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USC School of Dramatic Arts Will Now Offer BFA in Musical Theatre
Beginning in fall 2018, the college will offer the new degree for undergraduates.
Through a collaboration with the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music and the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, University of Southern California will begin offering a degree in contemporary musical theatre beginning in the fall of 2018.
The conservatory-like course of study will include lessons in voice, acting, dance, and digital entrepreneurship.
“We are in a new golden age of musical theatre in America,” said David Bridel, dean of the School of Dramatic Arts, in a statement. “This new degree, created in partnership with our colleagues here at USC, reflects the full range of what’s possible for the art form and will develop new generations of artists fully prepared to contribute their talents and move their field forward.”
For more information about applying to undergraduate performing arts programs, visit PlaybillEDU.com.
While the university has seen numerous successful graduates in the performing arts disciplines—including Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) and two-time Tony nominee Stark Sands (Kinky Boots)—the school will now officially offer a musical theatre degree for the first time in its history.
The program will also emphasize theatre’s backstage creative disciplines, not just those onstage. In students’ junior and senior years, classes will highlight music composition, lyric-writing, playwrighting, directing, and choreography.
The announcement of the undergraduate degree comes on the heels of the school’s 2016 initiative LiveRead@SDA, which paired students with industry professionals—producers, directors, writers, etc.—as they workshopped new musicals.
For more information about or to apply for the BFA in Contemporary Musical Theatre, visit DramaticArts.usc.edu.
