<p>Fortunately, we (my H and I) have enough resources to allow both of my kids the freedom to have such “first world problems.” Although we are very middle class, we have been able to provide our kids with dance classes, voice lessons, performing opportunites, etc. since they were small. We are financially stable enough to allow both of our children to even go to college, not to mention majoring in the arts. If their artistic dreams do not materialize, we also can provide somewhat of a safety net. We feel that we are helping our children prepare for a happy and successful life - no matter what occupation they end up pursuing. I realize that this is a luxury that not everyone enjoys and I thank God for these blessings every day.</p>
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<p>I know this is part of why I can’t help coming back to the elephant-in-the-corner question of what future our D is working toward in college. We have an older MT relative who will soon lose her lifelong safety net, and the prospect of that becoming D’s life is not particularly appealing to me. I remind myself that it’s not my life but, financial pragmatist that I am, it is still sometimes hard for me to watch.</p>
<p>MomCares: I went to Northwestern eons ago and many of my friends were Theater, Music or RTVF majors. And all of them are currently employed - some in their original careers, most in second careers. Only one or two theatre majors are still acting - most found another focus by the time they were 30 (screenwriting, directing, managing companies, etc.) Getting a degree (any degree, quite frankly) from a strong, well-known university opens many doors. Level-headed kids with any degree will land on their feet, IMO.</p>
<p>megpmom, I agree. I didn’t care what major my kids picked in college. They got a college degree and an education. A college degree (not to mention becoming educated) can serve one well in life.</p>
<p>@megpmom - Thanks so much for those encouraging words!</p>
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<p>That was also my experience with kids I went to a top-ranked acting conservatory with when I was younger. What feels like an exciting and edgy lifestyle when you’re in your twenties can start to get old by the time you reach your thirties… and it can seem downright scary once you hit your sixties with no safety net. </p>
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<p>I will hold that thought! ;-D</p>
<p>I think I saw something on one college website (maybe SUNY Fredonia) that lists 20 some attributes MT majors have for the general job market. Ability to meet deadlines, ability to multitask, etc. That was comforting to me when I read that.</p>
<p>The coach we’re working with has a child in MT. When her child is asked what she intends to do with her MT degree, her answer is simple: work. That’s what I expect my D to do, and we will see in five years what work she’ll be doing. Maybe she’ll act, maybe she’ll have her dream of working for Disney, maybe she’ll be a writer or director for all I know. All I do know right now is that if I ask her, there is nothing else at all that is remotely of interest to her other than performance arts, and we have had people who can be objective tell us she has the ability to get a spot in a MT program. She goes into this with her eyes wide open (and with my blessing), and given her abilities, work ethic, and intelligence I figure she’ll come out doing something constructive and meaningful. If you had asked me if I’d be doing what I’m doing now when was a junior in HS I’d have thought you were insane, so who knows what the future holds for any of our children? </p>
<p>Besides, she always has the option of marrying a rich guy (and for dads of sons, they can marry a rich girl). Right?</p>
<p>If I were to ask my high school senior daughter the question of what she intends to train for I’m 100% positive she’d give me the big “duh” and say “to perform on stage”. She is not deliberately training to be the high school drama teacher (that she knows she’d enjoy and be very lucky to have that opportunity) or anything other than to be a stage actress somewhere. If someone were to offer her a lead in a Broadway show while she was meanwhile working a steady job using her mad math skills as an accountant she would not pick the accountant job over Broadway. Not at this phase of her life for sure anyway and maybe not ever. That doesn’t mean she won’t become an accountant or a teacher or whatever it takes to make a living. She’s mindful of the likelihood that she will need to do something else but it is not what she is deliberately setting out to train for. No different than it would be had she decided to study history or literature or any other field that doesn’t have an obvious line between the study and the employment that follows it.</p>
<p>halflokum - “She is not deliberately training to be the high school drama teacher” made me laugh. One of my nephews best friends is an incredibly talented kid, one of the 3 or 4 chosen for the Graduate Degree in Directing (I forget what it is right now) at USC with Speilberg. Nicest kid also, just all around amazing. Met a woman while pursuing his grad degree, married and had two kids with her and decided that a teaching job would be better when combined with being a dad. He is now the most sought after high school drama teacher in the NY Metro area, his students not only put on amazing productions but they really “learn” theatre. On a lesser but similar scale, our high school math teacher was an actor, got married, had kids, and also decided a steady paycheck with benefits would be best for his family and lifestyle. (Although you can see why it was tough for him to make it as an actor as his organizational skills are lacking so from a business perspective, acting would be tough for him.) Two examples from two ends of the spectrum.</p>
