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[0:10] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping The College Audition. I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, Director of MTCA. That's Musical Theater College Auditions. Check us out at MTCA.com. And today we've got Beth Burrier from Manhattanville University on the pod. For our newer listeners, another one of our college deep dive episodes where we explore the landscape of the college theater world and try to demystify this daunting audition process. And as I often mention when we have on a more emerging program, this is an example of a school episode that may not be for everyone, right? If you know you are laser focused on the most competitive program that will have you, then this program and this episode may not be your cup of tea.

But as we've said many times, we are committed at MTCA and with this podcast to highlight all of the different kinds of programs out there, so to show you the whole map. And for some students, this kind of program will be a perfect fit. So if this kind of program might be appealing to you, please listen on. And if not, we thank you for your download and for getting this far. Feel free to listen back to a previous episode or maybe just enjoy a beautiful moment in this summer sunshine. Touch grass, as the kids would say. But I think Beth was really delightful, and we had a great conversation. And we're gonna get right to it. I hope you're all doing well out there. I'm sending you all some love as we dive into this interview with Beth Burrier from Manhattanville University.

[1:33] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are so excited to be joined by Beth Burrier. Uh Beth has a BME from Otterbine and an MM from Ithaca College. Worked all over regional theaters, different places, including as a chorus mistress and music director, um, and has over 150 musicals to her credit. Who's counting? Beth is, uh, including working on the National Tours of Rent and the Full Monty, and is now director of musical theater studies at Manhattanville, which is located in Harrison, New York. You might think it's located in Manhattan. It's not. That's the deception there. And they're looking for 15 to 17 students in their incoming cohort. They have degrees at BFA musical theater, and then we'll also talk about some of the other degrees. Maybe they have a BA in a BFA in commercial dance, etc. Beth, welcome on the show. How are you feeling today?

[2:17] Beth Burrier: I am great. Thank you so much. It's so exciting to be here. This is, I'm a little starstruck.

[2:24] Charlie Murphy: Oh, starstruck? My God, what can I say? That's good. That's my intended effect. I try to intimidate my guests as much as possible. Um is there anything, you know, I read that brief bio, but anything in terms of that you'd want to share about kind of your journey to Manhattanville? We're gonna spend most of the time talking about the school itself, but in terms of your journey to academia or to the schools, anything you'd want people to know about you?

[2:42] Beth Burrier: Uh well, I have been on the faculty of a couple of other musical theater programs, and was really looking for something that allowed students to choose their own adventure, find their own path, make their own art, and was very fortunate to land here at Manhattanville. I think it's worth mentioning that I work at the College Light Opera Company, which is the largest regional uh um theater company in the country every summer. We're hiring 75 college kids doing nine musicals in 11 weeks.

[3:15] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. Kind of goes hand in hand.

[3:16] Beth Burrier: It feels uh do you call yourself CLO? Is this in competition with the Civic Light Opera in in Pittsburgh? Do we have to fight you over it?

[3:23] Charlie Murphy: No, no, we don't at all. It's the we call ourselves clock, C L O C.

[3:28] Beth Burrier: Ah, nice, good. Yeah, yeah. And it's all it's all student run with a very few adults running around kind of.

[3:36] Charlie Murphy: I love it. I love it. Well, let's dive in, and you already mentioned a little bit of an ethos there about sort of Manhattanville. So, you know, you mentioned sort of the ability to create your own version of this major. I'd love just to hear about like, you know, as you describe these students, a Manhattanville student, maybe especially in contradistinction to other university you've taught at, other students you've seen. What makes a Manhattanville student a Manhattanville student?

[3:58] Beth Burrier: A Manhattanville student is brave. They have a lot of potential in the art form that they may not even be aware that they have. They are open to working with faculty and discovering more about themselves, and they would love the art form. Many of them have come to the art form late, you know, their junior senior year in high school and decide that this is what they want to do, and they found their community in theater. And we love that. That's that's what we're looking for.

[4:30] Charlie Murphy: Is it fair to say, like from from I'm picking up from the description a little bit that your students may be a bit raw in as freshmen than you know, a brethren down at Pace or something like that? That that's something that more of your students are gonna go, they're not necessarily going, I'm industry ready at 18. There may be more raw potential than sort of honed.

[4:44] Beth Burrier: Correct. Correct.

[4:47] Charlie Murphy: I love it. Well, let's talk about some of the honing. So what is give me a sense of the curriculum over the four years? What am I gonna take? If I come in, I've just discovered acting, singing, dancing. What's my curriculum gonna look like over the four years?

[5:00] Beth Burrier: So you're gonna take two semesters of musical theater ensemble, which is required for our first year students, and that's where they get basics of singing in a group, and they also get some rudimentary music theory under their belt. They take two semesters of piano, two semesters of musical theory, music theory, and it's specific, all of this is specific for musical theater majors. So there's not another music degree. So they're taking theory and piano that is specific to their skill set and what they need to be able to do when they get out there. Meaning musical theater ensemble is not gonna feel like choral singing. It's gonna feel like part of a musical theory. It's gonna feel like choral singing in the sense of we're gonna do every single style. So we might do a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus, and that will feel very choral to them, but then we're gonna do something from Hamilton or Come From Away that is gonna feel contemporary musical theater to them.

