yes @40yearoldvirgin look for the many PM’s that are coming your way with wonderful suggestions on how to navigate all of this in a positive manner. Those of use who have gone through this grueling process are here to help the newbies. Paying it forward for sure…
@40yearoldvirgin, I asked because I’m a homeschooler. If you still need a program so you can graduate on time, we can probably find something. I’m glad it seems to be working out for you right now. If you do run into a problem, feel free to PM me and I’ll do what I can to help. Good luck.
@MotherOfDragons I’ll wade in here as a proud Georgia Tech Alumnus. My wife and I were both engineering students a long time ago and loved it - and I agree STEM disciplines can be very creative and beautiful, but we are also thrilled with our daughter’s theater-based liberal arts education. I see many skills being cultivated in her that may be much appreciated by corporate America, should theater ever fall by the wayside. Specifically the ability to work brutally long hours with a team to meet concrete deadlines and the the ability to write, speak, present, audition, pitch projects, and evaluate the work of others.
I think she’ll be well prepared for the market place, and do fine. No regrets here.
You have made your point several times as to your position on someone having a theater major only. Enough already. Besides, you are starting to contradict yourself. When someone said what kind of world would it be if everyone were a CS person, you then said
Exactly! Absolutely nobody said that everyone should be in theater, or that no one should be a coder. Like I said, you have made your point that you think everyone should have a back-up plan. Beating it to death is not civil discussion. Everyone gets your point, don’t make it again on this thread.
@40yearoldvirgin Pace’s BFA offer ended up being almost equal to our instate tuition for my son - they were very generous with merit aid and honors program.
If I remember correctly from a few years back, Marymount Manhattan was pretty generous with merit aid, as was Wagner College on Staten Island (a BA program) and Rider (a train ride from Manhattan in NJ). Farther away from NY, both Utah and Texas State have a way to offer their theatre kids instate tuition.
@40yearoldvirgin I as a parent totally get your dads reluctance. We all do that have kids that have been in theatre for yrs. it’s really hard for someone who DOESNT have a kid in the performing arts to put themselves in a performing arts parent shoes. Sorry but it’s a whole different ball game. No offense to those parents of STEM kids but the fact remains that your kid doesn’t get mocked in public by adults who think they are crazy for going to school for theatre. My D hears this ALL the time and it gets old fast. I do understand your dilemma with your dad as my husband & I have been back and forth so much on this it’s not even funny. We have said we will contribute X amount of dollars to college for D & she must make the choice of where to go & what to study. I was going to say NO theatre degree a few yrs ago but I thought long and hard & decided that I could not take that away from her. Call it sappy or whatever but as long as she is smart about where her money goes then we are ok with it. We are going to guide her but the choice is hers. She may fold like a deck of cards but she might have done that anyway. Some kids are just meant to do theatre and perform that is their “gift” . Some kids are meant to cure cancer and that is their “gift.” It’s hard to find the right way to use the gift you were given and some people never find it. They flounder in jobs that are not fulfilling or satisfying and are miserable. Sometimes you just have to go for it and as long as you do your research and go at it smart by looking into great aid schools & think of some things you can do to earn money in the future while you are pursuing theatre related jobs then I say you are not being irresponsible. I know tons of kids in other fields who are the laziest group of kids ever. It truly will fall back on your work ethic & tenacity. My D’s friends are typical teens of course but when they are in a show they are the hardest working group of kids ever. They stay up late for rehearsals still get great grades, do community service & have skills that you can deny but I see them and it’s impressive. If you sat in on her public speaking class and heard the theatre kids talking you would leave impressed. Theatre skills transfer over into so many aspects of life.
Where would we be without the arts folks… Someone has to pursue it!
Off soap box now…
What do you say to extraordinary students who sacrifice guaranteed bright futures for mediocre career in theater?
Well @WorryHurry411 I would say that 1) no future is guaranteed. Just recently I read an article on the pressures that these "extraordinary students (I’m assuming you mean quite brilliant at science math and tech) are placed under and many are folding under the pressure at college. They end up dropping out or even worse.
2) I don’t think theatre is a mediocre career. So we disagree there already. Do you attend any arts events? I am thinking you may not appreciate the arts.Any career is a good one if the person doing it is truly happy. You must be equating a "mediocre"career to how much money is made and that’s where we will again disagree.
I meant ones with more talent in other fields but mediocre theater talent, still feeling inclined towards theater under the influence of media.
Well unless the kid is dreadful and it’s really obvious , mediocre talent is subjective. If the kid is bring influenced by the media then yes it may be a problem that they will not have the internal drive and arts passion to accomplish anything. My D has never pursued theatre in the hopes to get famous or to chase money. She is in no way influenced by the media to go to college for theatre. Of course she would love to be on Broadway duh but she really just wants to be able to have a job doing what she loves to do. Now I will admit if I had a kid who excelled in the stem fields and they wanted a theatre degree and perhaps they were inexperienced in theatre I would set down with them and give them a hard a-- talk about it & at that point even though talent is subjective, at least make them talk to adults in the field who could give them an honest assessment of their skills & that may help them at least double major in something along with theatre. Or pursue a BA that allows wiggle room to do other subjects while still allowing theatre in their life. There are so many avenues to pursue and a lot of options . It doesn’t always have to be all or nothing .
Parents just doesn’t want kids to regret it if they have limited potential in field they like vs fields where they are a natural genius or more likely to succeed. I doubt many parents would stop a really talented actor or singer from pursuing it. Still, in the end it is about what a heart wants.
