<p>I saw the post about CAP21, and I got an e-mail regarding Strasberg.
June 2, 2009</p>
<p>Congratulations again on your admission to the Tisch School of the Arts and the Lee Strasberg Institute. Bravo to you! Entry into the Strasberg Institute is very competitive, and I congratulate you on what must be your stellar accomplishments to date. </p>
<p>Tisch and the Strasberg Institute have had a long association. I am writing you now because you will have a special and somewhat bittersweet role in that fellowship: your class, the class of 2013, will be the last class to enter Strasberg with the opportunity to complete your theater studies there. I wanted to let you know about this change now, both so that you would not be taken by surprise when you arrive on campus in the fall and so that you understand that your class studies with Strasberg will mark the lowering of the curtain on a powerful partnership in the performing arts.</p>
<p>The Lee Strasberg Institute is an organization that represents a legacy almost without parallel in American acting training. The Institute was one of the original New York acting schools to which the Department turned when the Department of Drama was founded. The teachers at Strasberg who continue that tradition attract students from around the world, and will continue to do so for many decades to come.</p>
<p>This decision will not affect your freshman and sophomore experience at Strasberg. Be assured, you will be able to take full advantage of their terrific faculty for a full two years. Strasberg takes great pride in the well being and professional development of each and every student placed in their charge and I know that they are looking forward to your arrival in the fall as much as we are.</p>
<p>If you have any questions, please direct them to Patricia Decker, Director of Recruitment for Tisch at <a href=“mailto:patricia.decker@nyu.edu”>patricia.decker@nyu.edu</a> or 212-998-1910.</p>
<p>Have a great summer!</p>
<p>Mary Schmidt Campbell
Dean
Tisch School of the Arts</p>
<p>What is going on with Tisch, I planned on doing year of CAP21 and a year of Playwrights Horizon’s advanced MT practicum.
Are they ending all of their studio contracts?</p>
<p>Will I be able to go into the New MT studio?
Also, does this mean that they will be terminating their other contracts with like Stella Adler, etc?
If they are creating their own studio, won’t they be accepting fewer students each year then.</p>
<p>Clay, as NMR wrote, they are just ending their contracts with Strasberg and CAP21 but maintaining the other six studios and then adding a new internal studio that will include MT training. </p>
<p>My assumption is that after your two years in Strasberg, you could do any advanced studio, including the new MT studio or for example, Playwrights which has a MT practicum. </p>
<p>The other six studios are not changing anything.</p>
<p>What is not clear to me and others at this point is why the new studio is being called “Music Theater and Acting.” Is it an actual MT curriculum, like CAP21’s (includes acting but splits the curriculum pretty darned evenly between singing, dancing and acting) or will it be acting heavy, or what? Will the current (and incoming in fall 09) kids into CAP and Strasberg going to be moved automatically into the new MT studio? If so, how does that work for kids who auditioned for straight acting and were put into Strasberg? For someone like clay, who wanted to be in CAP, that might be fine. But what if you are not an MT?</p>
<p>I have no idea but perhaps since Tisch is replacing two studios (CAP and Strasberg) with the New Broadway studio, that there is a MT component and an Acting component (I think it said "MT AND Acting)…like two different strands. </p>
<p>By the way, while Strasberg is an acting studio, it had singing and dancing required courses (just not as much as CAP does).</p>
<p>I would have to guess this is a financial move for NYU; they must believe it will be less expensive for the outside studios to slowly be eliminated and to incorporate the programs internally. They are, according to a CC thread, the most expensive Theatre/Musical Theatre school in the country so they might be looking at ways to not raise costs in the future. Perhaps contracts were up at CAP and Strasberg and maybe as other contracts expire they will cut back on them as well. Remember, colleges, especially private colleges are a business and they’ve been hit with the recession just like everyone else.</p>
<p>Change is always hard with no way to predict if it will be better or not.</p>
<p>When I visited my daughter in May she told me about Strasberg but not Cap 21. There were a lot of rumers and she begged me not to post on CC. One of the rumers about Strasberg that they felt the studio was not up to Tisch standards. I repeat this is only a rumer.</p>
<p>Wow Actressmom. That is really a disappointing statement. My daughter called today and had that exact question – Are you getting rid of Strasberg because it doesn’t meet Tisch standards? She has yet to receive a phone call back!</p>
<p>Also, I think it would have been only fair if they gave us this information before our children made their final decisions. Nice to feel like they think Strasberg is poor quality and that’s where I’m sending my kid to school. Frustrating!!</p>
<p>Please do not assume it has to do with “poor quality” as Tisch has believed in these well regarded studios for years. Nobody here knows the reason for the restructuring but I believe even the official word has involved financial reasons as being a significant aspect.</p>
<p>Please get information directly from TISCH and not rumors. :)</p>
<p>That would be good to do – get information from them. I agree. However, they haven’t returned a call today. However, I do think they should have given us this information so we could make an informed decision. I asked a direct question to one of the Tisch people “What will her third year in Strasberg be like?” And she answered it. She didn’t say, “there won’t be a 3rd year in Strasberg!”</p>
<p>I was originally planning on transferring my third year to CAP21 and then doing the Playwrights MT track. My other option was also to do a third year at Strasberg, but I guess that won’t happen now.</p>
