Does anyone here want to discuss the options for a student who is interested in majoring in Theatre, but is not an actor? D16 is a playwright and has staged both plays and musicals. She spent a year at a school with strong, general liberal arts, but not much theatre. Has transferred to another LAC with more theatre (especially Musical Theatre). Will take all of the play writing classes she can, but also Arts Administration and probably some technical theatre. She will have to take Acting 101 for the major, and is ok with that, but not looking forward to it (peaked as a Sondheim Narrator and is done.) It’s not clear to me whether the actors form their own groups, or if they are happy to interACT (ha!) with people who can create work for them to perform. Same with the professors. The focus here on CC is very much on acting, so I would love to hear from others with experience in any of the other Theatre disciplines at both BFA and BA programs.
My daughter went into this thinking she was only going to be an actor. She has fallen in love with stage managing and directing and will be directing her capstone project for her senior year. My daughter attends a BA program and the entire department is one cohesive team and they have wonderful interactions with one another. No one is better or seen as more important than another. She loved her playwriting class and her BA offers tons of writing opportunities for young playwrights.
My son is a rising senior so we don’t have any experience at current programs, but he is also interested in programs that allow for opportunities beyond acting. For that reason, he is mostly looking at BA programs and a few BFAs that offer more flexibility. Is your daughter a junior or senior? What’s currently on her list of schools?
@Twoboysandadog, D graduated high school in 2016, so she’ll be a college sophomore this year. She’ll be in a BA program. The school also has a business major (unusual for LACs) that offers an Arts Administration track that interests her.
Many casting folks in LA and NYC studied theater in college. So did many agents. There are many jobs in theater/film/television should your child not want to pursue acting post graduation.
My son is pursuing a BFA in theater tech and production and would also like to get into lighting. He will take an acting for non-actors class, but only because it’s required.
No experience yet with BA/BFA programs as D19 is still in high school. However, she has many friends in BA programs who are not on the stage but doing work behind the scenes or are working head of house. She also has started networking with area theatres to get a better sense of the employment market.
There are a couple of directions you can go for something like playwriting and screenwriting. One would be to take a BA Theatre program at a school with really strong interdisciplinary programs. I’m northeast-centered, so I’ll mention places like Holy Cross, Connecticut College or Wesleyan (you might have heard of one of Wesleyan’s alums…). Programs at these schools might be called Theatre Studies, Theatre(er), Theatre Arts, and so on. The key is the strong liberal arts bent. Regionally there are places in the midwest (Oberlin and the other 5 Colleges members, Northwestern, and so on) and west coast as well.
Another would be to look for specific playwriting majors. Again focused in my region, I think Emerson stands out for having a fine theatre program, a top notch writing program and also a dedicated playwriting major. It’s extremely competitive of course, but that would be my first choice here. I imagine that a place like USC would be excellent on the left coast. One list of playwriting majors would be here:
Hello!
I’m a Directing major at Carnegie Mellon, planning on pursuing Playwriting in grad school. I would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have about the program here, if you think it might be of interest.