By Geary Danihy
Are actors born…or created? The answer
is “Yes” and “No.”
Someone may be born with inherent
acting talent, a unique way of capturing and holding people’s attention, but
that talent is raw, and it must pass through an alembic to be refined. For
some, that fire is the school of hard knocks, an on-the-job training that
allows them to mold their skills in the bruised-ego and often judgmentally
harsh “business” of acting. Others seek a more formal training, guidance that
allows them to hone their craft in a supportive and nurturing (if still
judgmental) environment. Thus, the existence of schools of drama, many of which
are departments at colleges and universities. To the extant list of such
programs has been added the opportunity to receive a Bachelor of Arts in
Theater Arts at Sacred Heart University
in Fairfield , Connecticut
Jerry Goehring
The driving force behind the
creation of this new program is Jerry Goehring, Director of Performing Arts at
Sacred Heart. However, Goehring is not an ivory tower theorist. He has been
intimately involved with theater for over 25 years and, as a producer, has been
nominated for both Tony and Grammy awards. He was lead producer for the box-office
smash, “A Christmas Story, the Musical,” and has overseen such productions as
the off-Broadway “Frankenstein” and national tours of “Raisin’ Cane,” “Oh,
Figaro” and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales .” He also served for four
years as the executive director and CEO of the National Theatre of the Deaf, located
in West Hartford .
In a recent interview in Goehring’s
office at SHU, he explained the gestation of the program, its scope, and the
unique qualities of the program that will, over time, draw students who are
interested in theater arts to the SHU campus.
“It’s been a long time coming,”
Goehring said of the program. “It’s really been driven by the number of
students now involved in our current program,” referring to those students
active in one way or another in the performing arts on campus. “We started
about six years ago – there was a little club and they asked me to start a
theater department. There were, maybe, 12 kids in the club. Now we have a total
involvement of 160 kids and 130 of them have participation grants, which is
part of their financial aid package.”
As the number of students
increased, the quality of the productions they were involved in improved,
partly due to the status and talent of the theater people Goehring has brought
in to teach and do practicums and mentoring.
“All of a sudden, the students
started asking, ‘Well, when do we get more classes?’ It kind of grew
organically and the plan became that the performing arts department, in total,
was growing so fast that we would turn the academic corner very quickly.”
Audrey in the grasp of Audrey II, in an SHU production
The curriculum for the Bachelor of
Arts in Theater Arts will offer core credits in such subjects as the history of
theater, scene study and script analysis. There will also be courses that allow
students to follow areas of concentration. A concentration in acting will offer
courses in, naturally, acting, as well as directing and playwriting, while a
concentration in musical theater will have courses in dance, voice and acting
for musical theater.
There will also be a host of
electives, covering everything from choreography and black box production
(basically, productions in an unadorned performance space, usually with black
walls) to acting for the camera, the business of theater and summer stock.
“It’s a combination,” Goehring
said, “of a major in theater with two tracks, musical theater and acting. We’ll
grow from there; we’ll add technical tracks and design tracks depending on
demand.”
A scene from SHU's production of "Rent"
The program will be staffed by SHU professors
currently teaching theater and related courses (such as English and media
studies), with plans to bring in additional talent as the program evolves. The
department Goehring chairs is currently “housed” under the larger
Communications and Media Department, which allows the students to take
advantage of all the technical “toys” available in that department, broadening
their range of experience.
“We have this ‘performance motion
lab,” Goehring said. “It’s an amazing thing. They (the Communications
Department) have two TV studios that are fully functional, and they have
another film studio, but then they have – well, you know how they filmed
Avatar?,” referring to “motion capture,” or stereoscopic filming techniques.
“Well, the next generation of ‘motion capture’ is without all of the dots,” the
“dots” being the points created by sensors imbedded in the leotards that actors
wear that allow computers to capture the actors’ motions. “The next generation
of this technology,” Goehring said, “is without all of the dots. The computers
are now sophisticated enough – you go into a room and all of these cameras are
on you and you move and then you look at the monitor and you’re a stick or an
elephant – it’s amazing.”
