<p>My son is a lighting design major accepted to several theatre conservatories. Webster and University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) are his favorites. Any advice about which to choose? And any thoughts on the program at SUNY Purchase? Techies, please share your thoughts/experience.</p>
<p>Go onto the websites and look at the faculty. I would say SUNY has a more connected faculty due to it being close to New York City. David Grill the head of the program lights the Super Bowl every year.</p>
<p>I personally love UNCSA, the people and the way the students work for something they love it very empowering. I’ll be attending next year for Costume Technology :). It has very up to-date lighting board as well as old ones that create a realistic approach to where ever the student may work.</p>
<p>It’s always good to take a tour and visit the website or even call :)</p>
<p>UNCSA and SUNY Purchase are conservatory programs - I don’t think Webster is. I think that would make it hard to compare Webster to the others.</p>
<p>UNCSA has a strong program and the students are connected to many different programs - there are many that have gotten excellent summer placements and incredible experience.</p>
<p>Our son is graduating from the lighting technology program soon. His internships have included Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico, Cirque du Soleil in Vegas and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford upon Avon. Aside from the shows at UNCSA he also works union jobs. He has gained an amazing amount of experience during his 4 years at the school.</p>
<p>He looked at SUNY and didn’t think it was a good match. He applied and was accepted (we wanted him to apply) but didn’t choose it. He really wanted a conservatory BFA program so it came down to UNCSA and CCM for him.</p>
<p>When it comes to UNCSA, we are a beta testing site for ETC. I’m pretty sure that we get all of the new consoles from ETC. At USITT this year, there were multiple students who were ETC representatives at the ETC booth on the showroom floor. We have also started a partnership with Cirque du Soleil. They give a weekend long workshop for all majors within D&P, some being about the new technology that is being employed at Cirque, and others about what they are actually doing at Cirque. Within lighting, I know that they have learned about moving lights. Also, during our intensive arts period, the lighting students work together in teams for the “Moving Light Project”. They all seem to really enjoy this project, because they are able to use moving lights that we do not usually have access to, as well as some other lighting technology that isn’t usually used at school.
Every year the 4th year lighting designers, with the help of the 4th year electricians, participate in the “Winston Salem Light Project,” which occurs downtown. If you go to lightproject.org, you can read more about what it is all about.
If your son has any interest in electrics, our electrics teacher is currently the head electrician on Wicked. He has also been on Beauty and the Beast and AIDA, as well as many others. He is really knowledgeable about problems that occur on tour, and is more than willing to share his experiences and expects us to learn from them.
The lighting design teacher also has a great deal of design experience, about 3 full size book selves worth of work that he has done in the past. Although not something that i commonly done today, Norman require all 3rd year designers to hand draft their light plots in order to try to keep designers from making too many decisions and changing them frequently.<br>
Let me know if you have any questions.</p>
<p>Btw Webster is a conservatory program.</p>