motherofthemall - Robin Lewis is a wonderful teacher (and a very nice guy as well!) Just got an email with the ZACH Theatre 2010-2011 season and he is choreographing both Rent and Hairspray for them. Just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to check out of his shows.</p>
<p>We learned at TCU that musical theatre students take dance every semester for 4 years and are offered every kind of style you can imagine including dance conditioning (a new one on me!) Also, the more advanced dancers in the musical theatre dept. may take class with dance majors in the dance department, but they have to audition to get in.
Didn’t have time to get to OU, but hope to soon.</p>
<p>Can students who are not theater majors audition for plays? Is there a comedy improv group/troupe on campus?</p>
<p>Hi all. After searching this website for about a year now, I’m actually going to post something!</p>
<p>Does anyone know how intense the dance audition is for TCU (specifically at the LA unifieds, if that makes a difference)? I’ll be auditioning in February and, seeing how I only have a few years of jazz/modern under my belt, I’m a little intimidated!</p>
<p>My D auditioned on campus last year and said that the dance portion was the most difficult of any of her auditions. And she has 10 years of dance. BUT, it may not be the same at Unifieds. Just go in with a positive attitude and have fun. Smile!</p>
<p>Thanks for the response. Do you remember what was included in the dance audition (what styles?)? This is my only school with a dance audition so I’m really not sure what to expect.</p>
<p>And Rice-any major can audition for the shows.</p>
<p>Last year’s on campus dance audition was jazz. D said “afro-carribean” jazz - but the selection will probably be different this year.</p>
<p>Well, thought I’d pop in here because D is auditioning at TCU in 3 weeks. We haven’t paid a lot of attention to it because we sort of already knew it was pretty much a top notch school and program in every way and didn’t feel the need to investigate for ourselves much other than how can she get IN. 
I have about a dozen family members who are alumni’s and many of D’s high school friends will be going there. You really can’t find much bad to say about TCU. At least that’s my impression because I’ve heard people who either love or don’t really love so much, just about every school in our area, but I’ve never heard a bad thing about TCU so far.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m really hoping they like her and give her an offer, including some money, because it is a private school and none of them are an option for us without some fairly decent aid.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if they cap their freshman admittances into MT or acting and if so, how many they take?</p>
<p>D is primarily wanting an MT program but she is completely open to a good Acting program if she has access to voice and dance. She’s already very accomplished in dance so she just needs to be able to stay in practice and learn to fine tune it for MT; and the most important thing she needs for her voice right now, I think, is to continue getting good private coaching; those things can be accomplished in an Acting program if the school has and allows her access to the dance and voice. So she’ll audition for both if they let them do that.</p>
<p>Anyone have any recent information on the auditions and program?</p>