<p>What makes this a great forum is the helpful nature of the participants. I promise after this thread to stop theorizing and do more listening to those of you who are way ahead of us in the process.</p>
<p>Fishbowl, those are some good tips. My Alma matter is University of California at Santa Barbara. Is it a gem? Maybe. Great facilities, great campus, beautiful place to live (the campus has two miles of its own beach on the Pacific Ocean) and they have turned out some solid professionals working in the industry. Downsides would be a very large student body, not a great reputation in the industry and you dont get into the BFA program until sophomore year. First you have to get accepted to the school academically and since it is a popular CA school the bar is pretty high. Then you addition for BFA at end of freshman year with no guarantees of acceptance. </p>
<p>Mom, thanks for your thoughts. I am sure you are correct about the actual information being more important than how you find it. I guess I need to remember this is academia. As a business owner who simply cannot function without web site connectivity it is an important issue for me. In commerce an illogical or poorly thought out web site usually indicates that entire business functions in that way. </p>
<p>Also, we are all likely familiar with schools with great academic reputations that it turns out that the reputation far exceeds the academics. To avoid that I am looking for substance, and, as I said beginning with their web site. </p>
<p>I was not trying to pick on NYU, I used them as an example because they are talked about so much around here. You just must be familiar with their web site as I went to it twice specifically looking for pictures and never found any. </p>
<p>My point about the name was not acting vs drama vs. theater. Rather in my cursory review programs that lump more than one discipline into the name of the department seem to have less impressive programs. Or if a more generic term is used like the school of performing arts. Nothing scientific just an observation so far. </p>
<p>We can agree that nobody expects elaborate sets all the time from a school putting on dozens of performances a year. We can also agree to having seen great theater in minimalist fashion. However, when I see photos of production after production of no set and props that consist of a chair a table and a crate, that concerns me no matter what the name of the school. </p>
<p>Maybe I am wrong but I will tell you why I think that way. First what are we seeking? I presume we are after good theater of which good acting is a part. Second, theater is fantasy if you will, i.e. not real. It may or may not be staged to emulate real but it is not. In order to effectively bring the audience along for the ride (if you will) they have to be asked and be willing to suspend conventions. The conventions of time a space as an example. </p>
<p>You can convince me that we are outside in Victorian England when we are inside in the US with just acting but it is far more compelling with a good set. The interaction of the actors with the set is a big part of theater. Thats because it is how our world works and a black box does not do justice to an English garden or Tudor house. Not for our sake (the audience) or the actors sake. The best directors I have known are very good at blocking which is not just the actors movement on stage but their use and movement and interaction with the sets. </p>
<p>In his book The Stage Craft Handbook, Daniel Ionazzi (he runs the design/tech program at UCLA) does a better job explaining this relationship than I. He claims it to be uniquely important to drama as contrasted with TV, Big Screen, music, dance, etc.</p>