[5:54] Charlie Murphy: Love it. Okay, great, keep going. What else am I getting?

[5:56] Beth Burrier: Uh then we're gonna take uh acting the song one and acting the song two, voice and speech one, acting one and two. We're gonna take ballet or contemporary dance or both, dance for musical theater, tap. Then we're also gonna take an auditions class, we're gonna take voice every single semester, an hour voice lesson every single semester, and we're also gonna take an I said auditions class, senior seminar, both semesters of their senior year. Now, then we have all of these electives. So they can take directing, they can take acting the song three, acting three, dialects class, playwriting, I feel like I'm forgetting something, acting for the camera, then there's hip hop and jazz and ballet, and all of our dance forms are leveled, which is great with the code. You mentioned the BFA and commercial dance, and so everything is leveled out for them.

[6:50] Charlie Murphy: I love that. And when you say elective, does that mean it's completely optional, or is it like, hey, I should take at least some number of these electives? How does that work in terms of what students choose to do?

[6:59] Beth Burrier: They can must take two of the upper level electives, but many of them take all of them or repeat them. We also take stagecraft and they have to be on a crew and they need to take a design class, either scenic design, costume design, or lighting design. But again, many of them take all three of those classes. We also offer stage management. They really once they get past the core curriculum, they can dive into what makes them the strongest artist they can be for the business.

[7:33] Charlie Murphy: And two focus questions. So so of the acting, singing, dancing metal, is there an element of the three of those that you feel like you spend more time on? I can think I probably heard more words at least where in the singing world. But is it does it feel like time-wise and credit-wise, it's relatively equal? How does that work in terms of the three?

[7:50] Beth Burrier: The it's it's relatively equal, and then people can choose what they love the most or what they need to work on the most. Meaning I might take more dance if I want more dance. I might take an additional acting class, but not everybody's taking acting three, I can think.

[8:03] Charlie Murphy: Right. What about as I just look at the credits between the BFA, let's say the artistic component of things versus the university. Do you have a sense of like what percentage of credits are spent within the BFA, acting, singing, dancing, and then what side, what how what amount is outside university requirements?

[8:20] Beth Burrier: The outside university requirements are 30 credits of general education, and that actually gets six of those credits get covered within the degree in the musical theater history class and history of music and drama. And then so then it's 24-ish credits outside the degree, and then the rest of it is can be within the degree, or people will pick up a minor, or there are some double majors that work with our BFA, which is very unusual. It can be a little bit tricky, and it helps if people come in with some college credits, either from AP classes or community college or you know, whatever it is, but we have multiple students who do dual degrees, double majors.

[9:02] Charlie Murphy: And when you're talking about dual degrees, is that mean that they are double dipping classes that apply to both majors, or is that you're actually taking enough classes outside of the major?

[9:02] Beth Burrier: Enough classes outside of the major. So we've had people graduate with communications degrees along with their BFA, marketing.

[9:17] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[9:17] Beth Burrier: And long work, but it's doable.

[9:19] Charlie Murphy: For those of you who aren't interested in the double major or even the minor, how what percentage of their time are they spending? We said 24 credits outside versus what 100 some credits in the BFA?

[9:29] Beth Burrier: Um in the in the BFA, it's only 69 required credits, and then they top up the rest with what they want to do.

[9:36] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[9:36] Beth Burrier: So something like 75% of their time you are spending in the the acting singing dancing and a bit about 25% you're saying there.

[9:42] Charlie Murphy: Okay, love that. Um, you mentioned that the dance classes work with the leveling. How about with the, you know, there's not a BFA in acting, right? But there is a BA in theater. So how do the different majors, I'd love to hear both with the BA and theater and then also the BFA and commercial dance, how do those different majors interact with each other in terms of do you have musical theater taking class with the commercial dancers? Do you have people auditioning for shows? How does that work in terms of the interactions with different majors?

[10:08] Beth Burrier: We overlap a lot, especially with commercial dance, with the musical theater majors are in dance classes with the commercial dancers, our stronger dancers are in with the commercial dancers. Um then, and of course, then there are commercial dancers who have never had tap shoes on. And so some of them are in the you know, tap one.

[10:26] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, which it all works itself out, it's great.

[10:29] Beth Burrier: And then we're in um acting classes with the BA theater students, and that all works out well. That the BA theater is also very flexible. And so once you get out of acting one, which the BFA and commercial dancers also take that, then it's really people who want to be actors.

[10:50] Charlie Murphy: Uh-huh. Is there an is there a barrier to entry for the BA to get into the higher level classes?

[10:55] Beth Burrier: No.

[10:56] Charlie Murphy: So, but but is there some amount that the teacher is going, hey, you seem like you're the kind of person who should be taking this acting two, acting three, to some extent?

[11:03] Beth Burrier: For sure.

[11:04] Charlie Murphy: What about are there non-majors in those classes as well?

[11:07] Beth Burrier: No, there are not. We offer intro to acting, which is set up for non-majors. Musical theater ensemble is open to non-majors. The dance classes are all open to non-majors, but they're very seldom seats for them because it's first come, first serve.

