School of Music

BFA Students Strut Their Stuff in LA and NY

By Daniel Ng

It happens every year around this time.

Soon-to-be graduating students from the Music, Dance, Theater and Acting programs travel across the country each spring to showcase their talents in hopes of landing future auditions and jobs.

This year, a group of 17 seniors, consisting of 13 girls and four boys, took their aspirations and dreams on to the road from LA to New York as they performed in front of producers, directors, agents, and other professionals in the theater industry.

From performing monologues to acting out scenes and singing famous tunes from movies and musicals, the 2011 cast had hopes of catching at least one person’s interest in the audience.

“Every BFA [Bachelor of Fine Arts] program does this when their students graduate,” said Alexis Monnie, an acting major who will be graduating this April and describes herself as a free-spirit. “You get hooked up with agents and managers from it. It’s just a great way to get out there. It’s really like an open audition to show them what you can do.”

According to Brigham Young University professor and chair of the MDT program, Tim Threlfall, the school started sending graduating students on showcase tours about 10 years ago.

“We started it as a way of training them [the students] for careers in the professional entertainment business whether that’s in musical theater or acting,” Threlfall said. “Getting a good agent and being seen by an agent is a big challenge for any young actor. We are trying to bridge that gap with the showcase.”

Threfall also noted that the showcase can serve a different purpose by being a self-motivator for many of his students.

“The showcase is also an eye-opening experience and gives everyone a good kick in the rear to get them going and doing their absolute best work,” Threlfall said. “It gives them a chance to feel the vibe of New York and Los Angeles.”

For those who have not attended a showcase, they differ in comparison to full-length musicals, plays, and movies.

“It’s just like a bunch of little scenes in one, big show,” Monnie said. “There’s not a plot; it’s just showcasing one individual after another.”

Students also always pick their best work or number to put on display.

“You want to pick one that you feel good about, one that you don’t have to worry about,” Monnie said. “This is the time to showcase yourself. You don’t want to challenge yourself so much that you fail. You want to choose stuff that shows who you are as a package.”

Showcase venues are often quite small as well, much smaller than a normal- size theater for specific reasons.

“It was really intimate and there couldn’t have been more than 30 seats in the venues which made the acoustics awesome,” said Rosa Gardner, who is also graduating this April after completing the MDT program.

For Gardner and her fellow graduates, the showcase also marks the end of a long road to graduation ─ a road that includes many bumps, detours and roadblocks. Still, students have fond memories and experiences often heightened by great teachers.

“Now that I’m about to graduate, as I reflect back, it almost makes me want to cry,” said Gardner who took a few years off from her studies to figure out her direction in life. “I think about how lucky I was. We have amazing teachers. They know who you are, you can talk to them, and they really care about you. There wasn’t one class that was a waste of time. Out of every class, I got something important not only about myself, but also about life.”

Threlfall hopes that each of his graduates this year will find success in the industry. If they follow in the footsteps of their predecessors in the program, he is almost certain they will do fine.

“Almost every good program around the country can claim a couple stars,” said Threlfall citing famous BYU graduates such as Aaron Eckhart and Will Swenson. “But what I look for in a program is not just a couple of stars, but rather, how many of their graduates now work? That’s where our strength lies. We have a lot of people working on Broadway, on TV, and on national tours all across the country. That for me is the measure that they’ve had a good training and foundation because they are working actors.”

And if things don’t work out in the theater business, graduates also understand that life may have something else in store for them.

“I feel confident that Heavenly Father will lead me and my husband where we need to be,” Gardner said. “Whatever happens is meant to be. We don’t have to worry about whether or not it was the right decision.”