chrism

Notarebel,
Yes to all Doctorjohn asked, and in addition - is Tisch worth the cost???!!!!

Chrism

fishbowlfreshman

WallyWorld,
I think it would be a mistake to judge a program too much based on its website. The sites can be helpful, but based on what you said, one would have to conclude that RADA isn’t a very good program and I think we all know that isn’t true. LOL Also, would the training at the highly-respected program at U. Evansville have suddenly gotten better now that they have upgraded what used to be an almost totally nonexistent website? I do wish more departments would say more about which techniques they teach though I suppose that is something you just need to call and ask about. For instance, I don’t like method acting (for me), so it wouldn’t make any sense to even bother auditioning somewhere they teach Strasberg technique. I also have some definite preferences about movement training though I can’t think of many schools that go into much detail about that on their websites. Sometimes you can gather a lot about that kind of thing by reading where the faculty trained in their bios but you still ought to ask. Asking questions can also give you a good idea about the personality of a department which could be a deciding factor in case you get accepted to several places. Be nice, though, because they might be gathering a lot about your personality when you call, as well. However, there is absolutely no substitute for visiting and sitting in on classes at times when they are not having an “accepted students” deal where they are putting on a bunch of well-behaved dog and pony shows. You really want to see more what a normal day in the life of a student is like.

Unless your daughter is planning to major in Design/Tech, I don’t really think you should judge a program much by the sets you see in pictures, either. The important stuff in actor training takes place in class and a lot of the more important roles one will play might well take place in a black box space. For instance, I don’t think anybody will argue that some of the Tisch studios aren’t among the better programs, but my understanding is that the majority of their studio performances are very bare-bones in their production values. Notice also that they have no performance pics on their site at all. Same with Purchase and Rutgers. NCSA and CMU also have very few and I don’t think anybody could argue that those aren’t among the top conservatories.

WallyWorld

Fishbowl,

Certainly much of what you say is true. I don’t wish to overweight their web presentation but I am giving it some weighting. Your point about asking questions and visits are well taken but that’s the next step for us.

We are still grappling with these issues. You mention some schools with great reputations. Are they great reputations or great places to go now? Does a great school have a lame web site with little to no helpful info? Does a great school have lame sets and costumes all the time?

I realize learning to act classroom/stage or otherwise is the point. And, that you cannot expect a school to have elaborate productions all the time but why should I be impressed with bare bones all the time?

My Alma matter for example would never show up on any list on this forum. Yet they have turned out a good number of professionals, the facilities are great and many productions are elaborate. The prop shop is to die for with two full time employees and the students love the program.

To “set the stage” is a very important part of theater IMO. We do not have all the answers for sure yet a lame web site, little or no pictures and consistently weak costumes and sets bothers me no matter what the reputation of the school.

fishbowlfreshman

WallyWorld,
Well … The way to find out if they are great places to go now is to get a pulse of how current students feel about it and to find out what recent graduates are doing. If it’s a conservatory program that claims to turn out fully trained actors, are they working? If so, where and how much? If they claim to place students in top graduate programs, where are recent grads getting their MFAs? If your Alma Mater has turned out a good number of professionals, it should be mentioned. There ought to be more discussion of lesser-known “gems” around here. Seems like it’s always the same schools being discussed.

alwaysamom

Wallyworld,

Welcome to the forums. I think you'll find a wealth of useful information here. I would like to caution you, though, not to place too much emphasis on each school's individual website, and certainly not on the 'number of clicks' it takes you to find the information you want. The actual information itself, whether it be on curriculum (the single most important factor, in my opinion, in choosing a school), or faculty bios, or alumni information, is certainly far more important than how long it took you to find it. Reading descriptions of courses offered, such as listed here, is much more important in the big picture than the mechanics of the site:

http://drama.tisch.nyu.edu/object/dr_ugcourses.html

What a department calls itself, again, is an unusual item on which to base a school's worth. Tisch, for example, which I think is thought by most to be an excellent school, is a drama program. This, I think you'll find, is true of many of the 'top' programs. You'd be making a mistake to draw the conclusion that Tisch is not an excellent acting program, based simply on the fact that its department is called Drama and not theatre or acting.

