<p>What are the best ivies for musical theater, or theater for that matter? I’m interested in a school with a good musical theater background but with a FOCUS in DIRECTING. Most of the Ivies don’t really offer theater as a major, or if they do, it’s straight drama and nothing with vocals, dance etc… lemme know if you can!</p>
<p>if you are interested in Directing I would consider…NYU-Tisch, Carnegie-Mellon, U of Michigan</p>
<p>If when you say Ivy, you mean the 8 universities connected through the sports confederation called the Ivy League (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and so on…), none of these schools have incredibly strong UNDERGRADUATE theatre programs. I think this is mostly because these schools want you to focus on the liberal arts as a an undergraduate and aren’t really interested in training theatre artists in conservatory-like settings. (However, this changes at the GRAD level - think Yale, Brown…) </p>
<p>But as bardmuse said, the so-called ivies of the theatre world for directing are Carnegie, Michigan, and NYU…These are actually the only schools that offer a BFA in Directing. Carnegie, Michigan, and NYU all have great musical theatre programs, but if you were to study directing @ NYU, you’d be in the Playwrights Horizons studio, which is only a straight acting (and directing) studio…Musical Theatre is over @ CAP21.</p>
<p>I read some things for Playwrights Horizon, and they had courses such as “Choreography for the Director” and such… is there any opportunity to take classes a CAP21 but still be within the Playwrights studio? I don’t want to completely abandon singing, dancing etc.</p>
<p>I saw that course in the listings, as well, and I’m sure there are opportunities within Playwrights for SOME voice and dance work, as these skills are important for a straight actor too, but obviously not as much as you’d get in CAP21. I’ve never heard of taking classes in other studios, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible!! Hopefully, someone else will be able to answer this…</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be possible to take classes in a studio other than the one to which you’re assigned. Studio is three days a week from, roughly, 9-6, so you’d be at your primary studio during those hours. After two years in studio, you can apply to transfer to another one. Other than that, you should check out the curriculum available at PH for details. The other thing to consider is another studio for your first two years, then applying to transfer to PH for junior year, and do their accelerated directing program. Lots of interesting options! :)</p>
<p>Like Briarbrad said, keep in mind that none of the Ivies offer a pre-professional BFA in either MT, acting, or directing, but they’re great as a springboard to MFA programs if you don’t bankrupt yourself and your parents attending them. </p>
<p>Had I been interested in an Ivy League school for theatre, I would’ve been all over Brown. They don’t do MT per se, but I think there is some going on in an EC capacity. DizzyDani88 has done some research on Cornell as well and it sounded pretty good. She wrote about them on the Theatre/Drama thread on Part 7 at Post #210. You might want to look at Northwestern and UCLA as well. I think they count as “sub-Ivies” and both do MT. Vassar might be worth a look, too, though they don’t have an MT major. </p>
<p>I’m by no means the resident authority on Tisch, but I’ve gathered that you can change studios your junior year. I believe you could start out in CAP21 and swap to Playwrights Horizons or wherever your third year. (Edit: Yeah. What Alwaysamom said one minute before me) ;)</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that you’ll most likely have directing classes in just about any good BFA acting or MT program and can also pursue directing at the graduate level once you have your undergrad degree.</p>
<p>Ya, thesbohemian’s last point should be reiterated, because it was good! haha</p>
<p>Keep in mind that there are A LOT more graduate directing programs than undergraduate directing programs (think about 3 versus maybe 50 across the country). Because of the higher numbers, there are a lot more options. You could study directing at an Ivy League - Yale (top graduate drama school, most would say). Also, since you’re very interested in musical directing, Cincinnati Conservatory has a graduate directing program where you actually choose between drama directing, opera directing, or musical theatre directing. So keep graduate school in mind!</p>