<p>Keep in mind, those are just “distinguished” alumni on the Tisch pdf. And on the CAP21 list, it is just alum with Broadway credits. There are lots and lots more working actors coming out of Tisch in both acting and MT who work Off Broadway and in regional theaters and TV and film and in the music industry. Add in those who trained as actors and MT singers, who work in other capacities such as the music industry (popular music), producing, writing, composing, casting, teaching, choreographing, etc. Just in my own kids’ friendship circle of recent grads, many grads are working in more than one capacity simultaneously…they are successfully acting on stage and also directing shows, for example, or acting in shows, singing in clubs and composing musicals, or acting in shows and teaching theater to children, and a zillion other combinations of working in various facets of the theater world.</p>
<p>Clay, I stand corrected! Susan, I don’t know Jesse well but I did meet him in the late 90’s during his time in Rent through a mutual friend who was in the show with him. I recall him talking about doing MFA studies at that time at Tisch, in addition to working. Perhaps he never finished since his career took off! 
He never mentioned undergrad in the discussion so I never knew that he’d done his undergrad there as well.</p>
<p>alwaysamom, I just shared what came up in some online research (though claydavis heard the skinny from Jesse L. Martin himself) and maybe after getting his BFA at Tisch, he studied, but didn’t graduate, from the MFA program? Don’t know. </p>
<p>Anyway, this is just my opinion, but I observe that many prospective students/parents on CC tend to want to hear about graduates from various programs who went onto Broadway. For example, I have read so many posts online about OCU touting two alum, Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O’Hara, and of course these programs should be proud of such distinguished alumni. But I am not sure how helpful that is to prospective students because it is just a couple of names (in the case of some programs) over many years’ time and just who made it on Broadway. The vast majority of graduates won’t be on Broadway. But many will go on to have successful careers in theater (and of course, many will not). In my opinion, I’d want to hear what recent grads were doing in their careers, and not just who obtained Broadway credits. My kid graduated two years ago and while she has several friends who already have been cast on Broadway, she has sooooooooooo many more who are working in theater and MT outside of Broadway. Even my own D’s goal is not “I have to be on Broadway” (not that she’d not be happy to be on Broadway), but rather wants to have a career in musical theater and anything related. So far, she is doing that and supporting herself in NYC. I have no idea what is yet to come as she is only 22. </p>
<p>I think it might be MORE helpful if those who are looking to go to college for a MT degree, that they garner stories of what recent grads are doing for work, and not just who is on Broadway. I have been watching my D’s peers’ careers unfold and many are working in the field…actually, I think every single friend of hers is working in theater right now in some way. I don’t want to list what another friend is doing. If anyone is interested in one example from a recent grad (class of 2009), I will share, but am leaving out specific theater or organizational names and such on purpose…</p>
<p>IT WOULD BE GREAT IF OTHERS ADDED TO THIS IN TERMS OF WHAT THEIR RECENT GRADS HAVE BEEN DOING…</p>
<p>NYU/Tisch MT grad, class of 2009: (since graduating)</p>
<p>-national tour of a musical
-obtained Equity card
-obtained talent agent
-obtained theater literary agent
-musically directed an original musical put on at Madison Square Garden and Abu Dhabi
-performs (and writes for) weekly in a musical comedic cabaret group in NYC
-accompanist for weekend pre-college MT program’s Vocal Performance classes (within a college)
-accompanist for BFA in MT program Song Performance classes
-musical director for faculty directed musical at a BFA program
-musical director for an original musical with HS students in NYC, created/directed by Tony nominated playwright/director/composer
-performed in a music festival in Germany…the work of a jazz composer
-recording EP of original songs to be released shortly
-actor/singer in several MT readings, workshops, concerts, showcases in NYC
-performed in numerous concerts/showcases in NYC in well known venues, both others’ works, along with own original material
-own gigs in many clubs in NYC of original singer/songwriter material (upcoming, a well known venue is producing her concert where her EP will be released)
-upcoming concert featuring her and a well known emerging MT composer’s works
-own original musical selected for workshop at an institute, then produced by a theater in NYC, as well as featured in a festival…also played lead role in the NYC production
-commissioned by well known theater to write a new musical
-finalist for a national MT award for MT composers/writers/lyricists
-national award for a recent grad from a college majoring in theater
-accompanist for children’s MT and pop music classes
-accompanist for underprivileged children’s choral programs
-accompanist for shows put on for youth and school groups by an educational theater company
-coaching MT performers privately