As for photos of performances, I'm not sure why this is important, to be honest. The department of drama at Tisch does more than 100 productions a year. It would be impossible to include photos of all of those on their website. However, they do provide more than a sampling:

http://drama.tisch.nyu.edu/object/drama_gallery.html

http://drama.tisch.nyu.edu/page/showcase.html

It wasn't really that difficult to find. As someone who has seen hundreds of different plays on Broadway, off-Broadway, national tours, regional productions, community theatre, college and high school productions, I can honestly say that some of the absolute best I've seen have had 'bare-bones' sets. I don't think this is a reflection, in the least, of the show itself, or of the school in that case, but more often just the director's vision. Large elaborate stagings are the exception these days, rather than the rule, in most venues. At most colleges, you'll find a balance, in my experience.

I would recommend that you also read through the MT forum, which is much more extensive than this one. Many of us who participate here, and whose children are in straight drama programs, also post there, and there have been very extensive discussions of what makes a good program. Check out CoachC's posts on this subject. She can enlighten you on what the qualities are to look for in a 'top' program, and I have yet to see anyone mention the areas which seem to be of concern to you, as important in that search. I say this respectfully, since you are at the beginning of your search but I certainly hope that you take to heart what you read here on the forums because if you focus solely, or even place such a degree of importance, on those issues, you're going to be making a mistake.

Best of luck in your search!

WallyWorld

What makes this a great forum is the helpful nature of the participants. I promise after this thread to stop theorizing and do more listening to those of you who are way ahead of us in the process.

Fishbowl, those are some good tips. My Alma matter is University of California at Santa Barbara. Is it a “gem”? Maybe. Great facilities, great campus, beautiful place to live (the campus has two miles of its own beach on the Pacific Ocean) and they have turned out some solid professionals working in the industry. Downsides would be a very large student body, not a great reputation in the industry and you don’t get into the BFA program until sophomore year. First you have to get accepted to the school academically and since it is a popular CA school the bar is pretty high. Then you addition for BFA at end of freshman year with no guarantees of acceptance.

Mom, thanks for your thoughts. I am sure you are correct about the actual information being more important than how you find it. I guess I need to remember this is academia. As a business owner who simply cannot function without web site connectivity it is an important issue for me. In commerce an illogical or poorly thought out web site usually indicates that entire business functions in that way.

Also, we are all likely familiar with schools with great academic reputations that it turns out that the reputation far exceeds the academics. To avoid that I am looking for substance, and, as I said beginning with their web site.

I was not trying to pick on NYU, I used them as an example because they are talked about so much around here. You just must be familiar with their web site as I went to it twice specifically looking for pictures and never found any.

My point about the name was not acting vs drama vs. theater. Rather in my cursory review programs that lump more than one discipline into the name of the department seem to have less impressive programs. Or if a more generic term is used like the “school of performing arts”. Nothing scientific just an observation so far.

We can agree that nobody expects elaborate sets all the time from a school putting on dozens of performances a year. We can also agree to having seen great theater in minimalist fashion. However, when I see photos of production after production of no set and props that consist of a chair a table and a crate, that concerns me no matter what the name of the school.

Maybe I am wrong but I will tell you why I think that way. First what are we seeking? I presume we are after good theater of which good acting is a part. Second, theater is fantasy if you will, i.e. not real. It may or may not be staged to emulate “real” but it is not. In order to effectively bring the audience along for the ride (if you will) they have to be asked and be willing to suspend conventions. The conventions of time a space as an example.

You can convince me that we are outside in Victorian England when we are inside in the US with just acting but it is far more compelling with a good set. The interaction of the actors with the set is a big part of theater. That’s because it is how our world works and a black box does not do justice to an English garden or Tudor house. Not for our sake (the audience) or the actors sake. The best directors I have known are very good at “blocking” which is not just the actor’s movement on stage but their use and movement and interaction with the sets.

In his book “The Stage Craft Handbook”, Daniel Ionazzi (he runs the design/tech program at UCLA) does a better job explaining this relationship than I. He claims it to be uniquely important to drama as contrasted with TV, Big Screen, music, dance, etc.

Kellster

Sometimes the pictures on the websites might not even do the school's performances justice. Look at the pictures on the Evansville website http://theatre.evansville.edu/photogallery.html and compare them to the pictures that Thesbohemian gave links to last summer.
http://www.danielknightstudiob.com/Handler/main.asp
http://www.danielknightstudiob.com/JaneEyre/main.asp
http://www.danielknightstudiob.com/FlyinWest/main.asp
http://www.danielknightstudiob.com/OurTown/main.asp
Those look lots better than the website to me. I don't know why they didn't use better ones when they upgraded. Those make me want to go there. HOT BOYS! I know ... I know ... NOT a good reason to pick a school.

need2leave07

Hey I was wondering what people thought about The Neighborhood Playhouse... I was also wondering if people knew how many people they accepted, I looked on their web site and it looks like their admissions is based on interview..

