NYU Stella Adler Studio
November 4, 2011 1:48 PM   Subscribe

My sibling is at NYU in the Stella Adler acting studio. She is a freshman and is very frustrated with the lack of rigor the acting program offers. She is very disappointed and questioning if other people had this experience. Other students have also shared this feeling, not just about Stella Adler studio but also about the studios they are attending. Based on your experience, did you feel it was a quality program worth attending for 4 years? Do the studio classes improve after the 1st semester? I would really appreciate your honesty. Thanks.
posted by ckk88 to Education (6 answers total)
 
My daughter attended NYU's drama program for one year and ended up transferring elsewhere. She didn't like the large class size, lack of individual student attention, and the studio she was in (I think it was Adler but I'm not positive). For such an expensive and prestigious school and program, she was very disappointed.

I have friends who attended NYU's drama program previously and liked it, so YMMV, but that's her recent experience (she attended in the 09-10 school year).
posted by bedhead at 1:58 PM on November 4, 2011


I was actually at Strasberg (in the late 80's/early 90's).

What I appreciated about the program, ultimately, was the flexibility outside the studio -- NYU wants to make sure that you are able to do more than just act and drive a taxi. Something one of our teachers said our first year was that the NYU program, by its structure, was different from if she'd just gone to the studio alone -- "two years through NYU," he said, "is probably about one year at the studio alone."

For me, that proved to be a good thing -- because it took about two and a half years for me to realize that "hey, wait -- I can't act after all." Fortunately, the flexibility of the non-studio classes had lead me to take courses in things I was a) better at and b) much more interested in ultimately -- some of the non-studio coursework was still theater related, so I found my way to another theater profession and am a lot happier than I would have been with acting.

However, that same flexibility let other students -- who were securer in their choice that they wanted to pursue acting -- take courses on things that would supplement the acting craft. These were all classes taught by NYU drama faculty proper, rather than the studios. Students are encouraged to take some drama-related electives, and those can have smaller classes and more individual attention because there are so many of them and she can specialize. (I see David Brimmer still teaches stage combat at NYU -- I would especially recommend that, because stage combat is a fantastic skill, and David ROCKS.)

She is a freshman; the second year does toughen up a bit, from my experience. She also has the opportunity in her sophomore year to take more of the acting-type classes at NYU, which can also supplement what she's getting in the studio. Or -- as could very well happen -- she can start realizing that she's better at another field within theater, and would be well-placed to start pursuing a courseload there instead.

In short -- I think it's worth it, although maybe not for the reasons she's expecting. But things will toughen up a bit, and she may have to steer her own course a tiny bit as well (and will have more of a chance to do that next year). Memail me if you have specific questions still.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:10 PM on November 4, 2011 [2 favorites]


I've heard mixed reviews from friends. The consensus seems to be that the classes are too big and a bit impersonal, but that the program is worth it for the "New York experience" and the contacts with classmates.

Tell her to find the people she feels are most talented and start seeing work with them as often as possible.

FWIW: Pig Iron just opened a school in Philly. I have a pal in the inaugural class--a former disgruntled acting major--who says it's every thing acting school should be. No personal experience, though.
posted by vecchio at 2:19 PM on November 4, 2011


I was at NYU in the 90s, not Adler but PAW (now Atlantic) and the Shakespeare studio after that. All I can say is that "rigor" would have been a major understatement for the training I received, especially at Atlantic. I do remember that other studios seemed far less serious/tough/professional/crazily stressful/whatever you want to call it. But that was over 10 years ago, so who knows.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 2:56 PM on November 4, 2011


Thinking about this some more, I recall all the studios being very different, not just in technique but culture, size, everything. If the stuff she's hearing from her friends concerns just 2 or 3 other studios, I think it would be worth looking into all of them before transfering, for the obvious reason that switching studios would be a lotless hassle than transfering
schools. Overall (again, ten year old info) the deficiencies I personally found at Tisch had to do not with the actual training (which was very good) but with a lack of real preparation for the business side of things. (But that was partly my fault, and I could have done better to find that stuff out on my own if I'd been less naive about the whole real life after college thing.)

Also, unless they've changed this, you only have to complete 2 years at your original studio. After that you can either stay or go to a different, more specialized one. Shakespeare, as I did, or Film & TV, or something else. So if that's still the case, it would be worth looking into what will come after either Adler or whatever studio she might switch to now, and questioning how that part of the experience would compare with other schools as well.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 6:31 PM on November 4, 2011


I was at the Circle in the Square studio (which no longer exists at NYU - I believe CitS has its own acting program) from 1993 to 1995. My plan had been to follow my Meisner Technique teacher, Lauri Peters, and become part of the inaugural class of the newly formed advanced Meisner Studio my junior year.

But after my sophomore year, I realized I still felt adrift in the program. I was getting As and Bs in my studio and academic work, but the studio grades felt so subjective. I couldn't really figure out how to do "better," or why others were getting better or worse grades than I was.

It didn't help that for a few reasons (being attached to a long-distance boyfriend, being a vegetarian and not sharing dining hall meals with people b/c I had to cook my own food, probably some lingering depression) I failed to find any good friends within the university.

The other thing was that I came to realize that what I loved about theatre was the communal work - start with a pile of scripts, of lumber, of fabric, and only through a lot of shared effort is there a show. The studio work rarely felt collaborative in that way, and it was apparent that my ideal was not going to be what my day-to-day life was going to be like as a working actor.

Because of rooming with a film major, I saw how the casting process sometimes worked - she would put an ad in Backstage for a no-pay student film and get an enormous pile of women's headshots and a small pile of men's. She'd sit on the couch and flip through them based on the "look" she was looking for for each character, giving each photograph maybe a second or two of consideration before moving to the next or pulling it out to look at more closely.

I was just not excited about being rejected twelve times a day being part of my working life. I wanted more security. I walked at the end of my sophomore year and have never regretted it. I don't regret having gone in the first place, either - at the end of high school, I'd been a performer most of my life, and I felt like I had to go and give NYU a shot.

(As a postscript, only a couple of the two dozen people I shared studio classes with over those two years are currently working actors. One has had substantial Broadway success. Another is on tour right now. One other is a multi-talented cabaret performer. Others are doing anything from drama therapy to being a stay-at-home mom to working for the 1% at Citibank to managing a coffee shop. The ones who "succeeded" were, like me, at least double threats - but they clearly wanted it more than I did.)
posted by jocelmeow at 9:39 AM on November 5, 2011


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