Musical Theatre is the ultimate collaborative storytelling art form. Our students learn to incorporate music, dance, and acting with a liberal arts education to create and produce compelling and imaginative theatre.
Why Study Musical Theatreat MMC?
The B.F.A. in Musical Theatre is a rigorous program combining training in acting, singing, and dancing with a robust liberal arts education. Our curriculum will prepare you for a successful professional career in the musical theatre industry while also providing you the education to be a global citizen and creative changemaker. In your first year, you’ll jump right into your musical theatre training with over 12 hours of studio instruction a week. In upper-level classes, you’ll perfect your technique and prepare for your career in The Musical Theatre Song Portfolio and Professional Preparation: Musical Theatre.
What You Will Learn as a Musical TheatreMajor
Acting Training: Our Acting faculty will compel you to use your very own imagination, instinct, and intellect to actively ignite your process. You will learn how to demonstrate the concept of “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances,” in tandem with voice training and body awareness, script analysis, and participation in rehearsal process techniques. Accompanied with respectful rigor and support, our faculty will assist you in developing and demonstrating initiative, discipline, agency, and responsibility for your work as performing artists.
Dance Training: As a B.F.A in Musical Theatre student you will train in our Daily Dance program. Each year you’ll dance five days a week with working professionals, studying a variety of disciplines including tap, ballet, and theatre dance.
Vocal Training: By working with your private voice teacher every week, you will have an individualized course of study over your four years at Marymount Manhattan. You will learn healthy vocal technique, vocal anatomy, productive practice routines, and how to approach song study for a musical perspective.
You’ll have the opportunity to take a wide variety of theatre electives such as Directing Musicals, Cabaret Performance, Pop/Rock Performance, Acting for the Camera, Performing Shakespeare, Songwriting in the Studio, and Actor, Role, Celebrity: The Haunted Body on the Musical Stage.
You’ll use the entire city as your campus. Whether you’re attending shows on Broadway or across NYC, completing research at the New York Public Library, or traveling to an off-campus class, you’ll experience all that the city has to offer—including masterclasses and lectures by Broadway’s finest from Jeff Calhoun to Chita Rivera, from Stephen Sondheim to Kathleen Marshall.
Our performance opportunities include fully produced musicals on campus as well as a yearly off-site Studio Workshop productions at venues such as the National Dance Institute or York Theatre Company. You’ll have the privilege of working with guest artists such as Richard Stafford, Patricia Birch, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, and Jeff Shade.
Marymount Manhattan is where I learned to run a light board, help build a set, and assist in hanging lights. As an actor, I believe it is important to have an appreciation for every aspect of what goes into making a complete piece of theatre. Now I joke with the crew of shows I work on and say…’I know how to do that!’
I moved to New York wanting to be an actor. MMC helped me realize that there were other careers in the theater. If not for the flexibility of MMC’s liberal arts programs, I would not have been able to make the transition from in front of to behind the curtain so easily or fruitfully.
Marymount Manhattan College allowed me to create the exact college experience I wanted! The wide variety of classes, the wonderful professors, and the convenience of being in New York City all helped me explore many different aspects of theatre arts. I got real-life experience in the city during my years in school. That was the most valuable part of my time at Marymount Manhattan.
Marymount Manhattan College Theatre Arts alumni are working on Broadway, off-Broadway, in television, in film, at regional theaters, and everywhere in between. Many of our students also go on to graduate schools across the country and around the world.
broadway
Hamilton
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Kinky Boots
Bring It On
Legally Blonde
Rent
Hairspray
Aladdin
Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark
Hands on a Hardbody
Waitress
Beautiful
Spring Awakening
Next to Normal
Amelie
film and television
Glee
Hairspray Live! (2016)
The Umbrella Academy
B Positive
Orange is the New Black
Bad Education
Grease: You’re the One that I Want
Gossip Girl
Supergirl
Top College Program
Each year, the team at OnStage Blog announces the best performing arts schools for the coming year based on research by theatre educators, students, alumni, and parents—the people who really know what’s important in theatre education. MMC made the cut and was praised for our impressive master classes and lectures.
