Marymount Manhattan College

Date: Jan 26 2004
Major: Perfomance Arts (This Major's Salary over time)
This year I attended Marymount Manhattan college as an Acting major, thinking that that was the best way to go and best way to be trained, since that school has the #2 theatre program in Nyc, is very prestigious and hard to get into. Even though I already have a significant understanding of acting, have acted professionaly and non-professonaly since age 3 and already have a few styles that I use…I wanted to get more feedback on how good I was, and perhaps maybe learn more styles in order to be more versatile.

The teachers here, however, were very bitter, especially towards the talented ones, and would tell us we were horrible. (which I know can't be true.) The only students that they liked, (and passed), were the ones that sucked. Perhaps the reason was because the teachers never made it as actors, and are jealous of the ones that have potential, but anyway…we all just ignored their judgements.

Although the acting class I took this year was very challenging and meaningful, it was only held twice a week, and the academics at this college are honestly not worth the amount of money to go there. My high school classes were harder!

I made up my mind, after going here, that I am a firm believer in that you learn from experience if you're an actor, and not so much with training. (I have spoken with other professional, and amaaazing actors, who agree.) There were almost no opportunities to get experience or participate in productions at this college. And most of the good auditions in the city you have to have an agent to know about. So the information that we learned in our acting class was never even put to use yet! We dont' even know if this method worked because we couldnt' apply it to anything.

There are four productions a year at this college, and around 12 direction projects, (one-act plays directed by students), a year, also. The musical this year totally sucked, but the play was amazing. I think that was mainly because some of the actors here say they're totally into acting, but are not hard enough workers, and goof around at rehearsals. Others are very talented and very hard-working, but they just don't know that they're wasting their time at this school, and could be out auditioning for other things.

The mainstage productions are a good experience, though, but of course it's difficult to get in if you aren't sleeping with the director or in the "clique" that gets all the leads. The directing projects are a joke, mainly because the directors, who are students, also choose the people who get into them…so obviously they choose all of their friends, regardless of how good they were for the particular roles they got! I was even at one of these auditions once…a guy came out…someone asked him how he did and he responded "Not too well…but it doesn't matter because he already told me he'd put me in".

I recognize the fact that in this business, it more has to do with WHO you know, rather than WHAT you know. I mean…look at some of the famous and successful actors today that aren't too great, such as hilary duff or melissa joan hart. They got to where they are not because they're good, but because of their connections. I totally understand that. But if these wannabees actually want to make it in the "real world", then for christ's sake they need to make connections in the "real world", rather than just at a puny little college.

Most of the successfull actors today would agree that exposure, instead of training, should be the main concentration in order to make it. The teachers at this school fail to realize that auditioning right away, (if you know you're good enough), is the best route for an actor, rather than getting more training. They thought the training was the most significant way to "make it", and that's why they ended up TEACHING it. Because they never went out and JUST DID IT.

And the truth is…most of the actors here are good enough to just go out and start auditioning. They just don't know that yet. They're wasting tons of money to receive classes in which the teachers tell them they're horrible and bad, just because they didn't make it themselves. The teachers did the same thing that the actors here are currently doing…got a lot of training, thinking that's what you needed, instead of experience. And that's why they ended up teaching it. Don't take this route and miss out on doing what you love for 4 whole years!