I will also be an official (musical) theatre student as of this fall, although I'm going to a community college first, so I'm not in the city.
As far as good musical theatre programs at colleges/universities in the city, which ones do you all recommend? A friend of my sister's went to Columbia and loved it, although he said he would have tried for Northwestern if he had to do it all over again. I'd really like to look into Roosevelt, although I've heard they only pick 20 students for their musical theatre program - does anyone know if this is true?
Roosevelt's very tight knit, yeah. I wouldn't reccommend going to Roosevelt for musical theatre. Music, yes. Theatre, yes. But not musical theatre. The kids all come out of the program complaining about how little they actually did. I have a bunch of friends a few years ahead of me at that school, so they relayed this to me.
Northwestern is incredible. Don't know much about the program except that it's an awesome school.
Be warned, Columbia is not for everyone. I know at least four people who went there and dropped out altogether because of its extremely free-form program system.
As for me, I plan on getting a degree in acting (while still studying voice and dance) and then following musical theatre (or whatever comes my way) as a profession. DePaul has a fabulous acting program, but it's very small. 26 girls, 26 boys, and they re-evaluate you at the end of the first year. Loyola has a GREAT acting program, too, relaxed in attitude but strong in foundation.
It depends on your preferences, essentially. I'm either at DePaul (I'm on the wait list right now) or Loyola. :)
actually, i would have to disagree on your opinion of Roosevelt. I plan on attending there myself next fall and I happen to know a variety of students who recomend the program and enjoy it very much. I have been there many times and thourougly impressed on the basis of conducting their musical theatre courses. It is based on classical training with a stress on musical theatre literature and acting teachniques as well as dance. And for a Chicago school opposed to New York, it has a wide range of students longing to join the musical theatre program from around the country. I plan on transferring to NYU in two years but for starting out, Roosevelt and Chicago are definetly a GREAT choice for musical theatre.
...Christopher Columbus I'll be *ASTONISHING*.. at LAST!!
