College Selection

If you are considering a two year college before going on to a four year degree then you need to check with the second school and see how your credits will transfer before wasting your time. In the Phoenix area, Arizona State University works with all of the Maricopa Community Colleges in developing their general education credits to directly transfer to the University (which also works for the other state universities as well). I started out at a four year state college in Colorado before going over to Arizona and had some difficulty transferring credits, even though they weren't from a community college, but built on a different system. The only bonus to doing a smaller college first is that you may have opportunities for greater responsibility sooner. On the other hand, like Derek suggested, you may find that when you transfer, they treat you like a freshman.

So, you will definitely need to do your homework on the specific institutions that you plan on attending.
 
As long as I'm here, I'll bring up two topics I'm passionate about:

Choose an institution of higher learning not by the quality or newness of its equipment or facilities, but for its faculty and program. All the state-of-the-art whiz-bang gizmos don't mean squat if the professors don't know how to teach, or don't know how to use the "toys" themselves. Besides interviewing potential professors and current students, a campus visit should also include seeing a performance. Now while it's possible a HS student will be impressed with any college production, it's not always a given. I once saw a production at a "name" theatre school, with an MFA program, and the production values were so poor there is no way I could ever recommend that school. Now that I think about it, that's happened at two different schools.

I completely agree with this statement. The best equipment means little to nothing if you are not correctly trained in how to use them. Also, there are so many more venues that don't use the most up to date equipment than there are those that are fully equipped. The ETC Source 4 is probably one of the most used lighting instruments in the theatrical world, yet it's been around for some time now. As a lighting designer, I'm going to want an electrician who knows how to hang, focus and repair one of these instruments over someone who only knows how to program the most high tech movers. I guess what I'm say is make sure the school has the basics before worrying if they are the most up to date. And even at that point, make sure that the work is quality with the high tech gadgets. Go and see a show, take a tour, speak with both professors and students. That's the only way to really know what the program is like without actually attending it.

Another thing--I'm leery of any school where the students design too much. (Controversial statement? Please continue reading with an open mind, before responding.)
My college allowed only seniors to design mainstage productions, and rarely if ever would allow more than one student designer on a production. I see too many students who have designed many shows, but without proper supervision. Therefore, they lack critical analysis of their work, and don't know how to collaborate or defend/explain their design decisions. IMO, design is best learned via the mentor method, not on one's own in a vacuum. Choose a college, primarily, because of its faculty.

I am in semi-agreement with this statement. First, you need professors who are going to truly judge your abilities to design. Currently at my college any student can design, as long as I allow them to. And trust me, it takes some work for me to believe a student can design. Generally I get high quality designs out of those that I feel are ready, but even then I make mistakes. This semester I had a student scene designer and student lighting designer on our musical. I felt both were ready for the challenge. I was right with the scene designer and wrong with the lighting designer. In my six years teaching, I have only allowed three students to design on the mainstage. On top of that I expect them to have assistant designed one of my productions prior to actually designing. My hope is that I'm slowly training more, but they have to be ready. They have to have a passion for design, they have to be responsible enough to do the work, and they have to be smart enough to think critically about the project. Those are some hard characteristics to find in late teen/early 20 year olds. So don't worry too much about how many people are designing, check to see how many good designs are happening. Are they entering their designs into SETC or ACTF? Are there newspaper articles about the shows? Find out. Educate yourself on the schools that you are interested in.
 
I agree, wait a year or so before you start to worry about programs. The best question to ask is what do you want out of the program? Design experience, electrics experience, general theatre?

There are a number of conservatory programs out there that will get you very good experience in a specific field, ie lighting, but coming straight out of high school, I would suggest a smaller program to get a good broad tech theatre education.

I see a lot of students who graduate from conservatory style programs and they have some trouble finding work because they have a very limited skill set. Taking the time to become well rounded in your theatre experience will only help you in the long run.
 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a state school, has a highly-regarded theatre dept., but does seem expensive, even for residents.

As for two years of gen ed at a "cheap" community college then two years at a "good" university--I know people who have successfully done that in other fields, but not in theatre. I'm certain no BFA program would allow it, and suspect some BA programs wouldn't either. I think you'd be cheating yourself, by cutting in half your participation in productions.


