Theater at the Five College Consortium?

College Majors Theater/Drama Majors
1

Can anyone describe theater at the five college consortium (Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith and U Mass)? How do the classes and productions at each of the five colleges differ? If you attend one of the colleges, can you really take the theater classes you want, or get good roles, at the other four colleges? How many productions are there per year?

Do men at five college consortium schools feel they are better off because two of the colleges are all-female and have to import men from the other three? Do women feel disadvantaged? Or are the productions different from productions at other college environments because of the uneven balance between men and women?

I bet that most people thinking about attending Amherst aren’t also considering Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith or U Mass. And most considering Hampshire aren’t also considering Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke or U Mass, And most considering Smith or Mount Holyoke probably are not considering Amherst, Hampshire or U Mass (but I may be wrong about that). So it also would be useful to know how five college consortium opportunities compare to opportunities at other liberal arts colleges.

In other words, how do five-college theater opportunities compare to those at other liberal arts colleges that attract similar students to Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith? I’m thinking about colleges like Williams, Wellesley, Tufts, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Bates, Wesleyan, Connecticut College, Vassar, Hamilton, Skidmore, Bard, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Kenyon, Oberlin, Denison, Wooster, Earlham, Kalamazoo, Knox, Beloit, Lawrence, Grinnell, Carleton, Macalaster, St. Olaf, Davidson, Elon, Guilford, Millsaps, New College, Pomona, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Reed, Puget Sound, Wilamette, and Whitman–a long list, I know.

And how do U Mass theater opportunities compare to opportunities at other big state schools?

I’ve searched college confidential for information on this, but none of the posts I’ve found provides much detail.

Thank you.

2

There was a question in our information session about theater at Mount Holyoke. They said they feel no need to import men to fill their roles. (The question was actually something more like, do women play all the roles, and the answer was a very matter of fact yes.)

3

My sense is that theater in the Five College consortium is dominated by UMass - and, how could it not, considering the vast enrollment edge it holds over the four LACs? What I hear is that people are welcome to audition but, that they are often outnumbered by UMass majors. Also, anecdotally, the most cooperation seems to be between Smith and Amherst College.

4

On the Mt Holyoke comment, is that because the characters are all female (or rewritten to be all female) or because women play male roles?

I’d like to hear more about theater in the consortium being dominated by UMass. Is that because the casting is unfair and arbitrarily favors UMass students, or because UMass puts on more productions, or because the talent level is higher at UMass?

Does UMass may have a more serious theater program, more like Julliard, NYU Tisch, Carnegie Mellon, BU, Syracuse, USC, Michigan, Ithaca, Cincinnati, etc. If your acting talent is at the level where you might have gotten in to one of the big time BFA porgrams but you prefer the liberal arts college academics of Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke or Smith, can you get something approxinatinf the best of both worlds through the five college consortium? (Analogizing college theater to college basketbal, is having UMass in the consortium like getting a liberal arts college education while having a chance to play on a Division I state university’s basketball team?)

Thank you.

5

If you are serious about theater as a profession and your talent is good enough to get you into solid BFA programs then go there.

6

I realize that’s a common path but it isn’t the one taken by many very successful actors. Also, some people want to act at a high level in college but also want to get a top notch education of the type offered by traditional liberal arts colleges.

7

People who want to act at a high level in college generally look for programs that have a number of other accomplished actors attending. You’re trying to fit your own college list into that model and I think you’re simply off base. There are smaller liberal arts schools to which serious actors apply and attend: Vassar, Yale, Brown to name a few - but none of the consortium colleges generally make that list. There are large schools with fantastic Theatre programs: U Mich, Penn State, Rutgers, CMU, Northwestern and many more but again U Mass isn’t usually considered to have that same kind of the reputation for excellence in theatre. There are also people from all kinds of schools who decide to continue with acting as a profession and some do very well. But that doesn’t mean than any school will provide serious training for an actor it just means that many actors succeed despite going to schools where theatre isn’t “first rate”. There’s no law that says an actor has to have a BFA or even a college degree.

8

That’s really why I’m asking. I want to know what’s actually happening on the five college campuses and the campuses of other liberal arts colleges. I’ve noticed the same thing you have about “the lists,” but I suspect that the successes of a few famous alumni may largely determine which colleges make “the lists.”

You mentioned Vassar, which is a very interesting example. Its campus theater scene is famous. But I’m not sure I’ve heard of more than one or two of the actors listed on the Vassar Wikipedia page who graduated in the last 30 years. Is Vassar on the list because of Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Lisa Kudrow and Anne Hathaway? Or because it currently offers better drama opportunities than the competition?

Incidentally, I never see Hampshire on lists of liberal arts college that have produced a large number of famous alumni actors. But there are some Hampshire alumni who have been very successful in film.

You also mentioned Yale. Are undergrad theater opportunities really so great there? Maybe yes, but I do know that lists of Yale college alumni working as actors are often inflated because the lists count alumni with graduate degrees from the drama school. Also, if the undergrad opportunities are spectacular but the competition is also spectacular, it might make sense to consider other options too.

But back to Vassar as compared to the five colleges and other liberal arts colleges. Choosing Vassar over Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke or Smith because of Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Lisa Kudrow and Anne Hathaway probably doesn’t make much sense. Maybe Vassar theater blows away theater at the five colleges or other similar colleges (Wesleyan? Hamilton? Skidmore? Oberlin? Macalester?), but if it does, there must be more to it than the famous alumni. I’d really like to hear about theater life at these colleges for people who are really good but don’t know as high school students that they want to try to be the next Jane, Meryl, Lisa or Anne (or, for the Yale College fans, the next Vincent Price, Jodie Foster, Paul Giamatti, Ed Norton, Michael Cerveris or Jefferson Mays, etc.).

College Confidential has about 25,000 posts on how hard it is to get in to each of these colleges, and why each should be “ranked” higher or lower on various lists, but it would be nice to get some detail if people can give it. Thank you!

9

Schools along the Hudson – Vassar, Skidmore, Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Barnard – tend to be strong in theatre to the point of exhibiting overall artistic atmospheres that may not be present at most other colleges. However, I wouldn’t say this means that other schools shouldn’t be given strong consideration by prospective students interested in theatre. As examples, the programs at Connecticut College and Kenyon rival those of the aforementioned; Middlebury could be excellent; Hamilton’s theatre facilities should be seen.

10

Does Williamstown, Massachusetts count as “along the Hudson”? What about Middletown, Connecticut?

I can imagine that there’s lots of acting talent from New York that makes its way to relatively nearby colleges. But do they travel by boat? What about colleges along the Mississippi River? There are quite a few, from Tulane to Macalester. Just kidding. I

Thanks for the helpful information. Please keep it coming, the more detailed the better.

11

OP - I think this thread is suffering from mission creep. Your original question had to do specifically with the UMass/4LAC consortium in Massachusetts, not which is the best theater program in the United States. Does the consortium confer any special advantages on each member’s theater program? Not from what I can tell. The campuses are sufficiently far from each other that someone would have to be pretty dedicated to make the necessary trips across town to make rehearsals and run lines with someone who doesn’t live on your campus. That doesn’t mean there aren’t perfectly fine departments on their own merits. But, then you have to define by what criteria. By how easy it is to get a job? Probably not a fair measure, even if you could gain access to that sort of information.

12

Anybody else got any thoughts on this topic?