<p>CCM also has student created and directed shows. As an example, look up CCM Starcrossed and Songs of Andre Catrini on Youtube. The MT students all have to choreograph for senior dance class as well. The Freshman Showcase every year is created almost exclusively (with some oversight by faculty) by the freshman class from conception to vocal arrangements to choreography.</p>
<p>It sounds like many schools have lots of options for student directed and student created work! So interesting! It’s cool learning about all the schools!</p>
<p>My D’s school has many student directed and student created works. After taking the first required directing class many student choose to take more. She is taking playwriting this semester and loves it. One of the current students won the Region V Festival and her original work is being submitted for the Kennedy Center Theatre Festival. </p>
<p>It sounds like student creativity is blossoming all over. That excites me for the future of theater. I wonder if this kind of thing happens as much at schools that have stringent cut policies. At festivals like Playground, it seems the students learn as much from what does not work as from what does. They need the freedom to fail. It is also one reason I liked CMU’s policy of students waiting until junior year to perform in official school productions. Although many don’t like that idea, it gives students more time to collaborate and experiment in a non-competitive environment.</p>
<p>Nebraska Wesleyan does 40 shows a year, about half of which are student directed and/or written.</p>
<p>Lots of interesting discussion on this thread. I’m just catching up having been away. </p>
<p>Commenting on a couple of recent subtopics…</p>
<p>Student-run productions…I think are a critical part of any theater program. Some colleges do more of this than others. My kid went to NYU/Tisch and there were a lot of student run productions there. She has performed in some there, as well as been musical director of some. </p>
<p>Creating new work…This was also big for my kid at Tisch when she switched for her final 3 semesters to Experimental Theater Wing (ETW) studio. There is a lot of that going on in that studio by individuals and groups. She was in a group production where they created the show under Moises Kaufman. As well, there is an option to do an “Independent Project” in one’s senior year and this was one thing that drew my daughter to transfer into that studio for the final part of her training. She wanted to try creating her own musical (and starred in it) and she did during her senior year. That one musical has led to SO much since then. That musical was selected for various things in the professional world and has had an Equity production in NYC. But one thing led to another, and while my daughter never intended to write any more musicals after college, she has been commissioned to write a few by professional theaters. One of the shows she is creating for a NYC theater, will include a role for herself. She believes in not waiting for work to come to her but in creating work for herself (and others too). She also has been selected and has attended at least 5 well known writing/composing/artist retreats to work on these. She really got her start on this at college though! It is now one facet of her career. I would say that my D thinks of herself as a creator and I recall that even being a theme in some of her college application essays. She also has a career as a singer/songwriter and has been going pretty far with it lately professionally. Whether or not she is cast in a show (though she has been cast consistently in theater for some time), she has numerous performance opportunities as a singer/songwriter, and so is not relying on the audition process to get to perform. She creates to perform. </p>
<p>Collaboration…someone mentioned in a previous post about the importance of collaboration. I will mention just two things there. One is that at my D’s school (Tisch), there were many students studying and going into all aspects of theater and the arts and so a lot of relationships and networking happened just among the peer group and to this day, collaboration exists between friends who have skills in different areas. My D gets her friends work and they get her work sometimes. The other thing I will mention is that in the past year, my D was asked to give a TedX talk and her talk was precisely about why artistic communities are crucial to creativity. After she graduated from college, she started a monthly event at her own apartment that has been sustained now for almost 5 years, called Song Forum, where any songwriters/musicians in NYC (or passing through) can come and share their new songs among others. They share, listen, test out their new creations, get feedback, etc. And a LOT of networking takes place just in this collaborative sharing forum that transfers into paid work. </p>
<p>I realize this is not for everyone and some kids just want to audition and be cast in shows both in college and in their careers. My daughter has been out of college for almost 5 years and has supported herself solely in theater and music. But she doesn’t audition for shows that much. She is in them (the past 9 months in an Off Broadway musical and currently rehearsing a premiere for a well known Tony award winning regional theater), but her career is not depending on being cast. She writes/composes musicals when commissioned to do them (never on speculation) and is a singer/songwriter. She has also been a musical director, teacher, coach, accompanist…for youth, BFA programs, and in the professional world. She had opportunities to do ALL of these things while in college at Tisch. These varied skill sets got developed there. Even being in her a cappella group at college has paid off in her professional work. For example, for her college a cappella group, she was the musical director and wrote many of their arrangements. Her current professional show in which she is a singer in a theater production, she also is hired as the musical director and is paid for both positions. Tisch surely is not the only school that offers these sorts of opportunities for their theater students, but I think some schools do it more than others. I can just say that it has paid off and continues post college…the creative process, new works, collaboration, etc. </p>
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Your D is, as so many of us have said over the years, inspirational, and this monthly networking event is a particular example I hadn’t heard about before. She rocks!!
I’m guessing LOTS of kids just want to audition and be cast, until they later realize that it’s not working out for them as planned. I think truly GREAT schools prepare kids to do things they don’t yet know that they will need to know how to do.</p>
<p>I was just having a discussion with a friend, who reminded me that some schools who are “Tops” on the list of landing kids on Broadway quickly sometimes tailor incoming classes to very specific upcoming needs that agents have expressed to them. This might mean that in a particular year your Type is not in demand, so you will have virtually NO chance of being admitted to that particular program that year.</p>
<p>I personally applaud programs who train less-traditional types of actors, as they may place fewer beautiful triple threats on Broadway, but may be more likely to produce truly unique performers/stars/creators and the world needs both.</p>
<p>You can’t live backwards but soozieVT’s story is a great example of why I wish my daughter played the piano better than she does. If only I had known then what I know now but I thought I was raising a math major. Sigh…</p>
<p>Include Michigan’s Basement Arts student-run program among those that offer opportunities for kids to try different roles & experiment.</p>
<p>Momcares:
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<p>Her TedX Talk video is not yet online (out of her control), but you can read the text of it on her website if you go to the “news” page and scroll back to her entry in June, 2013. </p>
<p>Back to the thread now.</p>
<p>Halflokum:
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<p>Both my kids grew up taking lessons for years and years on two instruments each (actually my MT kid learned to play 3) and were in band and jazz band. But it was never with any thought to their careers at all. But looking back on it, I can’t begin to tell you how beneficial it has been to my theater kid’s career that she is so competent on piano and knows music so well. I find it even hard to believe she is paid to compose/write musicals when she went to college to study musical theater performance and never studied music composition. I must thank our piano teacher and update her on how things have turned out. Speaking of math, my MT kid was an excellent math student (AP Calculus starting at age 15) but never did a thing with math and has NO interest in it. So, it is not like you can know all this ahead of time. </p>
<p>@soozievt, yes you can’t know ahead of time. There are only so many hours in the day and well, we pick our poison or it sort of picks us. My kids did not take music lessons until voice lessons started and do not play any instruments. There were no bands in their respective schools until high school and even then, they were not a big deal like they are in many high schools. My kids were (are in the case of my son) year-round competitive swimmers. Not a line item on the MT daughter’s resume that will help her future much but she loved it and wishes she had the time to swim for NYU but of course does not. </p>
<p>Anyway, if I knew then what I know now, she would have been taking piano starting when she was little. I’ll throw ballet in there as well since that didn’t happen either. But at the same time, the other paths that she did take made her who she is. So I guess I didn’t screw up that badly after all. </p>