The cast of SHU's production of "Spring Awakening"
Touching on this new technology,
and all that it offers, led Goehring to comment on what might be called the
“return on investment” aspect of the new degree program. “All of this, if I
want to go into my ‘convincing’ speech, that the program is a good thing,”
Goehring said, “leads to the question: ‘Where are the jobs?’ We’ve gone through
the stats at the Department of Labor in Washington
and we found that there’s a four percent growth in performance jobs right now
and I would attribute that to really what is happening on-line. There aren’t a
lot of stages being created around the country – everyone is still struggling
to maintain what they have -- but with all of the content that is needed with
the streaming that’s happening with Netflix and Apple, and then in video games
– we have classes here on how to perform in video games – there are all of
these opportunities that exist that weren’t there when I was in college.”
In essence, the answer to the
question of “Why do theater” in college is that, for those students so inclined
to pursue a career in theater arts, the opportunities for employment are
growing because, as Groehling explained, “it crosses over into so many areas
that we once didn’t even dream of. Of course, the students find that a little
more exciting and the parents a little more comforting.”
The program at SHU has never been
just about classroom instruction and theory. The campus has two theaters that
are in constant use, either showcasing student productions or hosting road
shows or individual performances.
“We do six major productions a
year,” Groehing said. “We do more undergraduate productions than most
universities in this state without even having a major in theater arts. Is it
possible that we will do more? Yes. We’re now considering a summer theater
program. There’s not a lot of summer stock left in the world and we thought
that would be a good thing, bring in some pros to work with the students. You
know, old fashioned summer stock.”
Goehring is also contemplating more
productions during the year, but they will probably be centered more on the
creative process, such as the current Theater Fest program, which is student-centered.
“They create their own plays,”
Goehring explained. “I give them a little sample of what it is like out in the
real world. We condense it into one year. It starts with ‘Show me your
scripts.’ Last year I got 18 scripts and I chose 12 for a table read with
audience talk-back, then I chose six of those and they got staged in black box
style, with more audience talk-backs. Then I chose two to get fully produced in
the little theater.” For an additional touch of the “real world,” the Theater
Arts degree program will also deal with the reality of building a career in
theater arts, the nuts and bolts of earning a living.
Goehring is being very conservative
in his estimate of how many students will initially opt for the program. He
expects, at most, 10 to 12 students to declare for the fall semester, but he’s
honest in saying that he really doesn’t know what is going to happen. He
believes, however, that once the quality of the program becomes common knowledge,
a growing number of students will be attracted.
“The thing we offer,” Goehring
explained, “is very hard for any institution out of the tri-state area to
offer, especially a Catholic university, and that is the access to the artists
we bring in not only to teach but the guest artists from the Broadway world. A
lot of my friends come. For example, Craig Shulman, who’s an actor and teaches
as well. He played Jean Valjean on Broadway for over 2,000 performances, more
than anyone else in the world. He was the phantom in ‘Phantom.’ It’s that kind
of caliber.”
Goehring, given his contacts and
experience, has the ability to bring in professional talent – people who know
how to do it in the real world – to talk about real life with the students.
“Okay,” Groehing said, “you audition, that’s great, but now what do you do? How
do you make a living, how do you pay rent, how do you build a career when you
leave this sanctuary? It sounds so simple but a lot of places just don’t teach
that, but when you have real-world people here teaching it’s a golden
opportunity for these kids.”
Although Groehing has been
extremely successful in what he calls the “real world,” he’s found a great deal
of pleasure and satisfaction in his tenure at Sacred Heart, and that’s mainly
due to the students who have opted to become involved in the theater program.
“It’s really amazing,” Groehing
said. “It’s amazing to see, up until now without a full academic program, how
good these kids are. High schools are really turning out some wonderful
students. It’s fun to see who Sacred Heart attracts. Not just the performance
quality, because it’s absolutely there, but the type of kids who come here.
They have a good compass in their lives, they know what it’s like to work with
people, and, you know, this is the most collaborative of art forms. I find the
students who come here are just the most accepting group of people. They’re big
hearts, but so smart. I can’t keep up sometimes. It’s just a real pleasure to
be here.”
Hopefully, that pleasure will grow
as Sacred Heart attracts more students with stars in their eyes and a love of
theater. Even for those students who eventually do not opt to pursue a career
in the theater, the experience that Sacred Heart now offers will influence
their lives in ways they cannot imagine. Yes, there’s ‘no business like show
business.’ It has its heartbreaks and its pitfalls, but there is something
about participating in a theatrical production that speaks, somehow, to the
core of what it means to be a human being, and perhaps that is, in the end,
what education is all about.
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