[11:22] Charlie Murphy: Totally makes sense. Um, one thing I haven't mentioned other than the joke I made in the beginning that you're called Manhattanville, but you're, you know, about an hour outside of the city, is that fair to say? I mean, you're to me you're you're closer because I live in Harlem. But uh how how far would you say in terms of getting to if you're um taking a train down? What does that look like in terms of people reaching the city?

[11:40] Beth Burrier: It's about 40 minutes by train. You can go in from either Rye or White Plains. There's a bus that runs the Metro, the White Plains bus line runs out here to Manhattanville. There's also a free bus that starts running in the afternoon that can take you into the station. People can be in easily in an hour, and many of the students will carpool down as well.

[12:02] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. Well, that's my question. Is like so what is this typical student's relationship with the city? Right? Imagine many of them are living closer, you know, living farther up, they're closer to school, right? But then how what is that relationship with? I mean, I guess there could be some students who live closer to the city and reverse commute, but like how often are they in the city? Are they taking additional classes in the city? Are they doing auditions? How does the school sort of encourage or discourage doing professional auditions while you're in the middle of school?

[12:27] Beth Burrier: Well, mostly they are not taking auditions. Now they'll do summer stock auditions from the very beginning if they want to. The philosophy there for the first and second year students is some of this may be your last summer at home, your last extended time with your family. So you want to think about that before you take a contract for the summer. And then by the time they're juniors and seniors, then we're into the auditions class, we're into guest artists who are coming in to work with them, and then they're starting to submit for regional things or, you know, professional auditions, whatever it is. And as you said, many of them come in and are a little bit not quite ready. Uh-huh. And so they're coming to college for a reason. They're coming to get better. Right. So, you know, stay here, hone your craft, get better at it, and then go out and really make a good impression when you're ready is sort of the vibe.

[13:22] Charlie Murphy: Well, and you're leading me into that, that of course you have not only they have access to the city, but you have access to the resources of so many amazing educators. If you're talking about, you know, people from Could Do a Broadway show, go up and teach a class and come back down and do their show again or whatever, right? What does that look like in terms of faculty, guest faculty or guest, you know, opportunities? And then also, what does it look like in terms of that showcase experience for the juniors and seniors? How are they getting to know the industry? How are you, you know, how are they able to showcase themselves as they're graduating school?

[13:51] Beth Burrier: Great question. So we bring in multiple guest artists for the seniors all year for the seniors and specifically second semester, spring semester for the juniors. So we bring in several casting directors, we're bringing in working directors, working music directors, working choreographers. We also will bring in folks who are working actors and who will say, This is what I did when I graduated. This is a strategy that works, this is what's hard, this is how you transition into life outside college. And all of that works out pretty well for our students, and they're just they submit and they meet people and they network and they do the thing.

[14:35] Charlie Murphy: And do you have a sense of, you know, mentioning some people coming in raw? I imagine some people come in raw and may ultimately decide, hey, this is not necessarily what I'm what I want to do. But do you feel like most of the students by the end of the four years feel like, hey, I'm ready to attack the industry? Do you have a lot of people doing grad school afterward, or how does that work in terms of at 22 if they came in relatively raw? How ready do they feel, you know, as they're graduating?

[14:58] Beth Burrier: I think they feel pretty ready, or they know what they need to do next in terms of staying ready or continuing to hone their craft, or what sort of auditions they need to take. Yeah. And we have a few students who will go on to grad school right away, or who will decide? I want to say maybe one a year when graduating senior year, or who will decide, oh, I want to get my teaching certificate and keep working on my dance or whatever it is for a little bit longer. But they definitely one of our big goals is to make sure that everybody graduates, loving musical theater as much as they did on their first day class as first years. Yeah, you had to put in that hard work, but keep the joy, hopefully. Otherwise, that's gonna be hard to sustain.

[15:44] Charlie Murphy: Um what about, uh we didn't talk about the university as a whole? So what is the experience? Um, an hour outside of the city or 40 minutes. I keep saying an hour. I'm charging you an extra 20 minutes, 40 minutes outside the city. What is the experience of like the university life in terms of, you know, other things that you're like the campus life? What does that feel like and other opportunities you might have on campus while you're there?

[16:04] Beth Burrier: Sure. So it's a really beautiful campus. It comes complete with a castle. It's beautiful. Um there's a lot of academic athletics happening, so folks can do that. There's a huge number of student clubs that are very active, and the musical theater students are involved in all of the student clubs and all of the student government things, and they're running events and this and that and the other thing. And then academic things like lectures and ceremonies and all of that sort of academic life happens. And we're very busy. We're doing two fully produced musicals a year, one in the fall, one in the spring, as well as a 29-hour reading with new work in the fall. Then there are two fully produced plays, two fully produced dance concerts.

Every senior gets their own recital, musical theater recital in the spring. There's also a classical recital where all of the seniors sing classical rep in December. There's, uh, and then there's a capstone event for almost every cohort, um, every semester. So they are busy, they are in rehearsal, they are working.

[17:16] Charlie Murphy: And what do you mean by capstone event? What would that look like for each semester?

