Clarion University's theatre alumni prove that you can have success in the acting industry. You just need the experience Clarion gives you – and a little tenacity to go along with it.
"We teach them to make their own way and point them in the right direction," said theatre professor Marilouise "Mel" Michel.
Clarion University offers a Bachelor of Arts in theatre as well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre with concentrations in acting, musical theatre and design technical director. The technical BFA offers concentrations in scenic design, lighting design, costume design and stage management.
There also is a Bachelor of Science in liberal studies with a theatre concentration. Students from any major may minor in acting and technical theatre.
"It's not an easy path but the most satisfying thing is seeing them apply what they've learned," Michel said.
Clarion's theatre students get to apply what they've learned on the Clarion stage before they break into the business. The experience students get is one of the reasons why Clarion University instructor Drew Leigh Williams came to Clarion as a student in the first place. Williams is a 2008 musical theatre graduate.
"Everyone gets a chance. Everyone gets a chance to try," Williams said of Clarion.
Williams said after she visited the campus she knew she would get a well-rounded education
and experience.
Other alumni agree.
"I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't had the experience at Clarion. I've worked my way up at Busch from seasonal, to variable, and now full-time," said Dan Schreiber, a 2013 graduate with a BFA in theatre with a concentration in scenic design. Schreiber is working in the field of technical design as a full-time technician at Busch Gardens Williamsburg where he sets up for shows and park-wide events.
Theatre students learn a variety of skills including public speaking, empathy for others and creative problem solving because that's what a play is – it's a problem, Michel said.
"We're teaching them how to solve problems," Michel said. "How do you grow a project from beginning to end?"
Once they learn to solve this problem, it's up to them to find their way in the industry – and that can mean a variety of career choices.
For Williams, graduating from Clarion meant further honing her acting skills at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University where she obtained a MFA in acting. Williams said she's always wanted to teach in higher education as well as act. While she was attending graduate school, she got plenty of acting experience by auditioning.
"An actor spends more time auditioning than onstage," Williams said.
Williams was represented by a talent agency during her time in Chicago and she learned that the auditioning experience is more important than the rejection all actors ultimately face.
"It's a lot of accepting rejection. That's what acting is," Michel said.
But dealing with the rejection is where tenacity comes into play, which is something Michel said she can't give her students.
Williams said auditioning gives actors and actresses the preparation that helps them land an acting or performing job. Auditioning also teaches you how to present yourself.
"I'm a business," Williams said.
Having that mindset is helpful because Williams said "it's a small world in theatre" where everyone talks to one another for recommendations.
"We try to make it clear to them that we're not training movie stars," Michel said. "We're training performers."
For Nic Barilar, graduation meant returning to the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan, as an actor and working behind the scenes, before attending graduate school at the University of Alabama. Barilar is a 2013 Clarion University graduate with a BFA in theatre with a concentration in acting and a Bachelor of Arts in English.
Barilar had previously worked at the Barn Theatre before graduation and in two seasons, he performed in eight main stage productions in supporting character roles or in the ensemble, 12 post-show cabarets and painted 12 sets as the set designer's assistant.
Barilar recently finished graduate school at the University of Alabama and is pursuing his doctorate in theatre and performance studies at the University of Pittsburgh this fall.
Michel said it's common for theatre graduates to attend graduate school because of their love for the theatre and the opportunity to teach theatre at some point in their careers.
Others find themselves on the management side of theatre like Miranda Lane, a 2002 graduate with a BFA in theatre with a concentration in acting, who moved to New York City after graduation.
"I have worked as a house manager for such storied organizations as Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, and now Lincoln Center Theater. Through the last decade in this industry I have worked with artists and theatre professionals that I had learned about in my textbooks in school!" Lane said.
In addition to her work as a house manager, Lane has written a play, a short film and is in the process of shopping her first TV pilot, which she said is starting to pick up buzz in the city.
"I have missed being creative for quite some time now - the storyteller in you doesn't ever really go away, does it? So I have begun writing in the last two or three years," Lane said.
No matter what area of the industry theatre graduates find themselves, graduates credit Clarion University's theatre program with helping them get started.
"I gained so much experience from building the shows and designing sets for four shows (at Clarion). I even got the chance to stage manage and direct a student piece before I graduated," Schreiber said.
Williams said Clarion students are truly getting a unique experience at Clarion. "Kids in Pittsburgh aren't getting on stage until senior year."
The experience proves to be vital for alumni.
"It was at Clarion that I learned that listening was just as important as speaking, and that it takes a village to truly tell a story," Lane said. "Opportunities to take part in student-driven productions helped to cement my love for the process of storytelling – I not only took part in these productions as an actor, but also as a director, and - what I would later learn to be - a producer."
Williams said returning to Clarion to teach was an easy decision. "I wanted to come back to the environment that I thought gave me so much."