It’s an interesting and difficult topic. My S started expressing an interest in an arts major before HS. He’s also a very gifted student. I will be the first to admit I did not initially embrace his choice enthusiastically. Quite honestly, it is difficult to gauge if your own child is talented (or has enough raw talent to make a go of it). Parents are biased - who doesn’t love watching their kid perform, right? Part of our deal was having him.expand his experiences - jump into a broader pool where everyone is talented - to see 1 - if his interest waned (again, you can be a star in your hometown performances and barely make it as “tree 6” when the talent pool is deeper) and 2 - could he (and we) say objectively he could make a go of this. In the end, we concluded yes. Who knows how it will all end up. There are many, many ways to craft a successful career in the arts but nothing is a sure thing. I’m a lawyer and an accountant and have been through downsizings, corporate takeovers and company sales. No job comes with guarantees.
It’s pretty standard (I think) for program heads to tell the kids on Day 1 - “If there’s anything else you could do besides theatre - anything you are good at - please go do it.” That was true at my son’s school. In my son’s class, it took a while, but eventually 2-3 kids switched majors.
I hear that a lot, too, but really? Are all successful actors actually people who can do nothing else?
Right @Jkellynh17 ! I hate it when they say that! I know they are just doing it to get some kids off their cloud but you can do more then one thing! My D has an interest in fashion. She doesn’t want to pursue fashion as her main job but she loves it and delves into things about it . She has a fashion blog etc. she just came to me recently & said " look mom at this lady. She is a Broadway actress (name escapes me now) & she is also a fashion stylist /writer on the side. See I could do that too" perfect example of having many interests and thinking outside the box!
I don’t think they mean that actors can’t do (or be interested in) anything else. If you follow any working theater actors (even ones with success), you know that they have a lot of irons in the fire. This response originally came from the interview question, “If you couldn’t do theater/acting, what would you do?” Or, “What other field could bring you happiness?” When the interviewee can easily come up with another career field and the interviewer responds with, “Then go do that,” what the interviewer is getting at is that this is a tough field. Even when you’re not working on a show, you’re working to find a show, to network, to build your skills, etc… There isn’t downtime. You’d better love doing this or you’re not going to be able to put in the time and energy to make it a career.
Someone in a related forum here posted a question about how to become a singer/actor/dancer with no experience and talent. She said that she’s about to graduate with a degree in illustration and “chose what she liked but not what she’s passionate about, doesn’t have the skills to be hireable and is not willing to work to become hireable” as an illustrator. This is exactly the type of person that the response (to an aspiring actor to do something else) is referring to.
I live a short train ride from NYC and I know a number of kids who’ve majored in theatre performance then as soon as they graduate, they take a job in NYC in business or go to grad school for teaching. They don’t ever attempt to audition or to pursue the career that they majored in. On the one hand, this can show the naysayers on this topic that you can do almost anything with a degree in theater so they can calm down about how ‘useless’ the degree is. On the other hand, I understand not wanting to stay in the business if the opportunities aren’t coming their way after a while, but if they can give up the dream without even once trying to make the dream work, maybe they should have done something else.
A partial list of the things my S is good at: cooking, running, writing plays, making power point presentations, singing, playing trombone, math, history, weight lifting, XC skiing, fantasy football, literary criticism, politics/advocacy, public speaking, team building, carpentry, lighting, set design…oh, and acting. I don’t think that the RSC company is the dung heap of people incompetent at everything else. (That seems to be our legislature.)
I didn’t read anyone saying that it is useless, just mentioning that it is a hard field to make it, specially if you don’t have a natural talent. It’s same as telling someone that with great voice like theirs and poor math skills, trying to become an actuary is probably a lapse of judgment and needs a careful evaluation.
It can be a very satisfying profession, even if it’s not paying your bills, then you do something else to support this hobby.
If you are successful and lucky then there is huge financial gain. All parents who push their small kids into acting, singing, pageants and sports are usually trying to secure their futures, same way as parents of older kids try to push them into fields where they are more likely to have a secure future. Everybody tries to do the right thing but no one has any guarantees.
You might reassess your assumptions before you do anything else. First, consider your job prospects. 85% of union (AEA) actors are unemployed at any given time. Job prospects for actors get worse the older you get. Do you have any evidence that your abilities are such that you might reasonably or even merely possibly buck those odds? If you do, lay these out to your father (it’s a kind of practice audition or pitch session).
Second, why exactly do you want to take a theatre major in college, or go to college at all? A BA of any kind is of no help getting work as an actor. It is useful if you want to pursue an academic track, headed towards a PhD or perhaps an MFA in acting later on.
Third you can certainly audition for and perform in most campus productions regardless of your major. And most successful pro actors and directors did not concentrate on a theatre BA in college.
Fourth, even if you plan on focusing on acting within a theatre BA program, you can’t declare that major as a freshman anyway, in most colleges. Therefore you could offer your father a deal: “fund my college for two years (most universities require you to declare by the end of the sophomore year) - in those first two years I will audition for campus shows, get lead roles and do well, thereby demonstrating my talent and promise.” This might convince your father if you succeed at this. If you don’t, how in the world do you expect to make a living as a pro if you can’t beat out the amateur competition in college?
Fifth, as an alternative, audition for Juilliard’s elite BFA program. If you do get in, that is proof enough that you really might survive as a pro. Juilliard and NYU BA programs actually do attract professional attention from agents. If you are planning to attend almost any other college theatre program, not so much.
Sixth, consider possible lateral moves. Majoring in theatre could lead to a career in agenting, directing, writing, producing, theatre management, criticism, etc, especially if you turn to electronic media - television, gaming, film. The odds in these related fields are much better than theatre acting. This argument might help convince your father that this field of study makes some sense.