[17:19] Beth Burrier: Sure. So the musical theater ensemble class does um what we call it first year follies at the end of both fall and spring semester, and they're showing off the ensemble things that they have worked on, and they tend they get staged and choreographed, and then they also each get to sing like a little snippet of something they're working on. And the sophomores in the fall, they get to perform in the castle, which we love a lot. It's cleverly called cabaret in the castle.

[17:44] Charlie Murphy: Cabaret in the castle.

[17:48] Beth Burrier: Yep, yep. And they're showing off what they're doing in acting the song one, and that's really great. And then in the spring, it's sophomore spotlight, and they're doing their scene into song work from acting the song two. The juniors have a year to prepare and get ready, and then the seniors have their classical recital and then the full musical theater recital, which is big production. Lots of fun. But every time you mention the castle, my almost five-year-old daughter is just drooling. She recently proclaimed herself the princess of New York and said there's one castle that she lives in as the princess of New York. It's not our help apart, but to be clear, it's not that castle.

[18:25] Charlie Murphy: Um I love it. Well, and did you tell us about how big the school is in terms of numbers? Like, so how many people go to Manhattanville as a university itself? And I think I mentioned the question of like how many people live on campus, but what does that look like in terms of like sort of the, you know, the how many people living on campus versus commuting in and out?

[18:40] Beth Burrier: There are about 1400 undergrads, it's pretty small. And I should have this number for you, but I don't think approximate, we'll take guesses. Uh there's I want to say we're maybe 40% commuters, maybe 50% commuters. Um, sorry.

[18:59] Charlie Murphy: No, that's great. Who don't live in New York, even just kind of understanding how New York schools can work. I mean, some that don't have any norms, but you know, just in terms of but also, even when I say New York, it's like 40 minutes outside of the city to some places seems really far, but in New York, I'm like, well, Brooklyn is 40 minutes outside the city, so it's very interesting in terms of the what you call the city and what the different sort of living options can be.

[19:22] Beth Burrier: Most of the musical theater cohort lives on campus. We have about 60 ish students, and I think maybe three of them commute. Yeah. They want to be on campus, they want to be residential. They're so busy, it's just easier for them to be. Yes. And many of them are here because they want to get closer to the city, but don't want to be in Manhattan.

[19:45] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[19:46] Beth Burrier: So they're coming from California, Hawaii, Alaska. Uh-huh. And this is as close as they want to get for now.

[19:53] Charlie Murphy: I love, well, you thus parlayed me beautifully to my next question, which is about how many come in the tri-state area versus how many, how many come from far? I know you recruit nationally, but what does that look like in terms of do you have a sense of how what percentage of people are from Jersey or from local to New York versus how many are coming from across the country?

[20:08] Beth Burrier: I would say we're about 50-50 tri-state area, maybe 60-40 tri-state area to away. Uh right now we have students from California, I said Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, um, Maryland. Now, then if it becomes politicians, they're saying from this place in Pennsylvania, and like then they're naming cities. I used to let them be able to name every state and I have to just cut it off on your ear.

[20:33] Charlie Murphy: Um, talk to me about costs. So looks like our crack research team said tuition is about 46,000. Um that looks directionally true to you. You can tell me if I'm wrong.

[20:42] Beth Burrier: That looks directionally true.

[20:44] Charlie Murphy: Talk to me about how we get scholarships.

[20:48] Beth Burrier: So, um, need-based versus academic scholarship versus talent scholarship. How do I bring that number down and what does it typically look like for Manhattanville students?

[20:56] Beth Burrier: Students on average receive $32,000 in merit and need-based scholarships and aid. Uh-huh. If you live on campus, it's roughly $17,000 for room and board. Yeah. And there is additional grant money to assist with that as well.

[21:15] Charlie Murphy: Housing, that's great.

[21:17] Beth Burrier: Most of our fellow our scholarship money is grants and academic based. And there are also some, there's also some talent money about $2,000 in talent money that's renewable.

[21:32] Charlie Murphy: When you say merit, you mean academic merit.

[21:34] Beth Burrier: Yes, academic merit.

[21:36] Charlie Murphy: Very weird thing in this process where you think that merit should be about your artistic skill, because that is my merit. And yet you mean academic merit when we say that. That's the college world. Parents get confused. Love that.

[21:46] Beth Burrier: 32,000. That's a decent chunk of the 45. Now we're talking don't make me do math, but that's like 13,000 left, maybe.

[21:52] Charlie Murphy: I like that. Um my last question of this section, and then we'll talk about recruitment a little bit, is just what your ambition for the program is. So, you know, it's kind of from the journey of where you have come from. If I were to come back to you and interview 10 years from now, what are you gonna tell me that's different about Manhattanville than it is today?

[22:10] Beth Burrier: Oh gosh, that's a that's a really good question. We the program has come so far. This is my sixth year at Manhattanville, and we have reached a point where theround much longer than six years. I feel like that's when it came onto my radar with like 2019. Yes, the it became a BFA in 2016. I came in the summer of 2020. Yeah, and it became a BFA in 2016, and before that it was a musical theater concentration within a BA music, I think. Um, but in that time, we've almost doubled the size of the program. We've hit the cap of what we can reasonably have in the program. We have students working, alum working everywhere. We have yet to crack Broadway, but we're gonna get there. This is the year. MTCA we said we had our first Tony nomination. It was so thrilling. We're like, oh my gosh, this feels all good.

