Greetings! DD (rising senior) wants to double major in something academic plus drama or MT-related (she wants training in acting/voice/dance, and performance opportunities). Theater is her passion, and she’s already had a lot of experience, including professional. But she doesn’t want to do a BFA, since she has additional interests to pursue in college. My question: I’m told there are some schools where if she is not officially in the theater department doing a BFA, she may be shut out of many/most of the performance opportunities. For ex, UCLA and USC have a BFA option–would they give preference to those students for the larger/official productions? We’re looking at east coast too, including reaches like Yale. Thanks for your thoughts about this! She’s putting together her college list now.
What type of academic double major is she leaning toward? Humanities? Social sciences? STEM? Whether this is feasible can depend on the field. STEM fields are harder due to the time commitment. Theater is time consuming in itself, and so is STEM.
My own kid is a theater major at Fordham. He is theater tech, not acting, but some of his acting friends are also double majoring. Fordham is a BA program so there is a little more room than with a BFA. And since Fordham does not have a BFA, there is no competition for roles. That said, Fordham does require an audition, and isn’t officially MT (although there is singing and dance training available.)
I have heard that some of the highly selective schools (Ivys, Northwestern etc) also have room for a double major. But of course they are reaches for essentially everyone.
I do know one student in a conservatory BFA acting program (Guthrie) who is also double majoring in a STEM field. But he came in with a ton of AP and duel enrollment credits, otherwise it would have been impossible.
Best wishes to your student!
Not 100% yet, but it looks like my student in the Guthrie BFA program is going to manage – or come really close – to a double major in American Studies and has a classmate who is on track for one as well in another Humanities subject. But like @fiftyfifty1 said, both of them came in with a ton of AP credits, and my kid is taking a summer class. One thing that helps at University of Minnesota is a lot asynchronous online classes are still available, making it easier to work around a busy theater schedule. Also, Minnesota does offer a robust non-audition theater BA that is more flexible schedule-wise than the BFA, making a double major a lot more feasible, and the BA students have their own slate of productions where BFAs aren’t competing for roles. The two programs kind of operate side by side (and we found this is pretty rare). Skidmore and Vassar in NY and Wesleyan University in CT are three good East Coast options where you can do a lot of theater without doing a BFA. Although a reach, I concur that Northwestern is also a good option, largely because they have a TON of theater clubs that produce really terrific work and cast theater and non-theater majors alike. Some of the schools on our list where we found opportunities are limited in the way that concern you were Boston University, Syracuse, DePaul and Ithaca. Michigan is also like this but, like Northwestern, has some theater clubs that put on some super productions, with auditions open to all.
thanks to you both, this is super helpful!
I’m shocked you don’t have LMU in this consideration especially if you’re looking at California schools. It is one of the best theatre BA programs in the country, where many students double major or minor in something else. I’m a current student in the program and I love it, message me with any questions.
Hi! I would look more closely at the programs you are interested in: UCLA does not have a BFA option. Only a BA in Theater (they have four emphasis areas you can study in: Acting, Design/Production, Integrated Studies, and Musical Theater.)
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale is a graduate program only-- it’s very rare for undergraduate students to be allowed in courses through this school.
Yes, BFA/BA performance opportunities will vary school by school. Some schools do BFA-only productions, in addition to shows open to the whole school (I believe USC and UMN does this. They both offer BA and BFA tracks in theater). USC and UCLA also have a ton of student-led organizations with performance opportunities. Like others said, so does Northwestern.
If you’re looking into schools as competitive as Northwestern and Yale, I’d throw in Williams (they host the Williamstown Theatre Festival) and Sarah Lawrence (not as selective, and they have amazing foreign exchange programs within theater).
Chapman is also a phenomenal arts school with both BA and BFA programs. SMU has a stacked lineup of teachers too, but they only have a BFA no BA.
NYU has a boatload of majors (BFA and BA) within Tisch and other areas that should be considered if finances are not a big worry (financial aid is notoriously not great). They also have high placements in MFA programs and in the industry. It is a massive department/school (approx ~3,000 undergrads) compared to even USC (~600 students in the SDA).
Best of luck with your search!
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