-recording on others’ MT albums
-performing in new play with music in NYC (upcoming)
-auditioning for musicals
-writing spec songs by request for producers</p>
<p>Hopefully, this gives a picture of a young grad and it is not all about being cast in the next show. Actually, my D has auditioned very little because she is constantly booked doing various jobs and shows. She has many things going on at once. They all have to do with theater and music. This is true of many of her fellow friends and recent graduates. While she was busy when attending a BFA program, her life has been just as busy and chockfull since graduation day. Her life is not centered on hopes to being cast on Broadway, but rather to have a life in the world of theater and MT. She pursues more than one thing and enjoys them all. She is interested in performing in musicals, but also in singer/songwriter genres, as well as composing musicals. By not focusing on just one thing, the chances of continual work in the theater world are greater, not to mention the enjoyment and fulfillment of working in various aspects of the field. If Broadway ever comes calling, that would be really awesome, but that is not the central goal as an actor/singer. </p>
<p>I meet many prospective MT college students who define their goal as to “be on Broadway.” I can’t blame anyone for reaching high and to have dreams. That makes sense. But I would hope that a prospective college student’s goals are realistically defined such as to “become a working professional actor,” and that they would be interested in hearing about recent grads from MT programs, and not just the famous graduates who got to Broadway…because the chances are that they are going to fall into the group that doesn’t make it to Broadway and if they are lucky, they will at least be in the group of working actors!</p>
<p>In the Playwrights Horizons studio at Tisch, first semester in the weekly “salon” guests who are working artists in the city come in to talk to the students and answer their questions. This helps them see the reality of a performing life, and not just the supposed glamour of getting in a Broadway show. There is more to life than Broadway, and frankly, as artists, I’ll bet there’s plenty of actors who feel more fulfilled working in small, off-beat venues than in the better known commercial world…</p>
<p>Soozie, I’d like to hear about people who are working not on Broadway too.</p>
<p>As my D is not going to Tisch, I’d like to hear about kids who are working in the industry who didn’t go there also. 
Had she auditioned and been accepted we could never have afforded it anyway; the odds of her having gotten enough aid to make it feasible are pretty unrealistic. So we have to hope that the option we are going with - which has an excellent regional reputation but can’t compare to someplace famous like Tisch - won’t be a detriment.</p>
<p>Tisch, and schools of that caliber and cost, just weren’t an option. So we have to make the best of what we did get. She will be, it looks like, graduating with no loans. Yes! And - with a fantastic overal Liberal Arts education, and at the school that will be probably officially decided this afternoon, she will have Equity points if she wants to go that route, as it is an Equity program. And there’s just a lot of reasons I feel good about the school. But - no, it does not have a list as long as my arm of impressive alumni, like Tisch - how much should that bother us?</p>
<p>SDF=My favorite example of someone who didn’t go to Tisch or another super famous school but did very well for herself: Sierra Boggess (Ariel, Christine Daae). She went to Millikin. BFA/MT.</p>
<p>snapdragonfly, you do not have to go to a well known school at all to succeed in a career in theater or any other field for that matter. I truly believe the person is what matters and not the school where he/she attended. It is true that at certain schools you might more easily be able to network down the line and so there is that plus but that is not make or break. To me, picking a school isn’t about which school might lead you to success, but rather which school is a good fit for one’s college years. Your D has found a good fit. That is what matters for now. By the way, my D is not paying back loans. She got a significant scholarship to Tisch and we are paying for it, grandparents helped, and we (as parents) have loans we’ll be paying off for ten years (for two kids). I would not want to saddle my kid with loans. But no, we could not afford to pay outright for NYU either, even though my kid’s price tag was a lot less than the published one. </p>
<p>When my kids chose colleges, they never looked at graduates and who was famous or any of that. They had ideas of what they wanted in a college and chose the college that fit them the best (luckily had plenty of acceptances and had a choice). In this regard, NYU/Tisch fit my kid the best but I, nor she, believes it is the best school. My kids never got into college rankings or the prestige factor. A few days ago, my other D turned down a grad school acceptance to Stanford with a very large scholarship in fact. Granted, she has chosen another top program for her field but she picked solely based on fit and compared each school with her own personal selection criteria. </p>
