|
MHS Fine Arts Booster Club
The following is an informal/unofficial listing of various
educational opportunities for graduating students wishing to pursue music, theatre performance or production. Feel free to email
me with information you would like included. I have also included
summaries of institutions that BackStage magazine has highlighted in their
annual school issue.
I found a good College
Cost Calculator at T. Rowe Price.
It allows you to choose the specific school and it gives the appropriate
tuition, room and board, books and other fee estimates.
|
Back Stage
Survey 11/1999 |
For this year's main
feature, we sent our query through the Internet to dozens of theatre
departments around the country, asking: "What special programs do
you have to connect your students with the profession they will
enter upon graduation?" |
California
State University, Northridge
|
While CSUN has a small M.A. program for
Theatre History/Literature majors, the remainder of the department is
devoted to teaching undergraduates. "Since so many other
universities have M.F.A. programs, with prime acting, design, and tech assignments going to grad students," Grego points out, "we're
quite proud of the fact that we're a B.A. program in which all mainstage
roles and production assignments are handled by our
undergraduates."
CSUN's location in a northern suburb of Los Angeles makes it ideally
situated for finding internships in the film and television industry.
"I have more requests for interns in casting, management, and
production than I have students to place. I have three phone or fax requests in front of
me right now but haven't got a student I can send!"
|
| University
of Wisconsin-Green Bay |
Although a smaller campus, with a student body
of 5,400 including only 55 Theatre majors and 12 minors, UW-Green Bay
boasts one of the finest touring
houses in the country, the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts. The
proximity of a first-class touring house provides students with the
obvious benefit of seeing professional productions; the faculty members
are diligent about arranging workshops and master classes, presented by
touring artists, for their students. Additional benefits come in the
form of cold, hard cash, and the professional experience provided by
work opportunities at the Weidner for many of the production students at
UWGB.
|
| Butler
University Indianapolis |
Less usual, however, is the type of creative
partnership recently established between the Theatre Department at
Butler University in Indianapolis and that city's Indiana Repertory
Theatre, a LORT (League of Resident Theatres) company and the major
Equity house in Indiana.
Butler is a small, private, undergraduate university with a strong
liberal arts tradition, and the mission of its Department of Theatre is
to provide a general education in all aspects of theatre. In the fall of
1998, Risa
Brainin, the associate artistic director of I.R.T., was brought in as
guest director for a Butler mainstage production of "On the
Verge," by Eric Overmyer. John Green had just been appointed chair
of the Theatre
Department, and out of his discussions with Brainin came the concept of
the Butler-I.R.T. partnership, designed to provide hands-on
professional experience for the pre-professional theatre major.
"What this means in
practice," explains Green, "is that I.R.T. has become an
"expanded classroom' for our students. Not only do they attend a
full season of productions, but they are able to study in detail the
workings of every department in the theatre, which in turn leads to
"shadowing' opportunities,
and full-semester internships."
|
| University
of South Carolina |
Department Chair and Artistic Director Jim
O'Connor
tells Back Stage, "We work on a two-way street by bringing
professionals here to work with our students, and in turn by allowing
our faculty to work
in the profession."
U.S.C., like Butler, has a relationship with a professional theatre-in
this case a long-standing formalized relationship with the Shakespeare
Theatre,
in Washington, DC. Not only does the Shakespeare Theatre work with U.S.C.
in recruiting its M.F.A. students, but Michael Kahn, Shakespeare's
artistic
director, comes down to review the students' progress. Catherine
Weidner, head of the education program at Shakespeare Theatre, makes
frequent trips,
like her recent look at the department's production of "Much Ado
About Nothing." Performers and directors from Shakespeare
Theatre travel south to the
Columbia-based university for three- to six-week residencies as well:
Last year it was Floyd King, and this spring Catlin O'Connell and Eric
Hoffmann,
who will teach period styles. Paul Mullins, who works regularly at the
Shakespeare Theatre and directs at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival,
will serve as guest director of "Arcadia."