[23:02] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, that's wonderful.

[23:03] Beth Burrier: Oh, that's great. Congratulations.

[23:05] Charlie Murphy: And then you got then we gotta get the Tony win, and then we gotta get, you know, it's never stopped.

[23:09] Beth Burrier: Sure, sure. Um so so it feels really great right now where we are in terms of the number of productions and how overlapping we are.

[23:19] Beth Burrier: You know, there's always room for growth, and there's always room for innovation and improvement. So I think we just keep saying well, I like what we're doing. I just want to do it even better and more intentionally at this point.

[23:35] Charlie Murphy: Great answer. Okay, let's take a short break on the back end. We'll talk a bit about how to get in and how to audition for Manhattanville, maybe not in that order. All right. Um, so back in flat.

[23:44] Charlie Murphy: All right, we are back with Beth Burrier, and we're talking a little bit about the audition, the application process and how to get in to Manhattanville. Um, can we maybe just start off from the broad lens? What does an application and audition look like? You know, for some schools there's pre-screens and then there's different ways that you can audition on different platforms and those kind of things. So, what would this look like if I'm a parent who has no idea how this process works? What does it look like to apply and audition for Manhattanville?

[24:09] Beth Burrier: Great. So applying to the university, we accept the common app. So that's the easiest thing in the world. Done and done. To audition for the program, you can do two things. You can audition live on campus, and then you get to see the castle, which is great, or you can submit via accepted. We do not pre-screen, so that submission that you do on accepted is your audition, and that's done.

[24:37] Charlie Murphy: Yep. And do you view those auditions differently in terms of the experience of somebody who comes on campus? Does it feel like, hey, there's a little more weight to this interaction? Or if you like the talent on the video, you're gonna say yes to the people on the video.

[24:49] Beth Burrier: If I like the if we like the potential on the video, we're gonna say yes to the people on the video.

[24:53] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. I love it. Um, I noticed one of the you had a New York audition. Is that also at is that like at Pearl Studios, you come down to do basically New York Unifieds or is that still up at the uh at your campus?

[25:06] Beth Burrier: No, that is it good catch, thank you. It's down at yeah, yeah, we were. It's the weekend of Unifieds. So if folks are in town for Unifieds, they can swing by and do an audition for us in the city that day. The confusion of you may not be participating in Unifieds, but for all intents and purposes from their perspective, you're participating in New York Unifieds at least, but not Chicago, just New York as of now.

[25:26] Charlie Murphy: Just New Fields. So but if they're there for New York Unifieds, they can pop over. Is that at like Pearl or Ripley or one of those down there?

[25:32] Beth Burrier: It is, it is. It's at uh we it's usually at Ripley, and I think that's right. And you still need to set up a time if possible through you can go through accepted. That's the other thing. You can set up your live audition on the accepted platform.

[25:48] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. And theoretically, do what is equivalently a walk-in for you guys if that would happen. If you weren't to have applied in advance, you could potentially do that.

[25:57] Beth Burrier: I love it. Um, okay. Well, let's talk about so whether it's video, whether it's in person, what are you looking for in audition? So what when you see it makes you go, hey, this feels like a Manhattanville student, especially in mentioning you you're often you know garnering raw talent. So what are you looking for within the raw that feels like a diamond in the rough?

[26:14] Beth Burrier: Gosh. Well, I'm looking for people who can connect to text, who seem happy when they're doing their audition. I know that sounds very odd, and how does one measure measure that, but there's just a certain vibe that people have, even when they slate or as they go to singing their song, you just know that they love it, and they haven't had all of their juice squeezed out of them, trying to make it perfect. Like they're just doing their thing. Um, and then you know, looking, we want people with good pitch. I mean, that just feels obvious, right? Like if you could sort of s say, I think it's this that makes me feel that this person, you know, we often talk about joy in an audition room. This person feels joyful versus not in my slate. I mean, obviously, there are things like people can smile, but I imagine some of it's not just that they are smiling. Like, what is it that you think you're detecting that makes you go, I'd want to spend four years with this person?

[27:11] Beth Burrier: Something about a combination of what they choose to perform, and then how they even just say the words, you know. You know, when you ask somebody, tell me your top three musicals, and they get that little spark in their eye, and they start talking about whatever it is, and you can just feel it rolling off of them, how much they love Hades Town or whatever it is, and they know every little detail, even if they don't talk about it, you know that they know every single person that has ever been Persephone ever on the planet. And that just that sort of depth of love for it comes across. It's the same thing. How do you know that an actor is a great actor? Well, you just know, you feel it.

[27:59] Charlie Murphy: Well said, I like it a lot. Okay, so that was a great definition of indefinable. I didn't know that was gonna go. That was great. Um, what are you interacting with any other parts of the application in terms of do you look at the academic side of things? Do you look at their grades or SATs or essays?

[28:11] Beth Burrier: Not at all. Do you know what the the experience of getting into the school is in terms of do they have to have a certain level of grades? And if you even have a sense of like if you're above X, does that mean a certain amount of scholarship? Do you have a sense of that?