<p>What happens in the theater industry (for actors) is mostly in the audition room. And of course, being seen by others and networking and so on. If your D moves to NYC one day, she will need to establish networks. One thing can lead to another (not to mention plenty of luck helps). My D had a head start in NYC as she attended college there for four years. So many opportunities have landed in her lap through networking and others seeing her work in NYC and making offers. Two great things my D really wanted happened to her today (unrelated) and both involved people seeing her work and networking. And so, that can happen coming from any college. It was a little easier from a big school that is located in NYC, but that is not crucial by ANY means. It will take hard work, talent, luck, drive, networking, and so on. Anyone can achieve success no matter which school they attended. The name of your school won’t be your ticket. Picking a college is about what you want for your own college experience. It is not about picking the “best” college, but the one that is best for you. Work hard, set goals, and so on. You can make it coming from anywhere. I firmly believe this to be true. </p>
<p>My point in my earlier post is for college applicants to not focus so much on a school’s famous alumni or who or how many got to Broadway. If interested in what alum are doing, find out what sorts of jobs they have after graduation. But pick the college mostly due to fit for what you want for those four years. Also, establish short and long term goals. Broaden your goals beyond “I want to be on Broadway.” Reach high of course, but understand reality. Success in theater and music is defined by many as much broader than being on Broadway, which few will ever achieve, including very talented people.</p>
<p>Lastly, develop more than one skill or talent. Yes, you can audition a lot for work on stage and wait tables or some other unrelated survival job. But if you work in several areas of performing arts, there is a good chance that ALL of your work will be in that field. My own kid is pursuing work as a MT actor, a singer/songwriter (non-MT genre), and as a musical theater writer/composer/lyricist and today something positive happened for her in two of those areas and recently something happened to move her career further in the third area. ALL of her work since graduation day is in this field. So, that is a suggestion I have.</p>
<p>Wonderful response, soozie- thank you!</p>
<p>MY impression is that Soozie was listing so many names in reaction to alot of sniping that seems to go on by people about Tisch, based principally from people who have not attended the school, and a perception that the MFA students are the successful graduates. I don’t think she had any intention of trying to say that someone has to come from a school like that to succeed as an actor.</p>
<p>I only posted the list from Tisch BFA because classicalbk asked about recent MT grads who were working. As so many are working in the field and it is a big school, I limited it to just MT (not acting or any other aspect of theater) and just Broadway and tours and not Off Broadway, regional theater, etc. I was just trying to give information that was asked and to show that there are many who are working on Broadway and the like who went to Tisch, since perhaps the question was from being unsure if this was so. </p>
<p>I don’t think Tisch touts famous grads constantly in their description of their programs. I actually prefer that approach. As I wrote previously, I’ve seen a MT program that seems to tout like two famous grads over and over again in all the literature and on every message board on the internet and I’m not sure how meaningful it is for a prospective student to know of a famous grad or two that went to that college. That would not influence my kid in where to attend. I’d be more interested in the work of recent grads and what many are doing in the field, not just the famous ones. My kid didn’t go to college to become famous anyway. </p>
<p>But, SDonCC, you are right about your point in post #49, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time when I posted (was just answering the question)…but I often hear put downs of Tisch and the quality of the program and that their grads are not well regarded or something along those lines (read this on internet discussion forums) and that just the MFA grads are successful, etc. and that is soooooo not the case. As I said, my D’s friends/peers who are recent grads of Tisch are doing well in the field so far. Most are working professionally (can only speak for her particular friends), and a few have gone to Broadway too. We are very pleased with how things are going for our D so far and that she has supported herself from graduation day in NYC, all with work in theater and music, and is loving it. Some new and exciting opportunities have come along and I have no idea how things will go down the line. Too soon to tell as she is only 22 and hopefully she will have more positive experiences and successes. I just would hate for prospective students to only want to k now about famous grads and who went to Broadway as that is not the norm from any college program for the majority and it is more fruitful, in my opinion, to learn what grads are doing.</p>
<p>See, I didn’t know there were put downs of Tisch. I was under the impression it was a solid and well regarded program. So now that makes sense.</p>
<p>^^Well, Tisch IS a solid and well regarded program! 