<p>@amtc. My daughter already has it planned out in her head that her high school will finally get a much needed new theater building and then will expand the theater department and want her to come back and teach… sometime after she graduates from college and that she’d get to teach along side her very much admired current drama teacher who is exceptional. She’d love it and be thrilled with the opportunity. BUT it is not what she is setting out to train for. She is training to be that one in a thousand (10 thousand) who makes it as an actress and if she does make it really big, she can donate the funds for the new theatre at her high school and they can name it after her :)</p>
<p>Phase of life can change one’s focus. Perhaps down the road the focus of my MT daughter’s training will indeed be to be a high school drama teacher but I’d be kidding myself if I said that is what she is really training for now.</p>
<p>My D plans to be the chair of a college theatre program “eventually.” Watch out kjgc! Until then, the future is wide open.</p>
<p>jeffandann, I think this is what you are referring to: [Skills</a> of a Theatre Major | SUNY Fredonia](<a href=“http://www.fredonia.edu/department/theatredance/jobs.asp]Skills”>http://www.fredonia.edu/department/theatredance/jobs.asp) </p>
<p>Beautiful quotes, soozievt! </p>
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<p>This is such an interesting thread to read and think on! Answering your call, MomCares, heres my point of view:</p>
<p>Just to give some background, Im a Canadian female rising senior. Right now, Im in the process of finalizing my school list and gearing up for the whirlwind year ahead. Its been quite the endeavour for me, considering I have some very specific criteria to keep in mind. Ive wanted to get a MT degree in the States since freshman year because I knew I wanted a MT education that I couldnt get here at home. There are two programs in Canada that offer degrees in Musical Theatre, and neither, while fantastic programs in their own right, cater to what I want from university. I know that I want strong conservatory-style training. Despite that, I dont want to be at a conservatory. I want a challenging liberal arts education as well. Those are my two most important criteria. There are other things that Im taking into consideration, too: Can I combine MT with arts administration at all? Can I have the full, stereotypical college experience Ive always craved? Can I become involved in Greek life? Depending on the school, some of those criteria have had to fall by the wayside (especially when the difficulties of financing a US education as an international student comes into play), but Im working on evaluating each school individually, and what it can offer me even if it isnt perfect. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, it isnt my goal to go to a university that can send me to Broadway right after graduation. One of the things I keep in mind the most when Im thinking about university is something that I was taught in my sophomore year Careers class (a class required for all Ontario students in 10th grade). While investigating different pathways that we could take in higher education (i.e university versus a trade school), my teacher really stressed that the purpose of university was to educate the intellect. Ultimately, I want to matriculate a well-rounded artist. To me, that means having a variety of experiences, both inside and outside the spectrum of performing arts.</p>
<p>When I decided I wanted to pursue a MT degree all the way back in freshman year, being a working actor, period, was the prize I had my eyes on. However, over the past few years Ive been lucky to have a couple of really eye-opening experiences which showed me that theres so much more I have to put on my artists bucket list, as it were. My desires in theatre are now more multi-faceted than these are the roles I have to play before I die. I definitely want to work in youth theatre, whether be it in a stand-alone organization or at a school. I definitely want to music direct. I definitely want to write my own works (both my parents are journalists writing is in my blood!). Most of all, I definitely want to do everything I can to give Canadians a bigger presence on the international theatre scene, be it in terms of the performance opportunities that are available to us or the education we can receive. As I said before, the reason why I want to go to the States for my undergrad is because I cant get the education I want here at home. I dont want that to be the case for future youth. I want to establish/chair a true well-rounded MT degree program in Canada (again, no offense meant to Sheridan and Dalhousie). Some of these goals are loftier than others. Some of these goals may be as impossible as booking a Broadway show. The point here is that much like SoozieVTs daughter, I dont plan to wait around to be cast. Im not happy if Im not busy, so if I have to make my own work, so be it!</p>
<p>@CanadianMTGirl – I am swooning… your post just made my day!!</p>
<p>CONGRATULATIONS on having such a well-thought-out vision of your future. Make it so!!</p>
<p>CanadianMTGirl…I am also impressed by your goals and they are well articulated. Love it. </p>
<p>One reason my D wrote a musical, her first musical, senior year of college, was to not only create a new work, but to create a musical she could be in as a performer. In subsequent productions, she has played one of the leads and so it also provided a performance opportunity for herself. So, yes, believe in creating your own work. She does that with being a singer/songwriter too and getting her own gigs and putting out her own album and so on. </p>
<p>Another thing…I really like how you are thinking ahead of possibilities and setting goals for yourself. This is something my MT daughter has always done. At the start of every calendar year, she writes out a long list of goals for the year (most are related to her career). Then, month by month and week by week, she breaks these goals down. At the end of the year, she assesses how she reached her goals or not and usually she has come very close on most of them. You seem like a go getter who is driven, motivated, and is also an initiator and these are traits that will take you far! I’ll enjoy reading your journey here next year.</p>
