Question:

Is Theatre a "REAL" major in college?

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I love acting, music and theatre but i feel the pressure to get a "Real" degree in college.

What should i do...im torn.

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  1. Of course theater is a real major. If you get a BFA as opposed to a BA and go to a good school, it'll be much more intensive and difficult than most liberal arts majors.

    As you obviously know, you will probably not be able to support yourself completely with an acting income after college. But that doesn't mean that the stereotype of the "poor starving artist" that everybody has in this money-obsessed country is true, either. There's a thing called a day job, and it doesn't make you any less of an artist. Actors are complex people with many skills and they find all kinds of other ways to generate income--writing, sales work, teaching English as a second language. Whatever you're good at, interested in and, possibly, have the time to take a couple of extra classes on while you're at school. OR, you may find in your study of theater/film that you're also interested in other parts of the business and want to combine an acting career with one as an acting teacher, set designer, casting director, or something of the sort (all jobs with much more potential for steady money). Check out this blog post:

    http://ohprettylady.blogspot.com/2008/01...

    It's one of the best pieces of advice I've seen on "how to survive financially as an artist," and the blog in general is fantastic as well (no, it's not my blog, LOL).

    My heart really goes out to you because I was similarly torn when I was in high school, trying to decide what I was going to do in and after college. I was really drawn to acting and music, but also really interested in more typical majors like psychology, foreign languages, etc. and couldn't help feeling that those would somehow be more dignified or more important. In the end, I decided to take the risk and go to school to study opera and music theater, because the fact is this . . . when I'm forty-five, if I decide I want to go back to school and get licensed as a therapist, or get a job as an English-to-French translator, or write a novel, or whatever--any of those more "liberal-arts" types of things--I can. Nothing's going to stop me. You can do those things at any stage of life. But if, as a forty-five year old editor at a publishing house, I one day realize that my life's dream is to be an opera singer, it's too late to quit and start auditioning for opera houses. It takes a lifetime in the performing arts to be trained in your craft and build a career. So of all the options I was considering, I just picked the one in which I HAD to start training NOW if I was going to succeed. I'm not even finished with college yet and I have already been so, so richly rewarded with artistic and personal fulfillment and the beauty of music in my life. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I had chosen differently.

    So I would say take the risk now, while you're young, and trust that if it turns out to be a mistake, you'll have the time and opportunity to fix it down the road. If you're especially anxious about where the money will come from, maybe minor in something lucrative. (On the other hand, DON'T do what lots of well-meaning parents force their kids to do and major in something else with a minor in theater. Unless that something else is truly your passion and theater is basically a fun hobby for you, this won't give you the opportunity to really explore your art to the fullest, and it'll make you bitter.)

    Basically, I would say not to let fear (of money issues, being judged by others, etc.) make your decisions for you.

    Best of luck, my friend!

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