<p>Most of the current crop of Musical Theater freshmen will be coming home for Thanksgiving. It would be great if they could all take the time to write a few paragraphs about their Freshman Experience. For example, describe a typical day, what aspects of their experience were surprising, how casting works at their school, what the atmosphere is like, and anything they might have wanted to know a year ago.</p>
<p>My sophomore daughter flew home on Sunday. She slept until almost 4PM on Monday. Needless to say they are very busy while at school. :-)</p>
<p>I guess I will hop in here and share some stuff :)</p>
<p>I am currently a freshman at the University of Utah, and I absolutely love it! I feel like I have grown a huge amount and I love the work environment that surrounds both the Musical theatre program and the Actor training program.</p>
<p>In terms of our schedule, we start with a “core dance” class every single weekday morning. This class mostly consists of ballet, but includes many other styles that will prepare you for the upper class musical theatre dance classes, and classes that you can take later on with Utah’s renown departments of ballet and modern dance. I think it is very unique that our main dance class does not involve the dance department because A, it allows us to interact with all of the classes of MT’s and 2, the teachers of our class know exactly what we need to know. Our dance teachers have worked professionally in their fields (MT, Professional Ballet, etc.), which gives us the opportunity to really focus on the skills we will need to develop over our four years in order to be able to confidently go into a dance audition and be successful. </p>
<p>On MWF we will then get a lunch break and go to Acting class. Our acting curriculum is somewhat different than other schools in the fact that they are not specific. For example, we don’t take “improv” or “shakespeare”. They work all of the material into our one MT class, which like the dance class, allows us to focus on what we need to do to be successful. We have a wide variety of great teachers including the dialect coach of the recent film the hobbit, and we just added another wonderful teacher who spent years performing and stage combat choreographing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and many other professional regional theatres. </p>
<p>On tuesdays and thursdays we take a Music Theory Class, which is mainly focused on the ideas and concepts of sight singing. Again, the curriculum of this program is based specifically on what the Musical Theatre Actor needs to know. I really like this because i feel like the program is directly related to my needs. </p>
<p>The heads of our program are all great. Denny Barry, the head of our program, was an assistant choreographer for the original POTO on broadway and still goes around the country and the world staging productions (Kind of cool to have Hal Prince on your resume ;)). Her knowledge and connections in the business make her an extremely valuable part of the program, besides the fact that she’s just plain awesome. David Schmidt, our head of the vocal department of the MTs, is also a professional director and spent this last summer directing operas in Austria. All of our professors are extremely familiar with the professional world and how to “play the game” effectively. </p>
<p>In terms of theatrical opportunity, there is a TON of work out here in Salt Lake. Recently, our MTs have worked at Salt Lake Acting Company, The Grand Theatre, The Hale Centre, And our on-campus equity house the Pioneer Theatre Company. The fact that we have an equity theatre on campus is a huge plus. We can audition there, and can intern there our senior year. We also get into all of their shows for free! Performers from NYC consistently come and perform here. In terms of University shows, were putting on 5 mainstage plays and 3 mainstage musicals. We recently performed Avenue Q and we brought in one of the original cast members, Jennifer Barnhart (Bad Idea Bear). There are also Play readings, student directed scenes, and many other performance opportunities. </p>
<p>Overall, I am a true believer that I ended up where I was supposed to. Utah was in the middle of my “list” before my auditions last year. But my audition experience and visit were so positive that it quickly jumped to the top of my list. This program is up and coming like CRAZY, and I simply cannot wait for the years to come.</p>
<p>If you have any questions about Utah feel free to PM me :)</p>
<p>Bravo Stageman181 what a great review! Its wonderful to hear how well you are doing and thank you for taking the time to share with us. Have a great holiday break!</p>
<p>No problem!</p>
<p>Not quite a play by play on the CCU day-to-day studio experience, but a great video that features a lot about the school via one of this year’s freshmen MTs! </p>
<p>[Broadway</a> Dreams Foundation College Vlog CCU](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>(ps moderators- Youtube links are allowed now, right? So sorry if not!)</p>