/end lecture rant

I kinda did that. I got an associates in Architecture from a community college, then changed my mind and switched to Engineering, another 2 years and another associates form the same community college. Changed my mind again (with a little help from my wife) and went for my BA in Tech Theatre at Western Michigan University. I did three years there. I commuted everyday for the 3 years, about an hour drive, since I couldn't convince my just married wife to move.

When I started at WMU, I only had a few, maybe 4, classes that were outside of theatre. I spent the majority of those three years deep in the shows, mostly working in the shop. I also student taught the stagecraft class for a few semesters.

I will now throw in my plug for this school, but don't ask me details about the program now, since it has been almost 10 years since graduation. I do keep in touch every now and then and I have a few students who have gone (or are currently going) through HS here that have gone on to study theatre there, both performance and technical. It is a tough program to get into and even harder to stay in with annual reviews of your performance.
 
Do you want a small school where you can get started right away designing and doing everything else, or do you want a big school where you'll get to work with phenomenal equipment.

Go big. It'll prepare you for the real world, the more competition and diversity you see will become part of you and help you become a versatile grounded tech who can deal with large scale shows. This will also always keep you working with different people and those are great connections to make.

I started in a big pond, then the pond got really small, now it's getting bigger again and I think of all the things my peers taught me vs professors and it's not even close.
 
Thus, I'm beginning to branch out, and my main interest at this point is a public midwestern university that doesn't increase tuition for out-of-state students and has a rather strong technical tehatre program.
Think about what you said, you want a state funded school that charges the same for students whose families already help pay for the school via taxes as it does for those whose families pay for schools in another state. Some states may have reciprocity agreements in place but in general there is a valid reason that being out-of-state costs more at public (state and local tax funded) schools.


Another related question: How would transferring from 1-2 years of gen ed community college to a major university's a technical theatre program compare to simply spending all four years at said major university? This may end up being my only option, so I'm curious as to how it compares considering the significant cost reduction.
As the old saying goes, there is no free lunch. It will vary significantly based on the two institutions involved but often not all credit will transfer.
It is probably safe to say that it is rarely a direct 1:1 relationship where some number of years or credit hours at a community college will all directly transfer to a major university. This is not a necessarily any negative reflection on the CC, it can simply be the course work being more of an unknown to the University, but I could readily see the relationship potentially being more like two years at a community college equating to one year at the university. But that all depends on the institutions and classes.

In addition, while you may be able to address general education credits, you may have difficulty with courses and credits within your major. A simple example, there may be a series of courses that you have to fulfill for your plan of study with one course being a prerequisite for the next which is a prerequisite for another. If you cannot begin that series until sometime your Sophomore or Junior year then you may have difficulty completing it by the end of your fourth year. You may also find that not every required or desired course is offered every semester or at the times you want and having less time to work with scheduling your classes may start to create conflicts. I personally ran into a class or two where it took several years to find a time when it both was offered and did not conflict with some other critical path course.
 
I was in the same situation at this time last year. I applied to three schools on the east coast for a lighting design program. University of the Arts in Philly is just starting out but they have a pretty nice program. Emerson is just an obvious choice, I went and toured it and they have INCREDIBLE facilities. I'll be attending Fordham University in New York City this fall for the 4-year LD program, and their program is pretty phenomenal. It's a very small program, only twelve acceded students to the tech track each year. I got accepted to Emerson but didn't go because of location. They may have awesome facilities but the theatre scene in New York is unbeatable compared to Boston. Coming from a person who just did this really consider location because internships in college and job support once you graduate are a huge priority.
 
Another important factor is distance from home. I'm from Austin TX but I went to school in Ithaca NY. It was a long way from home, but I got the process of leaving home out of the way early. I was really home sick those first few weeks, but the experience was well worth it. Being a professional theatre technician may send you all over the country. It's good to get some away from home experience done.
I don't know if I can suggest Ithaca College theatre to a total stranger. It isn't the best fit for every one but no college is. I can say the professors are very good. A drawback for me was how dated the facility was but it has been renovated recently. The cost was high but thats the way college is today.
 