WallyWorld

Scrap my theory of the name of a program or department. I should have gathered more data prior to throwing out even preliminary conclussions.

Still sticking to my thoughts about sets though.

It was really insperational to read some of the threads of where the class of '06 was accepted. Hardworking kids rewarded for thier efforts and excited about thier future, what could be better.

WallyWorld

I have a question about audition etiquette. Background: daughter is a HS Junior who plans to pursue a BFA program. She will likely be able to get into a top school or a great school but not sure about the elite programs. Her senior year is going to be very busy and we live in a smaller town in Washington State so travel to schools and auditions is time consuming as well.

The question is this. Will the schools and unified’s allow her to audition in her junior year? That would allow her to the ability to audition on campus at more places and get her some experience?

Thanks

fishbowlfreshman

You should contact the schools to see, but I doubt it. I can't think of anywhere the audition result is permanent. I mean, I turned some down last year that I would have to reaudition for this year though I'm only going for one of those. I think it works that way just about everywhere. I have, however, heard of seniors getting accepted and deferring a year at some schools to do national tours, etc. ... but not to finish h/s. If you find out different, that would be a cool tidbit to know.

Really, if you want her to have audition experience, it would be good to schedule her to go in cold and do mock auditions for the various acting teachers around your area. I did a few of those over the break with my old teachers and some older actors I've worked with in the past to get ready and feel like it helped my confidence a lot. Yay for being a lot better than I was this time last year! The only downside to doing that is that she could get some conflicting advice.

Oh, yeah ... Since you're in Washington State, do you know anything about Cornish? They're one of my targeted walk-ins though I don't know much about them except what's on their website.

WallyWorld

Fishbowl
There are only two schools in WA state with a drama program worth mentioning, The University of Washington and Cornish. The UW would not be a good place to attend for a BFA type but would be for an in-state BA type or an MFA candidate, in or out of state, IMO. We know a prof. actor with a great job who went to Julliard for undergrad and UW for MFA and is very happy with his choices.

Cornish came to our HS to recruit my D and two other kids. I was not familiar with them (we live on the other side of the state) so asked the drama director your same question. He has an MFA and is a prof. actor, member Actors Equity Association. He said Cornish has a very good program and regional reputation. He said that they are very good at working with the local and regional theater companies which means that most of their grads find work right away.

I am a foundation member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival which besides being frequently ranked one of the top rep companies in the country is just a great place to work as an actor. We have noticed numerous actors in their company from Cornish and OSF can draw from the best of the best. Agents, recruiters, directors and the like from NY fly into the little town of Ashland Oregon every week to bring auditions to the OSF Company. I have seen theater all over the world and they are that good.

From an arts perspective, Seattle is no SF or LA or NY but things have changed there very dramatically (sorry) in the past 15 years. With the boom in technology and the wealth created by it a ton of money has been thrown at the arts. Their symphony is first rate and opera is probably top three in the country.

Downsides (IMO); Cornish is right in downtown Seattle and housing is an issue. Not unsolvable but an issue. It seems like a small program to me lacking the resources of a major university.

My sense is that you are capable of getting into better programs with more resources and better reputations yet there is something to be said for a program that is good at getting their grads good jobs.

need2leave07

Hey I hate to be pushy but if anyone knows what The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York is like, I would love to know. I was also wondering about their acceptance rates...thanks so much everyone!

Mary Anna

Neighborhood Playhouse is a very good training program if you want NYC and don't want a 4 year college setting. They offer an Associate of Applied Arts Degree in Acting. It's a two year program.

You might also look at Circle in the Square. It's also very good and they also offer musical theatre as well.

Don't forget about housing. It's not included at either

Good luck,
xxx,Mary Anna

alwaysamom

Wallyworld, I think the simple answer to your question about auditioning early is, no. These auditions are held as part of the application to college, as you know, and since your D would not be applying at that point, then she would not be able to schedule auditions at that point. The audition is only one part of the application process, and without all of the other 'parts' - application, essays, transcripts, recommendations - she would not be considered. Most audition slots fill up quickly so it's understandable that the schools would not want audition slots taken up by someone who isn't even applying.