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NEWS
A Matter of Degrees: A fine arts program can enrich an actor's
education, but can it aid a career?
By Daniel Lehman, "Backstage East Magazine" and "Backstage West
Magazine"
March 13, 2008
Troy Lavallee knew he
wanted to act in New York, so after graduating from Boston College in
2001, he enrolled in the three-year Master of Fine Arts program in
acting at Columbia University. "Having come from a liberal arts school,"
he says, "I wanted to just be able to focus on that. Live, breathe,
sleep, eat that: acting, acting, acting. And it was that, and all that I
could have hoped for. I mean, it was really intense. It was like a
70-hour-a-week job that you don't get paid for."
Since graduating from Columbia, Lavallee has been steadily building a
career and has hit a few milestones along the way: He received a New
York Innovative Theatre Award in 2005, was written up in The New York
Times, and performs standup comedy regularly at Carolines on Broadway.
He has yet to sign with an agent, however, and is carrying a debt load
greater than many home mortgages: Including his undergraduate loans, he
owes approximately $500,000. Asked if the MFA has been worth it, he
answers with a nuance and ambivalence familiar to many who have
contemplated, pursued, or earned a fine arts degree.
"Once in a while you run into the occasional agent or casting director
that will appreciate the MFA," Lavallee says. "But for the most part,
the buyers and sellers don't even know what that means. So in that
respect, I can't say that it's helped. And I can't say that because of
the MFA I've been able to support myself, because I haven't. I bartend
and manage bars 50 or 60 hours a week, in addition to acting. But in
terms of the training and what I've learned from it and how I feel when
I walk into auditions and when I do shows? Then it's priceless in the
way that it's helped."
Back Stage spoke with three other students with experience in BFA or MFA
programs. All praise them for their academic and practical richness, but
they concede that a degree is not for everyone and that no program can
teach everything an actor needs to know to have a career.
For Some, a Must
"If you're
only interested in being a performer or a superstar, just move to
Hollywood and try it," says Karla Kash, an actor, director,
choreographer, and college professor. "But if you truly love the craft
of acting and you want to be an actor who is trained in theatre and you
want to work in professional regional theatres, then an MFA is a must."
Kash graduated from Brandeis University in 1999 with an MFA in acting.
The Ohio native was studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from
Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, when, halfway through her
undergraduate education, as her love for theatre grew to include the
classics as well as musicals, she realized that she wanted and needed
more training.
"I was equally as passionate about directing and educating actors," Kash
says. "I remember thinking that one of my mentors in college had what I
wanted: She was an Equity actress who was still working professionally,
but she was teaching acting and movement classes at the university as
well as directing."
Kash knew that an MFA would allow her to teach in the future. She chose
the MFA program at Brandeis, which accepts a small number of students
every three years, because in addition to offering her financial
assistance, the program gave her the opportunity to teach. She was also
certified as an actor/combatant by the Society of American Fight
Directors. Kash is now a visiting assistant professor of musical theatre
in the BFA program at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
"I love that I get to do what I love all day long and make a living
doing it," Kash says. "I direct, choreograph, fight-choreograph, and act
for a living, and that is all I ever wanted. My training at Brandeis was
the key component in shaping me into the theatre artist I am today." She
recently directed Jerry Springer: The Opera at StageWest
in Des Moines and is currently interviewing for permanent teaching
positions at other universities.
Nothing Is Free
Ted Stephens III felt that if he wanted to work full time as an
actor, he needed the focused training of a master's degree program.
Though he minored in theatre at St. Ambrose University in Davenport,
Iowa, his bachelor's degree is in marketing and public relations.
At the urging of friends, Stephens attended a large combined audition
and was eventually accepted by the University of Florida, whose
three-year, 13-student MFA program would essentially pay for his
training by providing a stipend, a graduate assistant position to teach
undergrads, and a fellowship.
"I'll admit that I was a little bit naive," Stephens says. "I think
going into the program, I didn't know how hard it was actually going to
be. We did four shows a year at St. Ambrose, as opposed to four shows a
semester at a place like U.F."
Although free of the financial pressure of paying for grad school,
Stephens paid his dues in sweat: Sixteen hours a day of training,
studying, and teaching was standard. But more challenging than the
schedule, he says, was the program: "I got to U.F. and my first week
there was cast as Laertes in Hamlet. I had never done Shakespeare before
in my life. I was accustomed to contemporary realism and playing ingénue
roles in musical theatre." Stephens says he got his "ass kicked" every
day, but he also gained "a stronger desire to understand myself and who
I am — a stronger sense of self. I think a sign of any good graduate
program is that when you walk away from it, you recognize where you were
and where you are now, not just as an actor but as a person."
Private in Public
That sort of inner transformation is exactly what Sean Edwards was
looking for when he entered the BFA theatre program at the California
Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif. "I feel like in my time at
CalArts, I've kind of come full circle as an artist," Edwards says. "In
the first year they try to get you out of your comfort zone and kind of
break you down in terms of who you are. So you're really thinking about
your identity and stripping away that identity." A common exercise
involved revealing an emotional experience that the actor had never
shared with anyone before. "It's very difficult," he says. "They ask you
to dig pretty deep. But for me it was one of the best things that I did
for myself."
