Backstage: For aspiring musical theater actors, college is often the first step. If you’re hoping to be cast in a Broadway show someday, it’s important that you pick an undergraduate program tailored to your career goals. Here’s our list of some of the best musical theater programs in the U.S.
9 comments:
This was an interesting combo of schools. Some of these are places I'm fairly familiar with and have friends attending, and quite a few of them I've never heard of before. It's interesting to see the comparison of different curriculums and programs. I forgot that UF only admits 6 students, which is only crazy to think about. I feel like being in such a small program would come with a lot of it's own challenges. I also find it interesting that not all of those top musical theatre programs have equal design programs. I feel like it is important to have both. Having low quality productions with incredible performers just feels wrong. I am glad that our school is balanced and so high up on the list in both areas. I must say, I was a little thrown off to see Baldwin Wallace University as the first school listed. I have not even once heard of that school, and I'm curious how it ended up there. I am now realizing that this list was alphabetical, so it's more of a coincidence that it's at the top of the list. Even so, it was just a bit surprising. I'm also intrigued by the fact that the degree they offer is a Bachelor of Music, no one else on the list does that.
I grew up in Maine, where the very normal idea of attending a performing arts high school isn’t in the culture. Because of this, when my friends were going on auditions for musical theatre programs, they felt like fish out of water. After getting a BA in theatre, and coming straight to a conservatory for my MFA, I feel a similar way.
In my undergrad, very few people were getting their BA in theatre to actually use it beyond school (It was usually a second major). Students spent their free time doing things like script readings, or workshop productions for the fun of it without thinking about how it will serve their careers. BFA programs seem to be a place to gain a set of skills, and figure out how to use those skills to further your career. I can understand how a BFA would be appealing to a traditional high school student who only knows musical theatre as an extracurricular, and I can understand how the transition of mindset could be difficult. Anyway, these schools all seem really impressive, and I have more and more respect for anyone who’s getting a BFA every day.
This is a crazy list to be honest. Especially with Baldwin Wallace as the first cover page article. My friend who is a MT at a different school toured Baldwin, and they told him point blank “do not come here, we are a million dollars over budget.” Along with that, the campus is just really bad and I don’t agree with that being the top spot. CMU being 3rd is crazy work, but I am probably biased. NYU being very far down the list is also a little crazy, while I don't think they’re better at us, especially with D&P (it’s REALLY bad and taught me so many bad habits just in the 6 week summer high school program I attended). The rest of the list is kinda meh, but it makes sense with how they defend it. I’ve certainly seen a better list, and this is not one I see and fully agree with.
This article drew my attention immediately because I wondered if CMU was a part of the list and what they might say about the program. It was interesting to read about how they categorized the different colleges and what they specialized in. I think this highlights that even the best schools can have strengths and weaknesses and the student must try to figure out what best applies to what they want to be learning and doing after college. There is a lot more to choosing where you are going to school than just a reputation. Each of the school on the list have incredible opportunities and connections for the student to use, it just matters how they want to use them and what they hope to get out of the program. I think this is super important for people to understand as they are looking into colleges and trying to find a place they want to learn acting and musical theatre.
I think that this article is really great and I think it's important to make articles with the different options of schools that grant musical theater degrees because I think as good as a school can be it also matters how well you fit with the school so providing all these options and descriptions could help a perspective student figure out what they are looking for in a school. I was also just surprised about the accuracy of this article, specifically looking at CMU, they had all the information about Playground and new works and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and I feel like most articles don't have up-to-date information about our Conservatory, so I thought it was super interesting to see an article that did have the correct information. It was also interesting to learn a little bit about other BFA programs and get a glimpse into what a musical theater degree could have looked like at a different conservatory or school.
This article was very interesting to me and it reminded me of the absolute hell that is applying to college for theater. The process for design and production was horrible, but truly could not have done it as a performer. The auditioning and stuff seems like literal hell on earth. When I was applying to college I read so many lists like this, and I have lots of friends who are performers and the whole thing fascinates me, so this list had all the usual suspects. One thing I was surprised by though, and that I thought was different from other lists like this I’ve seen was the inclusion of programs that are for people who are still in highschool. I thought that including things like summer intensives offered by these colleges and universities was super cool. I also like how they included a category called “postcollege prep” because thats lowkey very important and not always something people are immediately thinking about.
I think that it is important to go to a school based on what sort of degree you want and what undergraduate experience you are looking for. Each school is different and each student has their own unique experience. It’s an interesting experience to be at one of the schools at the top of the list for best theater programs. It doesn’t feel that special while you are experiencing the classes and learning, but once someone from these programs gets out into the industry it is clear that they have a leg up over the other fresh workers. While this article focuses on the acting and performing disciplines it is important to read into the performance opportunities as well as the types of performances put on to understand how stagehands and other technical disciplines experience these college programs. I personally think that one of the most important things that isn’t mentioned in this article is the sense of community within each program and college at large.
I think it’s really cool to see different schools being specialized in different things and having unique ways that they go about teaching. Different schools will always have their strength and weaknesses, so it’s important to take that into consideration when you are applying to places. Even if a school may seem like it has everything there will always be something that different school can give that the other cannot, it’s a lot more than just stats and what you see on paper. There also similarities in a lot of the programs and how they do things, meaning that people have found that certain things are helpful and continue to use those methods to teach students. It’s interesting to see the array of areas that have these schools, there are good musical theatre programs all across the country and it’s really interesting to see what major cities have the best programs (I did notice that a large portion of the programs are situated in Pennsylvania or new York mainly)
What I think is so amazing about these list is I found these list extremely helpful and looking at where to apply for college and especially where to commit to going to college once I got acceptance letters in.It also reminds me that I do not miss this at all and how stressful and hell it was to find what colleges to apply to and which one was my final choice here at cmu. I definitely do not miss going through article after article after article trying to narrow down my college search trying to find something to tell me what school was the right fit for me so I definitely remember reading a lot and a lot of these articles. Even after reading all these articles I still felt like I had no idea where I belong to and no idea what was the right choice and for me choosing Carnegie Mellon it really came down to me wanting to learn everything not just my choice I wanted to have the opportunity and I thought it was important as a stage manager to have a general hold and grasp on each concentration.
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