[28:22] Beth Burrier: There is uh at a certain GPA, there is um academic merit scholarship involved. There's also a program called the Castle Scholars Program that is attached to some scholarship money, and for that they have to take it, it's it's basically an honors program, right? And they take a certain number of scholars, Castle Scholars classes, and then there's academic merit um award attached to that. Um but there is a uh there are recommendation letters involved, there's an essay involved, and our wonderful admissions office looks at all of that and makes those decisions, and that's completely independent from program decisions. So, you know, somebody gets into the university and they um sorry, congratulations, but you're just not ready for our musical theater program, or oh please, they're so great musical theater. No, I'm sorry, they're not ready academically.

[29:15] Charlie Murphy: Um now just finally connecting all the castle stuff to the fact that you guys you guys are called the Valiants, is that true?

[29:22] Beth Burrier: Yes, yes, yeah. I thought it may be from the VIL, like Villian, like Viliant, but no, now it all makes sense.

[29:27] Charlie Murphy: No, no, that's because the Castle stuff.

[29:28] Beth Burrier: Yeah, the Valiant. That's it.

[29:30] Charlie Murphy: That's it. Um, what about with the online auditions, or with the video editions, I should say, do you then have a component where you're gonna try to talk to them on Zoom? Or how does it follow? How does any follow-up work from on your end? Or is it, hey, you might get an admission just from the video that you submitted from accepted?

[29:41] Beth Burrier: Just from the video that we accept that that they submitted on accepted? Uh there'll be follow-up emails from me or the faculty or admissions or somebody. I I try and contact every single student that uh applies. And so if they have questions or they want to have a conversation, or many folks will get in, or they you know, they've Manhattanville is not quite on the radar yet for some some folks. And we're getting there, also thanks to you. Um so they don't know much about the school, so they want to come and visit, they want to see it, spend the day, and that's sort of when we can figure out oh, you're a great fit. If it although they may already be accepted, it really helps them to come to the school and get the vibe and see what it is.

[30:34] Charlie Murphy: As you're filling out your class, what else are you thinking about as you're putting together 15 to 17 people? You know, are you conscious of stuff like gender balance? Are you conscious of height balance and size balance, different vocal types, geographic diversity, like you're mentioning all these states, racial diversity? How do you think about um putting together these 15 to 17 people and who they might end up being?

[30:53] Beth Burrier: Uh we think about gender diversity quite a bit, and we also are thinking about um racial diversity. We present about 45 per uh 45 percent diverse right now. We're very fortunate in that, and that also comes from the college or the university's mission.

[31:12] Charlie Murphy: When you say diverse, you mean racially diverse.

[31:15] Beth Burrier: Uh-huh. Yes.

[31:16] Charlie Murphy: And then we also have multiple intersectionalities with body diversity and um neurodiversity, all the things, which is really like I said, we're very lucky, very fortunate. But we are thinking about that when we put a class together. Uh, we want the cohorts to reflect the world, and so that's what it is.

[31:38] Charlie Murphy: I love it. And do you think about diversity? Uh I mean, I'm gonna say diversity of ability, though that can mean many things, but I mean diversity of like musical dance acting ability. Do you care about like, hey, I really want to have some stronger dancers, some stronger actors, some stronger singers, that kind of thing?

[31:52] Beth Burrier: I really just want everybody to have good potential in all three areas. It's it's great if we have some really terrific dancers and some and some really terrific singers and some really terrific actors, but it's more the the total package.

[32:10] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, yeah. Totally makes sense. And you know, mentioning that both racial diversity and then diversity of ability in terms of neurodiversity, you mentioned, does that affect stuff like the kind of shows that you produce? Like, so how does that affect how do you do your season selection for the shows that you do with your your current students?

[32:27] Beth Burrier: So we look at the upper class students, the juniors and seniors, or the rising juniors and seniors, who needs an opportunity, what would be great for them, and then we present those opportunities and see what happens. So this year we did in the fall, we did sweet charity, and in the spring we did Titanic, and so lucky the master of Titanic, the builder and the owner. We had a black student, a Latinx student, and a Filipino student, but we didn't purposely do that. That just happened to be that was the best three actors for the roles.

[33:03] Um, and we are we also poll the students. There's a season survey that goes out in the fall, and we'll say, here are say 12 or 15 shows that we're thinking about doing over the next three years. Here are things you might want to be aware of. Here's what we how what we would do to approach that. Here's the link to the casting breakdown, you know, all the things. How do you feel about that? What are your comments? And then there's a write-in section for what do you think we should be doing? So the students do have some say in what we're doing, which was very important.

[33:39] Beth Burrier: We did carousel uh three years two years ago, and we weren't gonna do that without significant student buy in.

[33:45] Charlie Murphy: Uh-huh. And how was the students doing this?

[33:48] Beth Burrier: Yeah, well, this the students are amazing. They said, you know, domestic violence and all of the other issues that happen in Carousel still happen today. And here is a chance to talk about that and do one of the great works of American Musical Theater. And we also partnered with a local domestic violence group and raised money for them and talked about it and did educational outreach. I was so proud of them. I love my students. More mature than me.

