<p>do you think college programs can be misguiding to young actors if they are insular, clubby. for instance theater grads often form their own theater companies after they graduate, these are often just extensions of their clubby college programs. They’re safe environments with little risk of real critical feedback. An actor needs critical feedback to improve. And an actor needs to take risks to extend her skills.</p>
<p>Isn’t acting a trade? and best learned on the job like carpentry? on the job auditioning for real work or working!</p>
<p>(this is moved from a thread in another forum, where it didn’t belong yet a few people went crazy at the above notion, people with kids in bfa programs))</p>
<p>This was already discussed at some length in another thread on THIS forum, pacheight. I doubt very much that a single individual exists who would like to revisit the topic.</p>
<p>pacheight, with all due respect, this is a forum for discussion about COLLEGE programs. It’s not discussion board about acting and performing in general: it’s about higher education! Thus, in my view, it shouldn’t surprise you that people who tend to visit this board are positive about higher education/college/university/conservatory training. We all are very much aware that there are many well known actors who either did not get BFA degrees or didn’t go to or finish college at all, and are nonetheless making money acting. This is not a surprise to us. The purpose of this particular forum is COLLEGE.</p>
<p>However, I think parents and students should know that there are ways to get a college education that can potentially better prepare you for a theater arts career. </p>
<p>and sure everyone knows that a huge percentage of actors took non theater arts paths to their art. but since it’s a very large percentage, doesn’t that suggest that understanding how “they” got a college education taking a different college path could be helpful? helpful to people on this forum.</p>
<p>pacheight, you say that a “huge percentage of actors” took non theater arts paths to their art. </p>
<p>I am interested in where you are getting your statistics from and what the “sample” was. Are you talking about movie actors doing feature films in Hollywood? Actors on the Broadway or West End stages? Actors performing in top regional theater venues? </p>
<p>I am not arguing with you: I really want to know what actors you are talking about and what percentage, mathematically, you are talking about. I also want to know their breakdown by field (meaning, movies/films, versus stage and what stage, etc.) and their age ranges.</p>
<p>I assume most folks on this forum are aware of the different paths to a career in theater. There are numerous discussions of BA programs as well as BFA programs, studio classes and certificate programs. As NMR says the focus is college programs because this is College Confidential after all. </p>
<p>There are numerous paths to sucess, just as there are numerous ways of being successful. </p>
<p>As an aside, I am familiar with a theater company formed by a group of theater grads and while it may be an extension of their program its also a huge benefit to the local community, both in terms of the theater they produce, the theater education programs they provide and the vitality they lend to the neighborhood. Its not fair to paint them with such a broad and condescending brush.</p>
<p>There is nothing saying that you need to go to college at all if what you want is to be a big phony movie star. If you do go to college, Santa Monica College is the best bet because it is cheap and you can take a part time schedule around your studio classes. Then you can submit to agents every spring when they are looking for new clients after pilot season ends. You can transfer your credits to any UC or Cal State after that when you have been there long enough to be a citizen and have discovered that you were just one more silly, egotistical lemming that fell off the Hollywood cliffs. </p>
<p>There is no BETTER way to prepare for a theater arts career than majoring in it in college. There are DIFFERENT ways but denigrating the path the people who come to this message board have chosen for themselves is disrespectful. It is NOT helpful. You can get that information a million other places. Here, we talk about college.</p>
<p>Pacheight has discussed his views about this before and while it can be rehashed and rehashed, people may wish to read the previous discussions first, so as to not start over. :D</p>
<p>First, pacheight shared this viewpoint on a Theater/Drama Majors thread where a student was asking for guidance:</p>
<p>I chose not to get involved in that discussion. </p>
<p>In the past few days on the Parent Forum on CC, on a thread topic UNRELATED to colleges/theater, pacheight brought this all up there. Most of you who read the Theater Majors Forum tend not to participate on the Parent Forum and likely did not see this long discussion (though I wish more theater students and parents had chimed in!). I did participate a great deal as I was already involved in the thread (which had to do with prep schools originally) but then pacheight addressed me and in my view, put down my advising students with regard to colleges for theater. It may help to read the background there so as to not have to start fresh HERE again. I believe pacheight has brought that discussion over to here (in fact, the part about Tommy Lee Jones was all discussed a great deal over there). If you wish to read that discussion for background, go to the following thread and the topic first appears in pacheight’s post 502 and then other topics are mixed in but then starting on post 526, the theater/colleges topic gets going for a long while (with other topics mixed in that you’d have to wade through on this thread):</p>