I would say that "Choose an institution of higher learning not by the quality or newness of its equipment or facilities, but for its faculty and program." is fairly on point. The real red herring here is often facility, in that whiz-bang facility doesn't always make a whiz-bang program. Both times I was a theatre student it was in less than state of the art venues and in some ways I think that actually enhanced the experience.

I would say it really is about the faculty, and to a lesser degree about the classes. Who are they, what have they done, what will be your access, and what are they actually going to offer in terms of education. At this point I don't think I could possibly recommend a program where there isn't an established, specific curriculum they can discuss with you.

With respect to gear, in the more technical specialties you likely do want to be sure you will have some experience on contemporary equipment. So again, having it doesn't mean for sure it is the right place, but different from facility, not having it does make a difference. Keep in mind though that there are many avenues at school to using cool gear. Where I work now we own a good chunk, but we also rent often, and there are other organizations on campus with a good inventory as well. So if the answer to "Do you have the newest shiny thing?" is no, ask about other opportunities to get the exposure before writing them off.

Designing, or more specifically "Another thing--I'm leery of any school where the students design too much." I think this is more about faculty than opportunities. As a design student you want to design, as a technical student you want to engineer and implement, as a manager you want to manage; these are all good and necessary experiences. It's not so much about how often as it is about how prepared and how supported.

Let's use "working" to catch all disciplines. If you are working a lot, but it starts as an underclassman and the faculty travels often... that may be less desirable than not getting to it until later. If you are working before you've had class prep for the tasks involved that might be less desirable. If faculty aren't in the shops or in the theatres that might be less desirable.

Conversely you also might want to watch out for programs where everything is done by faculty, staff or locals. Whether you design, engineer, or manage you want the opportunity to be the one actually doing it. So when researching, the level of student involvement is as important to research as they level of faculty involvement. I don't think you can make an assessment based solely on the number of opportunities. It's the nature and quality of the opportunity that matters.
 
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I did consider U of I for a while, particularly after getting a good look at their theatre program during 2009's Illinois High School Theatre Festival. I also believe that another lighting designer from my school is headed there next year. Unfortunately, much too expensive.

As for the question about beginning at community college, I think that I may end up working full time for a year or two after high school and then heading to a four year.

Chris- I am almost certain that he is going to DePaul now (they had a recent opening) and not the U of I. Also, if you are considering not going to school right away... you need to also consider that most people who claim this as their intent... never end up going back to school... it is a sort of "human nature" thing. Just dont get stung by that same bug!
 
This was posted when I was under the assumption that he was still going through with his U of I acceptance.

As for the whole idea of working full-time, and then going to college, I think that with enough motivation I could (hopefully) push myself to leave a steady job to go to college. What would also help would be an employer that would possibly invite me back after college - obviously no guarantee, but I've seen it happen. The potential job I've got lined up in technical theatre (specifically, corporate a/v) for the summer could help with this a bit.
 
This was posted when I was under the assumption that he was still going through with his U of I acceptance.

As for the whole idea of working full-time, and then going to college, I think that with enough motivation I could (hopefully) push myself to leave a steady job to go to college. What would also help would be an employer that would possibly invite me back after college - obviously no guarantee, but I've seen it happen. The potential job I've got lined up in technical theatre (specifically, corporate a/v) for the summer could help with this a bit.

You may very well find someone who wants you back after college, I know my summer job did. But you will find it very hard to do that. Are they going to be willing to pay you more when you get the degree? If not (which is the likely outcome) are you going to find wit worth taking off 4 years from work while racking up debt to get one?

I'm not saying it won't work for you, but I think you will probably be better off going into school right as you graduate.
 
I'm not saying it won't work for you, but I think you will probably be better off going into school right as you graduate.

That would be my complete prefrence, but with costs it simply might not be practical. I'll probably end up going out of state due to the lack of relatively low-cost tech schools in Illinois, which means paying out-of-state tuition at least my first year and room and board/an apartment all four years.

I've looked, and of the five Illinois colleges all are at least 20,000 a year for tuition alone. If it comes out to be cheaper to go to one of those that go out of state I may consider it, but otherwise I'm not sure. DePaul's average financial aid package is more than $20,000 (tuition is $30,000) so it might be possible for me to go there.
 

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