Literature on being a multiple threat and changing the curriculum to meet the current market

Musical Theatre Students Are Becoming Quadruple Threats

Musical theatre artists are no longer just actors, writers, or singers, and schools are finding new ways to train them. By Maggie Gilroy.

Maggie Gilroy is a senior theatre arts and journalism major at Fredonia State University of New York with a passion for arts journalism. Hailing from Binghamton, New York, she is currently Editor in Chief of The Leader, Fredonia’s only student-run campus news publication as well as working as a freelance journalist. This publication was published on January 4th 2017 and therefore gives me an up to date commentary on the current pressure on schools to prepare their students for the industry. 

The article begins by depicting a far easier time in Musical Theatre, when you could just hop on a bus to New York, tap shoes in your case, and expect to be discovered. Maggie Gilroy then goes on to use quotes from an interview with the chairman of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music's Musical Theatre department. 

'Instead of encouraging students to follow this old script, programs are now aiming to prepare students for the current market, in which actors increasingly write their own shows, classically trained singers must master hip-hop dance breaks, and dancers are expected to act' Aubrey Burg - chairman of CCM's Musical Theatre Programme.

This is vitally important to my inquiry as this quote clearly shows that this school, which is one of the oldest Musical Theatre programs in America, adapts its curriculum to fit the current market. It also highlights the importance of mastering more than one skill. prior to reading this article, my SIG had also discussed how being an amazing singer or an amazing tapper isn't enough anymore and that in the current industry you need to be able to 'do it all'. 

'We know we have to prepare our students to be nimble and adapt to whatever the current market is,” says David Herendeen, the director of the opera and music theatre program at OCU and a former professor of O’Hara’s.'

I found this quote particularly interesting, as coming from a Musical Theatre course myself, I do not feel that I was prepared for the market to change, or in fact what 'the market' actually was. I discussed this with my SIG (all members having trained at different drama schools, have been fully briefed on my line of inquiry and are happy for quotes to be used) who gave me no end of feedback on the subject, all of which backed my original feelings on the matter. 

'College tries to prepare you but teachers haven't worked in the industry for ages so they are going off what the industry was like for them at the time they were in it' -sig

'College gives you the skills and makes you believe being talented is enough, it isn't.' -sig 

'The more guest teachers your college invite to teach the better, the guest teachers are the ones still in the industry, they are the ones that know what the current market is like'- sig 

There is clearly a conflict here, and although Burg is only referring to her particular College and not colleges in general, I would expect all leading drama colleges to prepare its students for a developing market, and my sigs response as well as my own feelings towards the mater suggest otherwise.

 A few weeks ago I bumped into my ballet teacher who taught me when I was training and has since moved to another leading performing arts college. We got chatting about my line of inquiry as she has taken similar steps to further her education whilst teaching and her opinion was that the majority or colleges definitely do keep an eye on the current market and introduce new classes to keep up, her most recent example being how prominent commercial dance now is in most schools. Even though this is clearly a development to meet demand for new shows such as 'Thriller' which are heavily commercial based, i'm not convinced that introducing a new class for a few hours a week is enough of a statement to make students realise the importance. 

'In addition to more extensive acting courses, Berg added training in the practicalities of the business, including audition techniques and, as Berg phrases it, the “business side of show business.” In short, the days of the wide-eyed graduate arriving in New York with just tap shoes and a suitcase are no longer.'

Audition technique is definitely something we were drilled on at College. When I asked my sig, the recent graduate members had all participated in audition technique classes whilst training on a weekly basis in their third year, and these classes included lessons on how to walk into the room, how to greet the panel, how to speak to the pianist, where to look when singing or dancing, what to wear depending on what you were auditioning for etc. 
The nature of the article though suggests that Audition technique class is a relatively new addition and the members of my sig who graduated more than ten years ago said this was not on the curriculum when they trained. 
'While each musical theatre program has a different approach, all agree on one thing: The fact that musical theatre is changing is not really a change at all.'

While at college we did extensive research into Musical Theatre history which I have touched on in a previous blog, and the developments and re-occurrences are clear. You only have to take a brief look at the history to know that Musical Theatre is constantly changing depending on whatever style is popular with audiences at the time. 

Maggie Gilroy (2017) Musical Theatre students are becoming quadruple threats. Available: http://www.americantheatre.org/2017/01/04/musical-theatre-students-are-becoming-quadruple-threats/