<p>EDIT…this post is in response to post 16 by MomCares and I cross posted with other posts which I will go read now. :)</p>
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<p>MomCares, it is hard for me to answer in a general way but I can only reflect upon my own child’s personal experiences in terms of your question. </p>
<p>As far as time during college…well, besides performing IN musicals in college, my D did some other things too. Trying to remember some of these as examples…Freshmen year, she was the accompanist to a student directed show, The Full Monty. Freshmen can’t be IN shows at her school and so she was able to fit this in as she wasn’t rehearsing as an actor at the time. She had studied piano from age 7 and so knew how to play before she entered college at age 16. Sophomore year…I recall she was the musical director for Into the Woods, a student run musical. Also, a professor at her school, who is a Tony nominated playwright/composer/director hired my D to musically direct the premiere of her new work in the the city, an oratorio. She was paid. Those two shows were productions she worked on that fall and so did not audition to be in a show herself that semester, though she was performing frequently with her a capella group. She also was the musical director and wrote original arrangements all four years of college for this a capella group, besides being a singer in the group. The summer after soph year, she was hired as accompanist for the pre-college program. The following three summers, she was hired by a professor to musically direct a show (and wrote for it too). Between all these shows,she also was cast as a performer in shows. </p>
<p>As far as composing, she is not trained as a composer. However, she is very knowledgeable about music (always has been) and I guess had a knack for it without formal training. She had taken a course at NYU in writing adaptations (I forget the name of the course) and for class, she did write a very short adaptation musical based on Lord of the Flies for a class project. The course was not in composing though. Also, in soph year, as part of being a Tisch Scholar, along with other Scholars, put on a show of different projects people did and she wrote a mini musical for it and so had that opportunity. I can’t recall how she fit that in but she did. Also, I recall around that point that two seniors (separate projects), asking her to write music for one show and arrangements for another…original shows those students created. She did this on the side. She is a busy kid, as she was also performing in musicals at the same time, and class homework/prep, and a capella group and competitions with them too.</p>
<p>Then, one reason (not the only reason), she auditioned to get into ETW studio at Tisch after five semesters in CAP21 studio, was she knew that ETW gives students a chance to create original works, called “independent projects” as seniors and she was interested in doing that before graduating college. She considered this to be her “senior thesis” even though her program doesn’t have theses. During fall of senior year, she wrote a musical, all while also being in an original play workshop with Moises Kaufman at ETW. So she was writing a show “on the side,” while still performing in shows at school. That final spring semester, her musical was produced at her studio. It was her first full original musical. In between all these things, she was in a mainstage musical as a lead, a faculty directed musical in Strasberg studio, a student directing project musical as a lead in Playwrights Horizons studio, and whatever else I am forgetting. </p>
<p>She also has always loved music that is not just MT and so got into singer/songwriter material and has been writing and performing her own songs and kept booking gigs in venues in NYC of her own, with all original material and so the seeds were planted for that as she stayed on in NYC after graduating. </p>
<p>That’s how it all happened during college but it all continued after college. People hired her to accompany and musically direct, teach, coach, etc., all jobs she took to earn money while pursuing life as a performer.</p>
<p>As far as the original musical she wrote during senior year, she has been driven to see how far it can go and she has been very involved in rewrites and the summer after graduation, she put the musical on as a concert at Joe’s Pub in NYC. I don’t wish to be more specific after that, but generally speaking, it was then selected to be workshopped by a significant entity last June, had an excerpt in a festival for the industry and was offered representation by a theater literary agent and has had interest in this musical from producers from all over. She then was offered to have an Equity showcase production at an Off Off Broadway theater, where it is playing right now, and she is a lead in her own musical, as well as the writer/composer/lyricist. Where it goes from here, who knows, but it all began while she was a college student due to opportunities she had while at Tisch. </p>
