<p>This topic has been hinted at over the years in various threads, but I’m not sure there’s been a dedicated discussion about it.</p>
<p>We all know schools that primarily select and/or cater to kids whose MT skills are HIGHLY developed by the time they leave high school; years of voice and dance lessons, plus often lots of professional credits under their belts before they join that select group of kids admitted to their program. These schools include the top Conservatories, BFAs and some BAs (I’d say our D’s program at Northwestern largely fits this mold).</p>
<p>Are there schools out there that HONESTLY are taking totally undeveloped kids and turning them into professional MT performers?</p>
<p>D wasn’t looking for such a program, so I have no idea, but if there are such schools I bet there are folks here who would love to hear about them.</p>
<p>Yes. In fact, I would say most programs would argue that is exactly who they take. While there are some students in the top programs that have years of training, there are also some that have very little training prior to entry. The goal is to find students that have potential, not students that have had advantage of dance and voice training. We all believe that we can pick talent and students that have the ability to train. </p>
<p>I would say the one small exception would be in the area of dance. Some schools want accomplished dancers prior to entry into the program, some don’t put as great an emphasis on that area.</p>
<p>To kjgc’s point: my son had no formal vocal or acting training (show choir and chorus in HS and a local kid’s theatre director as a teacher). He was on a local dance competition team beginning in 8th grade (adding more dance every year). He did local community and regional theater, no high school theater (long story). I would not say he was highly developed at all… just very passionate and a load of raw talent. He had some wonderful acceptances and really blossomed during his freshman year with formal training.</p>
<p>Note the word “son” in lojosmo’s post. I’ve heard of many late blooming young men doing doing very well in the college audition process but have yet to hear of that for a female. Any lateblooming female sucess stories?</p>
<p>I know some very very talented young folks at Christoher Newport in Virginia. They didn’t have a whole lot of training ahead of time - very few voice lessons, no summer intensives (they had to work) but w/o question had gobs of talent and wonderful stage presence before getting there. Somebody at CNU has a good eye for undeveloped talent!! I just can’t tell you yet what the final result is as they are still in school.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure if this is a success story yet, but I am a female who didn’t start theatre until high school. Freshman and sophomore year all ensemble. Did like 2 summer camps in my area–nothing too intense, with leads at camp.The summer before senior year I didn’t do a show though, because I went on a volunteer trip to another country and it conflicted with everything, but I felt that it was something that I really wanted to do and it was an amazing opportunity. No community theatre. Started voice lessons sophomore year. Took dance for a bit when I was much younger, and a jazz class senior year. No formal acting training.
I have been involved in instrumental music since I was in first grade, but of course that isn’t theatre, and I’ve been “singing” my whole life but just for my own pleasure and in like middle school talent shows haha, but I didn’t have any formal training until sophomore year.
Soooo, long story short, I got in to college! Not to a million schools like some people, but I did get in and that’s all that matters! Thankfully it was in my top 3 :)</p>
<p>I’ll add this. Many of my colleagues that I speak to would agree to this point. We would much, much, much rather have someone with raw ability in the program that is eager to train, than someone who has had poor training or worse yet been told “this is the only way to do things.” There are quite a few people “training” theatre students who are giving rather poor advice. We find this is particularly true in the area of voice training. It takes time to “un-train” a student and that is generally time programs don’t have.</p>