But ya know, people sometimes like to put down such schools. For example, if you read some other forums on CC, some like to put down the Ivy League too. Example: I’ve read comments on CC that they would never want to go to an Ivy League school because the kids are rich and pretentious. Well, my own kid went to an Ivy League school and she was on financial aid (not rich) and she is the most opposite of pretentious as you can get, and so were many of her peers there.</p>
<p>Like SDonCC, I have seen people who have NO first hand experience with NYU or Tisch who say things about it with no basis…even some false facts…I had a student visit another BFA in MT program and reps of the school told her things about Tisch that were factually very incorrect! </p>
<p>I just read a post on another theater forum where someone who said they had NO experience at Tisch, but commented that Tisch’s MT program is now at New Studio on Broadway and no longer at CAP21 and that NSB couldn’t possibly be as good as CAP21. Um, based on what? Just total speculation! I see this a lot…off the cuff comments with no knowledge at all. I don’t care if some dislike Tisch but I’d rather someone comment that they don’t like X or Y about it for themselves (not put down the school for someone else) and actually have some accurate and first hand information as a basis. I’d say that about any school.</p>
<p>Shoot. If my D had had the stats to be in an Ivy League school you bet we’d have figured out a way to deal with “pretension” lol.</p>
<p>~Actually the IL’s are like other schools in the regard that they are all unique schools with their own vibe and some are a better fit than others. I don’t think my D would especially like Princeton but she would have ADORED Dartmouth and I know she’d have fit in quite well there.</p>
<p>But then the whole get into an MT thing happened…the one thing that’s probably harder to get into than an Ivy League, a capped MT BFA program. You can’t say she doesn’t set her sights high. har dee har. </p>
<p>~there are some schools that do have a lot more kids from certain socioeconomic strata than others, but, you have to take all of that into context, and also it doesn’t mean the program isn’t any good. I can think of three schools we didn’t look very closely at because the personality really didn’t seem to fit my D that well. If she weren’t into theater and weren’t at Dartmouth she’d be really at home at someplace like Oberlin…not so much a more conservative place like say SMU. But I would never tell anyone SMU wasn’t a fantastic school, or say that about any school that truly was a great school just on account of personal fit for my D, because the facts just don’t bear it out.</p>
<p>My kids also never put down other schools but simply felt certain ones were not for them. For example, my MT kid applied to many so called “top” programs but chose not to apply to CCM. CCM is a fantastic MT program and has a well deserved fine reputation but did not appeal to my D. My other D (for undergrad) was accepted to University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, and when she was narrowing down her favorites to revisit that spring of senior year in HS, she eliminated Penn and put Tufts and Smith before Penn as she preferred them over Penn. She did land at Brown, however, which is in the Ivy League but not because it was an Ivy League school but because she felt it fit her best. She would not have even applied to Dartmouth as it did not meet her selection criteria…for example, she wanted to be near a city and Dartmouth is just like where she grew up in rural VT; she wanted to ski race in college and Dartmouth only has the tippy top ski racers as it is one of the best ski teams in the country, and it didn’t have her major. Dartmouth is a fabulous school, however. </p>
<p>What I find a real turn off is when I run into kids who put down other schools. When D visited a very highly regarded BFA in MT program back in HS, one she liked very much, one thing that happened there that happened no place else, was that the students (she met many students and attended parties with them as she knew some current students there), when they heard she was also applying to NYU/Tisch, put down Tisch a lot and kept telling her to not apply there. I can’t imagine my kids thinking that way, let alone telling another prospective student such a thing. They might not find a school to match themselves real well but have nothing against the school for someone else.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s all my fault! I was having trouble finding recent NYU alum who were singing and dancing (apparently because I was looking in all the wrong places) and SoozieVt helped me out, bless her. End of story.</p>
