Musical Theatre Double Major

lovetoact
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 13:32:50 +0000

As the parent of a BFA Acting major who also majored in French, I would say that if you really intend to double major as a BFA MT, you’re going to have to come into college with a strong academic background and many AP or early college credits that the school will accept, AND find a really perfect school that would accommodate that. My daughter went into college with 47 credits, and at her school, that wiped out pretty much all of her core/gened requirements, so it freed up some room. As compared to BFA Acting though, BFA MTs have so many more requirements for their major (voice classes/lessons, vocal performance seminars, dance requirements, sometimes piano classes, music theory, etc…) so you have to keep that in mind. At her school, the Acting dept and the French dept were small and she made herself known to the professors and also worked in the language department. The trouble came toward the end of her college career when there were required upper level classes that were only offered at one time slot and maybe not even every semester that interfered between the two departments. The French department took pity on her and actually changed the time of a class to accommodate her but that’s not likely to happen in general.

At my daughter’s school, and another school that my son now attends, if you are a BFA, you must audition for departmental shows and you must play as cast. You can’t opt out.

The other thing is to decide why you want to double-major. You mention pre-law and physical therapy. Pre-law isn’t going to guarantee admission to law school (some have said that pre-law students actually get into law school less often than other majors, but I don’t have statistics on that, just from articles I’ve read) and there are many majors (including performing majors) that could be an entry into law school if you decide to fall back on something. And physical therapy is academically demanding, so to double major in PT and anything else in college would probably be pretty hard.

I’m not saying it can’t (or shouldn’t) be done, but you’ll really have to find a perfect storm to make it all work for you.

Good luck!