[34:14] Charlie Murphy: When I saw the most recent carousel on Broadway, I was like, we should just retire the show. I've got no ideas for it, I'm done with it. That's my biased opinion on it for sure.

[34:23] Beth Burrier: Um, let's talk about you know, so many of our students now in the sort of economic times that the colleges are going through, post-UARTs is certainly something that's been a big issue, but then also other uh programs that are being bought by other programs, other things. Do you have a sense? I know you don't have to have all the financials in front of you, but do you have a sense of how the university is doing in terms of the to assure our parents hey, this will be here three, four years from now.

[34:44] Beth Burrier: We actually are in a pretty good place right now. Um, and I'm very happy to be able to say that. As somebody who works at a small liberal arts institution, there have been some really great strategic ideas in terms of nursing uh majors, uh rad tech, which is like X-ray technology majors, things that are going to generate revenue for us.

[35:07] Beth Burrier: There's also going to be some new investments made on the campus that will drive revenue. The castle is also used as an event space. It is a beautiful wedding space, and we also have multiple TV shows and movies and whatnot film there. So while the student body is small, we have lots of revenue streams. I feel pretty confident people can come to school here and finish it off.

[35:33] Charlie Murphy: You're three years too late for me on the wedding venue. I could have used a—we went to Central Park. We could have used the cool castle to do it.

[35:39] Beth Burrier: Yeah.

[35:39] Charlie Murphy: Um, what about—I'd love to wrap with a bit of advice for the parents out there. So, you know, many of our listeners are parents who are listening for their kids sometimes from freshman year onward, as they're trying to get a sense of what might some—we had a—I had a mom the other day come up to me and say she's been listening since seventh grade. I was like, that's too early. You've been starting your research too early. Um, but it's great if you're out there. Um, they're listening to sort of begin their process to look at these different schools, and then also as they're narrowing down the actual list themselves, maybe a little closer to junior or senior year. What advice would you have for the parents who go into this process about sort of how they can navigate this process?

[36:14] Beth Burrier: Yeah, um, it's so hard for the parents, and I have so much sympathy for them because it's so hard and it means so much to them, and it's such a big investment. So I say have your list of questions, don't be afraid to ask questions. Find that person that's going to answer them for you. And if you can't get somebody to answer your questions, that's telling you something, right? Um, you're about to make a giant financial and emotional commitment to an institution, and that institution should be in return making an emotional commitment to your student and your family to make sure they're gonna be well taken care of, not just in their education, their—you know, how high can you kick, how high can you sing, but in their emotional well-being.

So ask those questions, get the answers. Know what kind of college you are interested in as a family. Like what's your geographic boundary? Do you want a small liberal arts school? Do you want a big 10-university setting? And then stick to that. And if you can at all visit the campuses because you will know where you belong when you get there. And last piece of advice for the parents is the education is what your student makes of it. You could go to the hot musical theater program of the moment, and if your student isn't happy, isn't committed to it, isn't pursuing their education, they're not gonna get what they need to get out of it. And they could go somewhere else and then do all of those things and learn so much.

[38:00] Charlie Murphy: I love it. If people want more information now after listening to this interview, where would you send them? Would you send them to social media? Would you send them to the website? Where's the best place for people to find out more?

[38:09] Beth Burrier: They can follow the musical theater program on Instagram. That's MVILMT as our Insta handle. We also have a TikTok account. They can go to the website for more information about the university generally. The university also has an Instagram account that's great. There's a YouTube channel, and we have our own playlist on the official university YouTube.

[38:32] Charlie Murphy: Well, thank you, Beth. I so appreciate the time today. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

[38:36] Beth Burrier: Well, thank you so much.

[38:42] Charlie Murphy: Yes, yes, yes. Really enjoyed that conversation with Beth. I really appreciate her honesty and her clarity with where they are in the landscape and the students that they have, as well as their kind of ambitions for growth of where they are and where they want to be. You know, I always try to be as clear as I can in some version of where these schools might fit into the landscape. I try to let them name it themselves, but then, you know, give you guys a little bit of insight in terms of at least how I see it. And I don't think there's a definitive numerical ranking or anything like that. But if in terms of being able to go, I think this is a little more here, a little bit more there, right? But there definitely are some faculty who will try to upsell themselves a bit, which of course I understand why, but I really appreciated Beth's clarity.

I thought she was really clear, right? You know, and with all of that, it's an interesting mix because, you know, in some ways in this industry, and I think in many industries, perception can be reality. So certainly you like a school that's gonna be ambitious. But if a school pitches, we are this and we're gonna be this, and then the students come to campus and observe something very different, it really can feel like it ends up feeling a waste of time and money on both ends. So a nice balance here in terms of the way Beth was talking about the program. I think she struck it really well.

[39:54] Charlie Murphy: Um, I'm gonna try to be efficient in the takeaways today due to my schedule, but I will start off by just underlining something we talked about before in talking about the sizes of school. You know, this obviously being an example of a very small school for a university with 1,400 total undergrads. You know, when people talk about I want a small school, they don't always mean the same thing. Sometimes they're talking about a small department, which in this case both are small, right? The department itself, only 60 total students across the whole department, and then the university being 1,400 total schools. You know, sometimes people are talking about the size of the whole campus and the university.