<p>So, it wasn’t the curriculum so much at Tisch as the opportunities that were available, the networking with faculty and other peers, my daughter’s own drive and ambition to pursue these varied interests and so on. And many paying jobs since graduation that she does as her survival jobs, all in MT, are ones that have been handed to her, that she never applied to due to people knowing her, including being hired in about six different professional capacities at both Tisch and CAP21 since graduating. The pay for these professional jobs is good and are all in the field and have some flexibility (not full time) to allow her to be in shows and pursue performing and also the development of her own musical. Also, the network of peers has been huge as she is hired by peers to be in their concerts (she also hires them) and one thing often leads to another such as being asked to be in a staged reading or this or that due to networking and not even auditioning. When she graduated, she was not new to NYC and so already had quite a network of faculty, alum, peers and so on in the industry. She also has peers who do recordings and so she has hired people to record her original EP. She has peers who are now directors too. She also gets her friends jobs when she either can’t do a job she is offered and recommends them or she is on a project and suggests talented peers to fill other positions. A lot of work she has done has been through networking and it is not all through her applying for jobs or auditioning. Many jobs she is just given and offered. I would say a lot of what she does is through networking, though not everything…such as she was cast on a national tour right after graduation and that was not networking (though it was through an agent submission and she got the agent through her showcase). </p>
<p>So, that is one picture of how some of these other areas began during college and continued afterward, but were not in lieu of performing in musicals or training, but in addition to. It is a very busy life. They are young and her schedule boggles my mind. Truthfully, her life even in high school was an intense schedule 7 days per week. Then, in her BFA program, it was incredibly full day and night all seven days. Now, I would say that the 1 1/2 year or so since graduating, she has structured her life almost as if she is still a student and it is jam packed and she creates a list of goals and projects to work on and basically “assigns” herself work. She is very driven and doesn’t wait for things to come to her. I was thinking about this the other day that it is sorta like still being in school but she is now in charge of her own schedule and assignments. Just the last three days, for example…Monday, all day performing in a new musical staged reading for the industry, followed by four hours Monday night teaching the music to the BFA students for the musical she is directing; Tuesday, agent submitted audition, followed by four hours rehearsal for the musical she is directing and mixed into both yesterday and today, she was composing spec songs for a proposed new musical that a Broadway producer asked her to write, and also went to a voice lesson today and then tonight is performing a lead role in her original musical which is playing in NYC right now. Whew. I think that the BFA training and schedule was good prep for this kind of life that still continues to be jam packed. But some kids thrive on this. When my D came home for a visit over the holidays, she gave herself homework in her room for many hours per day to work (was doing rewrites for her musical) and said she is not comfortable not being productive!! But I see many of her peers who are like this since graduating too. Very busy and their intense schedules have continued even though their BFA programs are over. I know for my kid, she is not sitting around waiting to be cast. She is involved in many jobs and productions and performances and aspects of music and theater and is happy to just be working in her field and she enjoys all these facets. She is not waitressing (nothing wrong with that though), and likely never will. While she loves performing in musicals, she is equally happy pursuing contemporary music as a singer/songwriter, and also pursuing the development of her original musical. By trying her hand in various arenas, hopefully she’ll find some success and not wait for it doing one thing only. </p>
<p>One other thing I forgot to mention is that sometimes these seeds were planted long before college. Looking back to elementary school, my D was exempt from spelling classes and instead was allowed to do an independent study and wrote a 90 page musical (this was fourth grade) under the supervision of the principal, though she did not write out the score in musical notation, but wrote the script and lyrics and composed tunes. In high school, she wrote original musical cabaret revues that had a story line, but the songs were NOT original but she was constructing shows and musically directing and choreographing them. And so it is kind of a natural progression that she composed an original musical in college, even though she does not have formal training as a composer or playwright. </p>
<p>Hope this anecdotal stuff gives you a picture of what you were asking about.</p>
My niece is a senior in the BFA Acting program at UMichigan and so I should have known, but am glad you corrected that. Darren is meeting with great success. Of note to those reading here is that many students who pursue Acting degrees are very skilled at MT and singing. Darren is a great example and I know a lot of acting students at Tisch were very talented MT people and so an acting degree can still be an avenue to pursuing MT (if you are talented in singing). I read that Darren, by the way, is getting an album with the Warblers (who are really the Tufts Beezelbubs…who are from my alma mater). I love such success stories as Darren’s.</p>