<p>pacheight, you have advised on these various threads that those wishing to pursue acting either skip college all together and go straight to LA or NYC and learn acting “on the job,” or go to college for anything BUT theater since you don’t feel college is the place to train as an actor, OR if the student goes to college for theater, that it only be located in LA or NYC. I have to agree with NotMamaRose above and some others, that CC is a forum about college selection and admissions. Those who participate are interested in pursuing, well, college! There are many paths to becoming a successful actor and a BFA or a BA in acting or musical theater are one way but not the only way. But it is one effective way that can lead to success for some. I won’t go over all I posted a great deal on the prep school thread when you turned the discussion to this topic and addressed me, which is why I participated THAT time, but had refrained in your earlier discussion on the Theater/Drama Majors forum.</p>
<p>I will echo NotMamaRose on another thing…most here are WELL aware that there are very successful actors who did not go to college or majored in college in an unrelated field. Nobody has denied that. But on the threads I linked to, pacheight, you have not acknowledged that there are many successful actors who indeed have a BA or a BFA in Theater/Acting or Musical Theater, and not only that, got the degree at a college outside of NYC or LA and are making it even in NYC or LA. Many paths…</p>
<p>I cannot believe I read all that. I must be snowed in and bored! haha Did I miss something or did he never say what his qualification is? Something about LA is that everybody’s dentist and hair stylist thinks they are qualified to give advice to actors. </p>
<p>tenyearplan, no, despite many people asking, pacheight has not shared with us where his perspective emanates with even a brief broad idea of if he is in the field or not, and in what capacity, and/or if he has a kid in the field, and so on. So, when reading the “advice,” it is difficult to ascertain where he is coming from. Pacheight, perhaps you can give us SOME idea so we can understand your perspective better? </p>
<p>Re: William Hurt…he went to Tufts undergrad. He was in the class of 1972. He went to Juilliard afterwards.</p>
<p>the fastest, easiest, path to being a successful actor or actress is to be born into it. Dig deep into most backgrounds and you will see either a parent or a relative in the business who is probably steering the career. Like George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Will Smith’s kids, Julia Roberts, etc. etc. etc. and the list goes on.</p>
<p>Not to say you have to be born of royalty but it sure does help.</p>
<p>There is a real issue here in defining “success” in acting. Maybe some people will only see famous movie stars as “successful” but I think that is a terrible insult to all of the hundreds if not thousands of wonderful, talented, hard-working and well-regarded actors all over America who do not obtain “household name” status.</p>
<p>People can think what they want, but I am sad to see this myth propagated on a forum which is supposed to support young people starting out in their education/passion/career path. </p>
<p>Anyway, who says the “fastest, easiest path” is necessarily the best?</p>
<p>rose: i don’t know of any survey of that question. It’s just observation of the actors I see. No hard data. but the same can be said for bfa/mfa actors, no data on how many of them are working vs non bfa/mfa/college actors.</p>
<p>it doesn’t sound like being critical of some bfa programs is helpful to finding a good program or structuring a non bfa theater arts/acting eduction…in LA/NY:) </p>
<p>since I’ve been immersed in college sports recently here’s an analogy that might fit: there are 70+ D1 universities competing in sport X. Some of these schools coaches/assistant coaches/staff, their methodology, and their school reputation in sports are considered tops. schools like ucla and Duke, yet these coaches and their methodology are weak, and they unfortunately are injuring the athletes by teaching them bad technique and over training them. And they lose. After 4 years the graduating athlete will not properly trained to advance into the pro X sport. </p>
<p>I’m surprised theater arts programs get a pass on this type of critical analysis by future actors, etc. The sports departments and their personnel certainly don’t, the junior athletes are talking all the time about which ones suck, which ones are great, and who’s getting better. And who’s training privately.</p>
<p>pacheight, the college theater programs are critically analyzed and if you read the Theater and the Musical theater forums, there is much evidence of that. You can also examine what the graduates from various theater programs are doing post graduation by asking any BFA or BA theater department. If you visit threads on this forum, I know I have pasted a list of questions to ask every theater department with many specific things to explore to help select an appropriate program. </p>