Edwards attended a high school program at the North Carolina School of
the Arts, where he studied music and drama. In his senior year, the
school flew him to Chicago to audition for several college theatre
programs, including Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, Otterbein College, and
CalArts. He wasn't accepted at CalArts the first time: "They asked me if
I was interested in coming, and I said I didn't think so," he recalls
with a laugh. "So that pretty much blew it."
But after a year at Otterbein, Edwards found that the Ohio liberal arts
college wasn't the right fit for him. He wanted a more challenging and
experimental artistic environment, decided to try for CalArts again, and
went to New York to audition. "A week later I got my letter in the mail,
and they said I was accepted," he says.
Edwards is now finishing his fourth year at CalArts. When he
transferred, the school accepted his academic credits from his year at
Otterbein, but his acting training had to begin anew. Although he found
that discouraging, he says the switch has laid the foundation for what
he hopes will be a successful career.
"I never imagined myself in California," he says. "And I certainly never
thought I would stay in L.A. But now that I'm in my fourth year and
about to graduate, I think I will. I always thought I'd go to New York
and pound the pavement and knock on doors and be a stage actor and live
a tragic life for a while." He laughs. "I mean, I can definitely still
do that out here."
The Hustler
Though Troy Lavallee's New York life at Columbia wasn't tragic, it
certainly was dire at times. In his second year, the co-signer of his
private loans was the victim of identity theft. As a result, Lavallee
spent the entire year penniless, struggling to survive and keep up with
his class work at the same time. He became a regular at a neighborhood
bar where he would hustle patrons to buy him food or drinks or play pool
to win money.
"I'd get to school around 8 a.m.," he says, "stay there until class
ended around 5, and then we'd have rehearsals until 10 at night. This
was every day, seven days a week. And then I would just go straight to
the bar and stay until they kicked us out, then sleep for a few hours
and go back to school at 8 a.m."
Lavallee was living in a basement apartment on West 91st Street,
grateful that his landlords were lenient about the rent. "I'd borrow
from every person I could. I guess looking back, it made me stronger,
but at the time it was absolute hell. It was such a wonderful experience
and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. But I also would
never do it again."
What Lavallee values most from his graduate school experience are the
things only Columbia could offer: learning the Linklater approach to
voice from Kristin Linklater herself, finding a lifelong teacher in Anne
Bogart (who helped develop the Viewpoints technique, among other
achievements), and, perhaps most important, meeting and collaborating
with MFA directing student Paul Bargetto, with whom Lavallee founded the
company East River Commedia after graduation.
"I remember Anne Bogart saying back in the first year that if you can
come out of grad school having made one relationship with someone — one
artistic relationship that will last forever — that's all you can ask
for and more," Lavallee says. "The relationship that I've made with Paul
has really been the majority of the theatre work that I've done since
graduation."
Practically Speaking
Many programs discourage their students from acting in projects outside
of school, but Edwards says undergraduates at CalArts are often able to
pursue extracurricular work, if they can fit it around their academic
schedule. "You can get creative and take classes outside of your métier,
or major," he says, "but you have to finesse it a little bit. The great
thing about CalArts is that you can kind of make it what you want it to
be."
Edwards has done film and TV work while in school, in addition to
college- and student-produced shows each semester, and is taking three
classes in the filmmaking program this year. He says the added
coursework has allowed him to better understand directors, as well as to
form relationships with student filmmakers who, like him, will soon be
out there working.
Lavallee entered Columbia's MFA program immediately after completing his
undergraduate education, taking no time to pursue his career prior to —
or during — grad school. "Everything was so encapsulated in the graduate
school experience," he says, "and they didn't give you time to do
anything else."
Kash also entered grad school directly after graduating from Wright
State. Although she felt fortunate to be accepted into an MFA program
right away, she thinks it would have been a good idea to spend a couple
of years acting professionally before going to Brandeis. "I just
happened to go because I was accepted," she says. "Most people I know
did not get accepted right after undergrad. I know a lot of programs
seem to choose students with more experience, who are a little older."
Stephens, on the other hand, worked for four years — in marketing and
Web communications for St. Ambrose — before enrolling at Florida, he
continues to design websites part time to pay the bills while practicing
his craft. He says dual experience prepared him better for life in the
real world than grad school might have on its own. "I'm lucky that I
have the business background," he says. "That helps a lot with marketing
myself. I think that some of my classmates who don't have that
experience will need to catch up on that."
Although some programs don't offer guidance on the practical aspects of
an acting career, many, including the University of Florida and CalArts,
showcase their graduating students to industry professionals in New York
and Los Angeles. (Brandeis offers showcases in New York and Boston.)
Students get the chance to audition for agents, producers, managers, and
casting directors on the lookout for new talent.
In addition, the University of Florida and other schools encourage their
students to spend their final semester as an intern in the city they
intend to live in after graduation.
Stephens is finishing his MFA training at MCC Theater in New York,
learning the inner workings of an Off-Broadway company by serving part
time in its marketing office. At the same time, he is learning how to
live, work, and audition in New York, but with the continued guidance of
the university as he integrates himself back into the world of a working
actor.
"I can learn from my mistakes here, and I have this kind of cushion," he
says. "I won't always have that luxury. And that's a tremendous
benefit."
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