<p>Is the Shen Musical Theater major at Yale audition-based? Or is it non-audition?
Why is it not listed on the Big List?</p>
<p>It is not listed because the major at Yale is a BA in Theater Studies, which is comprised of a multitude of courses surrounding theater, not just acting, and because only a branch of the Theater Studies options are involved in Musical Theater. The Shen Musical Theater option is a branch of curriculum, not a major. Composition, history, lyric writing, libretto writing, and performance courses complement those in music theory, music history, dramatic theory, and dramatic history. This is a very different focus from those schools that offer a BA or BFA or BM that focus more on developing an educated Musical Theater performer who focuses on developing skills in acting, voice and dance. There is no undergraduate audition requirement. After perusing the Yale website, it appears that there is no audition requirement to enter the program (rather than Yale’s extremely high academic requirements, of course!) of theater studies, as you don’t declare it as a major until your junior year with permission from your advisor. Then, you must take 12 courses in your chosen major field of study. It appears that most vocal instruction would be classical, although there are 2 courses in Musical Theater Performance 1 and 2 that address Musical Theater song interpretation techniques. However, there are many roads to becoming a successful Musical Theater performer, many of them leading off from a nonaudition BA in drama or theater, and the education you would receive at Yale might certainly send you on one of them!</p>
<p>^^That is a very complete and accurate answer. I will mention that a very good friend of my daughter’s who is a recent theater graduate at Yale (and was quite involved in musical theater there), is now a lead on a National Tour.</p>
<p>We do include MT minors on the list and the Yale program seems to qualify as basically an MT minor of sorts - it is easily the equal of some of the MT minors currently on the list.</p>