Sometimes they like the idea of an intimate cohort within a large university, but some can actually get kind of fooled the other ways, right? They're gonna say, I really want a small program. But if you're looking at a school like Boston Conservatory, for example, there's under a thousand students in Boston Conservatory. It's a bit bigger if you count all of Berkeley, but in the Boston Conservatory itself, it's under a thousand students in the whole school, but they have a really large cohort when you talk about the musical theater students, right? So basically the question is like, what do you mean when you say small? And sometimes we need—when you talk about size, you need almost sort of different definitions of do you mean the whole campus, the campus size, the number of students, or do you mean within the cohort itself or within the theater department itself.

[41:10] Charlie Murphy: Um, I also really liked that quote that Beth gave about like the spark in your eyes, right? How we detect joy, you know, it's why we talk about the psychological aspects of the process so much. It cannot be a purely technical practice when you talk about the spark in your eyes, right? You can't like practice that by like smizing, right? But getting yourself to a place where you are aligned and joyfully sharing your work in the room is so important so that you can sparkle that joy through your eyes in the work itself and in the interview and all that kind of stuff, right? And then, yes, we've talked before about that idea of you being the customer, how important it is for you to make that flip at the end of your process.

You've got to ask the questions that you need, actively finding your right fit for yourself and not being too passive in that process. Again, you can go too far if you bring too much of that behavior early in your process, but you want to maintain some aspects of that idea of you are the customer throughout the process, and then really don't be afraid to be aggressive with that part of it at the end. If there's information that you need so that you can sign on the dotted line, if you're deciding between two or three programs and there's information you need, ask for what you need aggressively, right? They're competing for your business at that point. It can be tricky. People spend two years in this process and they think, oh, I'll just take anyone who wants me. And then they don't successfully make that flip of going, hey, I'm now deciding between options, and I want to be that aggressive customer as much as I can.

[42:33] Charlie Murphy: And last, I'll just add into that conversation about video-only auditions. When you talk about a school like Manhattanville that'll accept a video-only audition, as well as the walk-in opportunities that we're specifically talking about, whether or not it's a scheduled walk-in, like Beth was mentioning, you can schedule them ahead of time and accept it in this case, right? Or a walk-in that could be a true day-of sign-up or a night-before sign-up that you just do when you're at unified. You know, my big thought, which I'll just add, is just the idea for those that are early in this process, starting to plan for the idea of these can be really helpful as a counterweight to some of the anxiety about the number of overall schools, right?

You don't have to get into specifics at this point, but just to know, hey, those are out there, right? For those who get freaked out when they hear those high numbers that some of our families will talk about, and you'll hear it again soon with some of our alumni family interviews who ended up doing some high numbers of schools. If you're thinking about it from the perspective of scheduling all of those on-campus and unified auditions, and then you're freaked out about all those applications, but you still want to have significant balance to your list, which we recommend significant balance to your list, these ideas of walk-ins can be a huge part of the process for you. And also additional video auditions too, right?

Maybe you have a certain number of those reach schools on your list, which from an MTCA perspective, we're gonna call those most competitive schools in our parlance of it all, right? You're gonna have a certain number of other competitive schools that you're gonna apply to, which is gonna ensure you some balance. But rather than letting that original application number balloon to those extremes, you can also plan on these kind of audition experiences, knowing you'll get some of these audition experiences, which will increase your ability to have acceptances, they'll give you experience, and usually don't cost an application or audition fee. Especially for that example where it's at New York City Unified's, it doesn't have to add a cost or travel to your process and can give you that additional security, right?

Of course, the trick here is that you can't know for sure which schools will necessarily be available in all of cases, right? But in a case like this, where you can sign up in advance through the portal, all the better, right? And you certainly can plan right now for the idea of some of them in advance, just leaving that space, that little bit of space in your list, knowing, okay, I will also add in four of these kind of schools or whatever number that you say, right? So that maybe you aren't tempted to apply to 40 schools right out of the gate, necessarily, or whatever the number is, right? It just can be a convenient and efficient version of this process to know that those two are out there, that you have balance in your original application part of it, and then also knowing that you're gonna have this out there, right?

That's not to yuck the yum of those out there who want to apply to 30 plus schools, right? I know I often say, hey, that is not necessary. You don't need to apply to 30, 40 schools or what some of these people will do. There's not necessarily a downside, as we've said, there's not a downside to having more schools if you have the time and the money to pull it off. But as we say many times, it is not a necessity in this process, and it can make things more stressful for some, right? So I think just knowing that there are additional opportunities out there that are gonna come down the line and that aren't necessarily gonna cost you additional money can give families a bit of a breath and help them in finding what is that appropriate balance? What is that appropriate number for me?

[45:40] Charlie Murphy: All right, that'll do it for another episode of Mapping The College Audition, produced by Kelly Pretergrass with social media work by Jordan Rice. Please like and subscribe wherever you can. Rate us, review us, send us love however you want to. And oh sure, follow us at Mapping The College Audition on Instagram if you have such a social media platform. And you know you can head over to MTCA.com for help with your individual college process. To my young artists out there mapping their journeys, please trust that you're enough for the right program exactly as you are right now. Now keep striving. We'll catch you next week.