<p>Also, nobody here AT ALL has said NOT to do a BA college program. In fact, there is much support here for seeking BA theater/performance programs. I know when I work with students we discuss at length whether a BFA or a BA path is more appropriate to their college selection criteria. Both paths are viable for someone going into theater. However, I have read your posts on many threads and you have advocated that IF you go to college (and not straight to LA or NYC to “learn on the job” how to act), you have advocated majoring in something OTHER THAN theater. It is not as if you have said a BA in theater is “better” than a BFA, but rather you have suggested majoring in something else all together and learning to act OUTSIDE of college in additional classes/lessons or “on the job” seeking professional gigs while in school. You have written about being against ANY college theater programs, be it BA or BFA. You have gone so far as to say that a college theater program can DAMAGE an actor/student.</p>
<p>By the way, many who participate in D1 sports in college are not looking to become a pro athlete upon graduation. That is not a great analogy. Many who play a sport in college do so as an extracurricular endeavor and major in something else. For theater, you can major in it and it is not necessarily an EC activity. My own kid did D1 sports in college and never considered making her sport her career after college, nor did a single one of her teammates. Many of her teammates are now in med school, law school, architecture school, PhD programs and the like. In contrast, my other kid who went to college for a BFA in MT/Drama, intended to make that her career, and so far, she has, and so have many of her fellow BFA graduates.</p>
<p>for the record, your kids sound great and I think it’s cool that one is/was a D1 ncaa athlete at an ivy league school, the other acting now on or near broadway, but earlier was a “professionally” child actor, and had a 1st tier agent (ca, wm or apa i guess) as a child, accelerated in kindergarten and therefore graduated from high school at 16, then one or both summered at stage door manor (three stages right?), and they excelled even though they attended a “lowly” rural high school…all from memory of your posts so please don’t be upset if i got something a little wrong. And really very impressive. i truly mean that, you should be very proud. you did a good job!!! I’m serious</p>
<p>so, I very much agree with your second paragraph. i do advocate majoring in something other than theater if the college you’re attending has a lousy theater program. and i advocate for “some” kids to skip college and go straight to ny/la and start working…college is not for everyone. and i think good theater arts programs are a good way to go as well. and i advocate for all three versions of kids above to seek professional work as soon as possible, you learn from auditions and rejection!</p>
<p>“Many who play a sport in college do so as an extracurricular endeavor”…what, not recruited d1 athletes. </p>
<p>whether athlete or actor, serious performers go into an event or an audition to win! not come in second or third, but first. there is no such thing as extracurricular behavior for successful athletes or actors. I’d advise your students and your daughter if they want to succeed they kick… on everyone else in that audition waiting area.</p>
<p>“perform” means you deliver when it’s time…that’s why competitive athletes often make great actors…like Tommy:)</p>
Wow, you must not know how to read these forums or you would know how much critical anaylsis is done of these programs. My D did extensive research on all aspects of the programs on her list BEFORE she applied and then continued to analyze them as she auditioned and got her acceptances. She researched the faculty, the alumni, the types of training, the class schedules. the perfomance options - everything about them. She also looked at her “other” options - not going to college but continuing to train/audition/work. Then she followed not only the research but her heart to the school she now attends.</p>
<p>I am really tired of you posts here and on the Parents Forum. My D was a successful actor in Austin before she went to college. She has theatre, film and television credits. She is performing in college while continuing to train and grow as an actor and as a person. She goes in to every audition with the goal to do her best and to get the role. But it isn’t about kicking on everyone else in the waiting room. It is about taking all she is and all she knows into the audition and going for it. It isn’t her against the other actors. It is her and the role and the moment.</p>
<p>If you have something of value to offer to the kids/parents using this forum as a meaningful seach tool in their COLLEGE application process, by all means go ahead and post. You have made your point about actors who did it another way. We all get it. My D has gone through the process and I continue to read and post because we learned things - much of it here on CC - along the way that I am happy to share with those who are now walking this path. Many others post here for the same reason. </p>
<p>Perhaps you can start a new website called IKnowEveythingAboutActing Confidential.com.</p>
The purpose of this particular forum is COLLEGE.</p>
I believe pacheight has brought that discussion over to here (in fact, the part about Tommy Lee Jones was all discussed a great deal over there). If you wish to read that discussion for background, go to the following thread and the topic first appears in pacheight’s post 502 and then other topics are mixed in but then starting on post 526, the theater/colleges topic gets going for a long while (with other topics mixed in that you’d have to wade through on this thread):</p>