South Carolina also has established a relationship with Milwaukee
Repertory Theater, though it is somewhat less formalized than that with
Shakespeare Theatre. |
| Pennsylvania
State University |
Many B.F.A. and M.F.A. programs around the
country take their graduating classes to New York, Chicago and/or L.A.
for an end-of-the-year "showcase,"
an introduction to agents, casting directors, and other industry people.
The Penn State School of Theatre puts a slightly different spin on the
concept-to launch the final-year M.F.A. students: seven actors, two
directors, and three costume designers.
Bob Leonard, head of the M.F.A. Directing Program at Penn State and a
longtime LORT theatre director, is currently organizing a spring
audition/interview/portfolio tour to regional theatres in six cities:
Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and
Indianapolis.
....."The rationale for selecting these mainly Midwestern
theatres is that, while many students know what's happening in New York,
Chicago, and L.A., few have
had the chance to see what's happening in the regional theatres,"
Leonard tells Back Stage. |
University of Idaho
|
What better graduation gift can a theatre
program give a parting student actor than his or her first professional
job? That's what the University of Idaho Theatre Department gives one
talented individual, with its Rex Rabold Fellowship to the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore.
....It's a 10-month commitment, and a huge work load-they will be
performing in two or three productions, as well as understudying two
others.
---------------
Faculty includes Dr. Dale Moffitt on staff. Formally of
SMU and a 1999 Leon Rabin Award from the Dallas Theatre League.
|
| Northern
Kentucky University |
Probably the best-known venue for new plays in
U.S. regional theatres is Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana
Festival. But how many theatre folks
realize that about 80 miles away, Northern Kentucky University puts on a
smaller, biennial version-its Year End Series, or Y.E.S. Festival. Nine
times since 1983, N.K.U. has presented fully realized productions of
three
new plays, with the playwrights in residence for the final week of
rehearsal........
To date, N.K.U.'s Y.E.S. festival has produced 28 fully mounted
premieres and two readings. |
| Duke
University |
The Duke University Program in Drama is an
undergraduate drama program that provides theatrical training to drama
majors, as well as to interested undergraduates from other academic
disciplines, within the liberal arts context. In addition, it boasts a
professional producing organization called Theater Previews at Duke. By
co-producing new works or revivals that go on to other nonprofit or
commercial theatres in the U.S., Theater Previews extends the work begun
by the Broadway Preview Series, which premiered new works from 1986 to
1993 at Duke, including Neil Simon's "Laughter on the
23rd Floor."
|
| Baldwin-Wallace College |
Heading the Musical Theatre program is
Victoria Bussert, longtime freelance director and past Associate
Director/Artistic Director for Cleveland's Great
Lakes Theatre Festival and Cain Park. After directing more than 200
productions internationally, Off-Broadway, regionally, and for national
tours, Bussert became interested in working with young talent. When she
joined the faculty of Baldwin-Wallace College in 1996, she said,
"My goal was to create the kind of program I wished had been
available when I was
going to school-a program that produces results." And how does
Bussert define "a program that produces results'? "Last year's
entire graduating class was employed in the business within five months
of graduation."
The secret of Baldwin-Wallace College's success seems to be taking
advantage of every opportunity offered to facilitate significant
exposure to the industry before graduation. The program itself is small,
accepting only
eight of the 70-80 auditionees each year.
