The acting major is encouraged to participate in additional dance courses. The acting faculty endorses the concept that all actors must be trained to sing. Students who study singing learn the rudiments of breathing, vocal support, and placement. Singing is required all four years of the training period. Singing training begins the freshman year and continues through the senior year.
Students regularly participate in voice recitals.
This is designed to engage students in four years of intensive, integrated acting, dance, and music training so that, upon graduation, they can enter the profession as skilled, intelligent, and versatile performers in both musicals and plays. For the first two years, students will follow essentially the same acting curriculum as non-musical actors with additional dance, private voice, and music theory study. The backbone of the musical theatre emphasis is a firm basis in the individual techniques of each discipline. In the junior and senior years, musical theatre students build on these fundamentals through classes specifically related to their field. These include music theory, musical theatre repertoire, score and libretto analysis, acting with musical texts, music theatre history and literature, musical theatre dance styles, and tap.