Please, Please Stop the Madness
So in the February 24th edition of Stage Directions Magazine, there is an article entitled "URTA Launches National Showcase Calendar." The calendar "provides a way of tracking the many school showcases produced each spring in New York City." Here is the money quote as far as I am concerned:
First, why are there that many BFA and MFA programs in this country?
But aside from that particular elephant, what rips my heart out is the thought of so much wasted talent pouring into a theatre scene already bursting at the seams, where actors who actually have their Equity cards experience 85% unemployment. How many of these talented young adults will spend five-ten-fifteen years searching valiantly for chances to practice their art, only to come limping home battered and disillusioned.
From an ecological standpoint, it is so wasteful; from a human standpoint, it is almost criminal. There's got to be a better way. Why keep flooding the system?
Each spring more than 70 schools with professional MFA and/or BFA programs in acting, performance and musical theatre produce showcases in theatres throughout the Big Apple. With some schools offering both BFA and MFA degrees, more than 80 showcases are presented over the months of March, April and early May. Each showcase seeks to introduce a graduating class of performers to casting directors, agents and other professionals in the nonprofit and commercial theatre, and in related industries from cruise line productions and corporate industrials to advertising, film and television. Showcases allow training programs to provide invaluable assistance to graduates transitioning into an always challenging job market.Some quick math sends a chill up my spine. Let's say that each showcase averages 15 grads -- that's 1200 actors trying to get a foot in the door in NYC. I know that these programs think they are doing their students a service, and no doubt the students think so too, but I just find this horrifying.
First, why are there that many BFA and MFA programs in this country?
But aside from that particular elephant, what rips my heart out is the thought of so much wasted talent pouring into a theatre scene already bursting at the seams, where actors who actually have their Equity cards experience 85% unemployment. How many of these talented young adults will spend five-ten-fifteen years searching valiantly for chances to practice their art, only to come limping home battered and disillusioned.
From an ecological standpoint, it is so wasteful; from a human standpoint, it is almost criminal. There's got to be a better way. Why keep flooding the system?
Comments
I spent an hour talking to my cousin (an aspiring actor) about avoiding NYC and focusing on regional theater. It's exactly this kind of thing that horrifies me as well. Nothing wrong with a little NYC, but why go to a market that's oversaturated?
It's like there's nothing wrong with pizza, but why open a local pizza shop in a shopping center that already has a Papa John's, Dominos, and Pizza Hut?
What else are we suppose to do?
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, my local regional theatre, has the reputation, deserved or otherwise, that even if you live here you have a better chance of getting cast if you come from New York. Many people didn't get cast, in their home town regional theatre, UNTIL they moved to New York to audition.
Just not sure there's a lot of other viable options. And if I'm wrong I'd be glad to hear them.
Plus I know that the market is over saturate with young male actors; however, personally I'm just trying to wait out those who don't have what it takes until I am old enough to play more "character actor roles."
And the number of BFA/MFA acting programs is based, in some part, to the interest in perusing acting. If nothing that part should be an encouragement that there are so many young people out there who want desperately and maybe naively to follow this profession. Yet my generation is dogged for not being passionate or talented enough. The numbers show it isn't for lack of trying.
There is no dearth of people across the country wanting a shared live experience as rock concerts, sporting events, professional wrestling, religious institutions, Broadway, and even many regional theatre prove year after year. Even with all the techo-distractions (ipods, Facebook, BLOGS), people will still gravitate towards great storytelling and creative expression.
So in theory these BA/MFA programs could be fostering the next generation of communal experience-makers - the creators of the next wave of meaningul and entertaining shared events. But instead the model at many of these schools is one of training people to join a "pick me" mob - be it in New York, L.A., or in between, that undermines the true inherent skill and power of an actor - their empathy, their bravery, and their imagination.
No undergraduate or graduate program providing showcases to their students should do this without also substantial training in general management, play development, community engagement, and Arts-In-Education. Perhaps that's unrealistic due to budgets and finances - but in the long run those actors will be able to sustain themselves and potentially thrive, resulting in a better reputation and potentially more income/involvement from alumnae for those schools.
Just my two cents.
Zak Berkman
co-founder, Executive Director of Artistic Programming
Epic Theatre Ensemble
I've written my own post about it at my website entitled TO THE GRADUATING CLASS:
http://seanchristopherlewis.com/
And I hear the arguments like the one here about St. Louis all the time. I don't buy them. Disclosure: I am a full time playwright and actor and I work out of Iowa City, Iowa. I travel the country with my work and it's possible because I deny the system.
Kids think an MFA is a door being opened. There's some thought if you go to a school or bide three years of training at any MFA program that you're entitled to go to NY and work constantly... it's not the way it goes...