<p>THis is a great thread. Of course, not all young people are as focused, practical and driven as soozievt’s D obviously is. My own children are not, at least now, and I do worry about my own children in that way. Three of them are quite talented, but they are also impractical dreamer types, at least at this point. I would like them to create their own work, but when they do, at this point, they create edgy work that is far less likely to be published or performed (my S wrote a fabulous play with “f—” every other word it seems! It was a great play, but he submitted it for a high school contest…). </p>
<p>My S has been blessed to have worked with many B’way actors, several in their 50s and 60s and still working on B’way & top regionals. If you ask them for advice, they uniformly say “Don’t go into acting!” Somewhat sobering and depressing. Nevertheless, I believe that, at least at this age, young people should throw themselves into something they <em>love</em>, that they want to do no matter what, even if no one was in the audience or listening. I think you should pursue your dreams when young, because ‘what if’ are about the saddest two words in the ENglish language. </p>
<p>I don’t believe you can plan out your life. I think you can prepare yourself and seize the moment, and have the attitude of pushing and achieving and creating–but things do happen. You have to be flexible. Many actors advise my kids to major in ‘something practical, like medicine’ (seriously!). And I was lurching back and forth about that advice, because I too am an artist and in retrospect would have had a far easier time of it as a part time doctor, say. But what is the right path? Who can tell? For my own kids, I think they <em>need</em> to throw themselves into theatre or theatre-related work (music), at least at the moment. </p>
<p>I think for my own kids - and they are the ones in charge of the path, of course - I envision things in sort of 10 year chunks. For the next 10 years, I envision them as pursuing the acting &/or singing. Not necessarily in NYC; probably not, actually. </p>
<p>Then I sort of envision a reassessment: is this working? They can always go back to school for a professional degree, eg medicine, law, business. That’s the beauty of the college degree (BFA or BA). One of the actors my S worked in just retired from acting at about 35, even though she was supporting herself with regular professional work (lead roles). She has several children, and is now teaching acting at a great school, and is very happy–this is her next phase. I often think of ‘to everything there is a season.’ So I guess I envision the first ‘season’ only, and then will wait to reassess the second ‘season’ sometime later.</p>
<p>Agreed that you cannot plan out your life, particularly as a young adult! Most people’s lives take twists and turns. Surely mine has. Even in my career life, I have worked in different facets but always in the same field. I do see this as the case with my MT daughter for a long while because the performing arts are integral to her identity…in her blood, if you will…and so I envision her career taking many twists and turns and she may work in many different facets of the arts, but I do think she will always have a life in the arts in some capacity. My field is education and I have changed what I am doing a few times in significant ways but have always been in this general field. Her passion runs far deeper in terms of her identity though and that’s why I am pretty convinced she’ll be doing SOMETHING in the field in some way for years to come but it may involve various paths and areas. Also, things develop over time and often one thing can lead to another in ways you cannot always predict.</p>
<p>By the way, my MT kid’s goals are in one year increments!</p>
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<p>What… my kids’ are often in one SHOW increments?!! ;-D</p>
<p>^^^Yeah, but now my kid is a working girl and she has to structure her life because there is no school structure to it any more! ;)</p>
<p>"Level-headed kids with any degree will land on their feet, IMO. "</p>
<p>I third that.</p>
<p>Someone recently mentioned on another thread that Broadway can absorb at most 20 kids from each years’ graduating MT classes, and it reminded me of this thread.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about that statistic-- if it has any basis in truth, whether it refers to the first year after graduation (I doubt that 20 newly-graduated MTs see Broadway during their first year out) or what – but it made me curious.</p>
<p>For those with kids who have been out of MT programs for at least a couple of years, how many kids do you know who graduated the same year as your child (from ANY MT program) who have spent any time employed on Broadway since graduation? It would also be interesting to hear how many (if any) of those have been steadily employed on Broadway or at comparable jobs (Equity National tours, etc.) since graduation.</p>
<p>Again, I’m only interested in kids who graduated the SAME year, but from any MT programs, and would not count Broadway experience prior to college.</p>
<p>I’m curious to see what is the largest number of graduates who have worked on Broadway from a single graduating year that we can come up with.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that this question in NO way implies that working on Broadway is the only or best measure of an MT’s success, which I certainly don’t believe. I’m just curious to see how close to true the original premise seems based on empirical evidence.</p>
<p>Also - does anyone have any recent statistics about how many kids are currently graduating from college MT programs each year?</p>