<p>But I will be extremely upset if Tisch is terminating its contract because it thinks that the training at Strasberg is not up to Tisch standards. Because they obviously didn’t decide to terminate the contract within these couple of weeks, they must have gone through some evaluation process. And they didn’t notify prospective students about this before these students (myself included) submitted a deposit thinking that they are going to get top-notch training at Strasberg, and 4 years of guaranteed training, not just 2. </p>
<p>I really hope that they are not terminating the contract because they think that Strasberg is not good, because 58,000 dollars a year is a lot for mediocre training.</p>
<p>Don’t worry, Nobody really knows the truth. This is just hearsay. The training you will get I’m sure will be wonderful and worth every penny. I heard horrible things about every program and studio through the years. I think they just want the training at Tisch to be more even and that makes sense. I think you are lucky because you will be able to be at Tisch when it is changing for the better. Whenever someone comes to take over a program they always want to make improvements it dos’nt mean the program was lacking just they want to make it better. I am sure Tisch will let everyone know whats going on as soon as possible. Maybe they arre still working it out. They would not let the students suffer.</p>
<p>clay, no matter what studio you were placed in, when you were accepted to NYU/Tisch drama, they accepted you with the commitment to offer you FOUR YEARS OF TRAINING. That is not in question. The question is in what studio will you get that training.</p>
<p>Again, lots of questions and concerns (understandably so!) floating around. It is very easy to speculate and to extrapolate that something will “probably” happen or that “such and such is likely to happen.” The bottom line is that we do not know. It’s early days.</p>
<p>It is certainly understandable that we are all concerned. In my view, the only logical course of action is to either call or email (or both) the chair of Tisch Drama, Elizabeth Bradley, and pose our questions in a polite, respectful manner.</p>
<p>clay, I have no inside information and I understand that uncertainty and lack of specifics is disconcerting. But honestly I believe all will be more than fine for you. You WILL train for four years at Tisch. Even before this, you were considering doing a different studio for advanced studio as sooooo many students do (they don’t stick with one studio all four years). So, in the end, it may be exactly what you would have done anyway or close to it. I don’t believe that Tisch doesn’t think Strasberg is good enough as they have sent their students there for years. Maybe it is financial. Maybe they want more oversight. I can’t tell you. But if you train for two years at Strasberg as you planned, you can then do an advanced studio…the MT practicum at Playwrights (I know CAP kids who have chosen to do that too) or the new MT studio at Tisch. I don’t think your experience is going to be a lot different than it would have been and surely it will be good as Tisch is a great school and will give you a great education and great training. All of the studios are very good and you can’t lose! There are talented MT kids in every studio too who are in the musicals at Tisch, and not just the CAP students. Last year when my D was a lead in the Mainstage Musical, I believe all (or almost all) of the other leads were from studios other than CAP!</p>
<p>It’s about the cost - it’s always about the cost. These studios are very respected regardless of their NYU affiliation, it’s not a quality issue, I’m sure.</p>
<p>I agree that these studios are well regarded and have their own training programs unrelated to NYU that will continue and thrive. </p>
<p>I believe that financial issues are a significant aspect to this decision and NYU cannot control costs and what they get for those costs when it is external and perhaps things did not work out to their satisfaction financially with these studios and they chose to run their own studios in place of these. It is partly speculation but I do believe that even official notices have mentions finances.</p>
<p>I just got off the phone with Patricia Decker who has ASSURED me that they did not end their association with Strasberg because they thought the training their did not meet up to Tisch standards. She says that if that was the case, they would not be putting students there this year.
She says that the contract with Strasberg was not exactly terminated, it was expired, and both Tisch and Strasberg chose not to renew it because it was not beneficial to either.</p>
<p>She emphatically stated that the new studio will be of top notch quality. She said she had no doubt that the training their will be excellent. I was told that by creating an internal studio, Tisch has greater control over the faculty and training. In addition, she says that they will be able to better respond to students’ needs. For example, she says that if a larger than expected number of people want to transfer into the advanced program at the musical theater studio, then they will be able to add classes and teachers in order to accomodate this.
I was assured that the current students at Strasberg will not be left with no studio to go to after two years.</p>
<p>Clay, even though the details are not fleshed out, I believe every single word of what Patricia Decker said. If the quality was not up to snuff, Tisch would not be sending their students to these studios. But by having the studio internal, they have more control over costs and what they get for those costs and also can control the faculty and training more. I have NO doubt that their new studio will be every bit as good as the two studios they are replacing, if not even improved. </p>
<p>I also NEVER believed that those who are entering or currently in Strasberg or CAP would ever be left without a studio after two years. This new studio will be there for them or any of the other studios as were always there as well. But they will be offering MT in their own studio now. </p>
<p>In many ways, there may be some benefits to these new arrangements but it is just that it feels like an unknown to people and I can understand that. But Tisch has high standards and so whatever new options they create are sure to be as good as what they replace and may even have some advantages of sorts.</p>
<p>I am glad you talked to someone DIRECTLY at Tisch rather than relied on rumors.</p>