<p>I’m glad you asked since other Bdway performers and other schools were being listed. And it was hard to find on Tisch or CAP21’s sites!! I just found them myself. At first, I was just listing people I knew off the top of my head and my daughter’s friends and then discovered lots more. And there’s lots more than I listed if you count things other than musicals or Broadway! It certainly isn’t a prominent aspect of their website! But maybe that’s not what they wish to emphasize! It’s all been interesting in any case! :)</p>
<p>Currently on Broadway from IU:</p>
<p>Colin Donnell, BA '05 is in Anything Goes; </p>
<p>Nicole Parker, BA '02 is in People in the Picture; </p>
<p>Elizabeth Stanley, BS '01 is in Million Dollar Quartet; </p>
<p>Arian Moayed, BA '02 is in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo; </p>
<p>Rebecca Faulkenberry, BA '06 is in Rock of Ages; </p>
<p>Happy Anderson, MFA '02 is in Merchant of Venice</p>
<p>As folks look through this thread, keep in mind that many of the posts are only folks who are CURRENTLY on Broadway, while other lists include performances spanning 5-10 years.</p>
<p>I completely agree that measuring the quality of a program by the number of graduates on Broadway at any given time is iffy, but it’s an interesting snapshot. As with any educational experience, what one really wishes one could measure is PROGRESS from start to finish. Since some programs start out with only the cream-of-the-crop walking in as freshmen, and from what I’ve seen many of these kids will get to Broadway with or without college training (many already have), it is especially unfair to judge program quality strictly by how many graduates get to Broadway. As we all know there’s plenty of up-front cherry picking skewing the outcome for the top programs. And some programs graduate 15 MT kids while others graduate 200. </p>
<p>Ah well, I suppose folks picking med schools go through equivalent analysis?</p>
<p>Also – we recently saw a touring production of 9 to 5, and not one cast member mentioned education in the Playbill – only agents.</p>
<p>My two daughters didn’t pick colleges this way. I guess some do look at this factoid. </p>
<p>Your point that a “top” program is naturally going to have some “top” talent and so it would not be shocking, for example, for CCM grads to do well, is one I agree with. One may not be able to claim it is all due to the program itself but that the school started out with some of the cream of the talent crop via the admissions process. </p>
<p>Likewise, for my kid who went to an Ivy, many of her peers have either gotten good jobs or have gotten into top notch graduate schools, but I don’t credit her college necessarily because the students who attended, were very motivated high achieving types and went through a highly selective admissions process to even get into the college in the first place. </p>
<p>I do think it helps to hear what sorts of things graduates are doing from a college. I just don’t think measuring who is on Broadway (and just in musicals no less…what about plays?) tells the full story of “successful careers.” </p>
<p>Honestly, when my kids picked their colleges and grad schools, they mostly examined the programs themselves and not so much about the graduates. They looked for schools and programs that fit what they wanted to do and figured the rest would follow in due time.</p>
<p>soozievt - It sounds like D did much the same thing your kids did when building her list. </p>
<p>One thing that became important to her was looking at the types of performers coming out of (and going in to) various programs. She got really good at predicting exactly which of her friends “belonged” in different programs, and she called dozens of them perfectly. She seemed to have fun getting a feel for various programs and imagining where she fit. It’s been interesting to me, because I was consumed by other family matters while she was building her list and applying, and some of her choices surprised me, so I’ve been playing catch-up after her final decision was already made. </p>
<p>I’m guessing I was more interested in who was working after school and where than D ever will be. She was/is more in the moment than in the future. Ah, youth!</p>