-------
Bussert's
resume shows directing credits at Dallas Theatre Center.
|
| Back
Stage Survey 11/2000 |
Sample of
Schools with Production/Technology Programs from a 'Back Stage' Survey |
North Carolina
School
of the Arts |
"One of the country's leading training
schools in theatre technologies" - Back Stage 11/10/2000 |
| State
University of New York at Purchase |
"This semester alone our students are
working on shows that include the Broadway productions of 'The Full
Monty,' 'The Tale of the Allergist's Wife,' 'The Rocky Horror Show,' and
'Swing!,' along with national tours that include 'Blast,' 'Gumboots,'
'Swing!,' 'Fiddler on the Roof,' 'The Scarlet Pimpernel,' and 'Death of
a Salesman.' -- Back Stage 11/10/2000 |
| Adelphi
University |
Professional work that pays is a theme with
Peter Borchetta, director of the Design/Tech Program at Adelphi
University on Long Island (about the same
distance east of Manhattan that Purchase is to the north). "Here at
Adelphi, over a dozen different production companies, touring companies,
Off-Broadway
shows, scenic houses, television studios, and staging companies call us
on a weekly basis looking for students with experience who can work. By
the time a student has finished freshman year, he may have worked over
300 hours professionally during the school year, making up to $45 per
hour. How can a student, with the high cost of tuition and living, turn
down jobs in the
summer that can make them thousands of dollars, as opposed to the
hundreds that they would make doing stock?" -- Back Stage 11/10/2000
|
| University
of Wisconsin in Madison |
UW-Madison takes an interesting approach to
dealing with production students' financial pressures and complex
schedules, making a point of not demanding around-the-clock support from
these people, says Dorn. "Instead, we have modified our class and
lab schedules, to accommodate outside work and non-theatre course
work." -- Back Stage 11/10/2000 |
| Webster
University, St. Louis
|
Webster hosts the Midwest Theatre Auditions
each spring. Most of the Midwest's summer theatres
(as well as many other year-round companies and grad schools) attend
these auditions, and approximately 750 actors and technicians pass
through during the three-day weekend.
"Last year there was, in fact, some concern expressed about the
number of technicians who were at the auditions," Wylie told us.
"In particular, technical directors; I receive about 10 calls each
year asking if I have any TDs from our program to fill positions. I
usually am able to help with about half of those requests, but last year
there was a significant increase in requests."
-- Back Stage 11/10/2000
|
| Stephens
College |
"A bit farther west of St. Louis is
Stephens College, a small (500 students) women's college in Columbia,
Missouri, which offers an interesting BFA program. Students attend for
three years, plus two summers, both of which Tech/Design students spend
at the Okoboji Summer Theatre at Spirit Lake, Iowa. There, students are
thrown into an intense summer experience:
designing, building, and crewing nine main stage plays and four
children's theatre shows in 10 weeks. "It is a fast-paced
atmosphere that helps them learn quick and effective ways to build,
paint, and dress scenery," said
Steven Cottam, the scenic designer of Stephens' Performing Arts
Program." -- Back Stage 11/10/2000
|
University
of Nevada
at Las Vegas |
"At the other end of the country from
North Carolina and New York, but within call of the many high-tech
demands of various extravagant shows on Las Vegas' "Strip," we spoke to Brackley Frayer, entering his
sixth year as head of the department of Design/Technology at UNLV.
"I want to be able to see our students trained as good theatre people," he states, "and
part of that training is to control the outside work they do while
enrolled at UNLV."
Frayer explains that UNLV offers a BA in Theatre and an MFA in
Design/Technology, whose students work closely with the other MFA
students in Musical Theatre and Playwrighting. "Our BA is a solid
general overall
degree, which gives the student experience in all areas of theatre,
combined with the general core of the university. They learn how to
think as a person and do not live in the theatre 24 hours a day. -- Back
Stage 11/10/2000 |
| California
Institute of the Arts |
"Moving even farther west, Back Stage
spoke to Director of Design and Production Chris Barreca at California
Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, not far from LA. He emphasized that
students and faculty alike are concerned about the quality of a work
experience, and the job's educational value to a student getting a
college degree.
"The film industry has vocational schools. It may be time for the
performing arts to do the same. Sometimes our elitist way of thinking
prevents us from looking at this solution. At CalArts, we have added a
certificate program in Technical Studies for just this reason."
-- Back Stage 11/10/2000
|
|