The University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television has paused admissions to its bachelor of fine arts in Musical Theatre program for next school year as it assesses the program’s future.
The assessment, which began this fall, has prompted a backlash among theater students, who gathered nearly 3,200 signatures on a petition through change.org after initial documents detailing possible scenarios were leaked. One of those scenarios would have eliminated theater altogether and rebranded it the School of Film.
“It’s a bit of an upsetting document to read,” said BFA musical theater junior Clayton Lukens. “There are many people who are interested in this program and removing live performances will be detrimental to the program. It’s where we all get started.”
“It came as a shock. It really came out of nowhere,” said BFA musical theater senior Erin Rose McDaniel. “I chose this program because I believe in it and to hear that there are people who don’t believe in the relevance of this program is disheartening for sure.”
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In addition to musical theater, the school also paused admissions to the BFA and master of fine arts programs in design technology, which is under the theater umbrella.
The leaked documents, dated Nov. 11 and posted to the Saveaztheatre Facebook page on Nov. 19, were written by Brant Law Pope, the school’s interim director who joined the faculty in August to replace Andrew Belsar. Belsar left for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln last May after three years.
Officials with the College of Fine Arts, which includes the School of Theatre, Film & Television, said the scenarios outlined in those leaked documents are not necessarily how it will play out when the final plan is determined next March.
But Fine Arts Dean Andrew Schulz said the school is looking to make “transformative” change that could impact the theater program going forward.
University of Arizona student actor of Clayton Lukens is a junior in the musical theater program. He says removing live performances would be detrimental.
“We reached the conclusion a couple of weeks ago that it wasn’t really ethical to bring in a new class of students at the time when we were thinking of transformative change,” Schulz said during a Zoom interview Nov. 15 that included Pope and theater faculty member Deanna Fitzgerald, who teaches lighting design.
Pope said the biggest issue facing the school is finding the resources to sustain the musical theater program and film and television with the existing staffing and financial resources.
Enrollment in film and television makes up 61% of the school’s 530 students, but has just 35% of the staff resources, according to numbers provided by the College of Fine Arts. The theater BFA programs makes up 20% of the enrollment including 40 in musical theater, but accounts for about 50% of the faculty.
“It’s not a question of what’s wrong with (musical theater) in terms of its excellence. The broader question is that to support an excellent, outstanding music theater program like this takes extraordinary faculty and financial resources,” Pope said. “Our challenge is how are we going to respond to the primary growth and excitement which is in film and television?”
Enrollment in UA film and television jumped 42% in 2021, according to the entertainment news site The Wrap, which ranked the UA film school No. 25 in the nation in 2021 and 2022.
Arizona Repertory Theatre production of "Spring Awakening."
UA School of Theatre, Film & Television said the 2022 Wrap rankings place the UA at No. 6 among public university film schools nationwide.
The Wrap in its 2021 list also commended the UA for its student films setting a record for film festival invitations including Faye Ruiz’s “The Lights Are On, No One’s Home,” which landed a national distribution through Dedza Films/Kino Lorber.
Authority, which ranks the best colleges in a variety of fields, listed UA’s musical theater program No. 24 in its recent listing of the top 25 best colleges for musical theater.
Pope, whose academic career has included chairing the theater department at the University of Illinois and, most recently, at the University of Texas at Austin, said possible scenarios include retaining some live performance theater and devised work as well as film and television.
Arizona Repertory Theatre production of "High Fidelity."
“The question is not whether we do music theater but whether we have a training program in music theater,” Pope said. ”Having training would be the financial drain. In one scenario we would move away from a training program to something that combined film and theater.”
The school also will retain an actor training program, but it could shift from theater based to film and television.
“The employment picture is changing. Ninety percent of all revenue for working actors is in film, television and other media,” Pope said. “We must ask ourselves whether we should have a theater-based program or a film- and television-based program. How can our curriculum and facilities best serve the needs of students in the next five, 10 and 20 years? That is what we are considering in our self-assessment process.”
If you ever wondered what the green dress from "The Wiz" looked like up close, the colorful look of the Ziegfeld Follies costumes, or wanted an extensive view on the elements that make a groundbreaking musical, then the newly opened Museum of Broadway is for you. Broadway's first museum opened this week and provides fans with a combination of history, memorabilia and education. "Showboat," Rent," "Company," and "A Chorus Line" are but a few of the shows that have elaborate displays that let fans get up close and personal. Museum Co-Founder Julie Boardman says one of the hardest parts of setting up the museum was figuring out the story they wanted to tell. "There's so much history. So how are we going to organize it and make it in a way the people you know, really with the guest experience in mind? So we've landed on this idea that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. So had all these people not pioneered, broken ground, taken risks along the way, we would never have the art form and the art that is created today."
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com. On Twitter @Starburch
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