After halting new admissions last fall and a months-long self-assessment of its curriculum, the University of Arizona College of Fine Arts last week announced it is eliminating musical theater from the School of Theatre, Film & Television.
The school also will no longer offer a master’s of fine arts degree in theater design/technology, focusing instead on design and technical production in film, television and other platforms, according to a memo posted on the school’s website.
The moves are part of a broader reboot of the school’s curriculum to focus away from theater and more on television and film, which accounts for 61% of the school’s enrollment but only 35% of its staffing resources, officials have said.
Students currently enrolled in musical theater will be able to finish their degrees and school officials, in a written notice by College of Fine Arts Dean Andrew Schulz posted Feb. 16 on the school’s website, said fully produced musicals will continue to be produced through the end of the 2025-26 academic year.
Other curriculum changes include a broader acting training program for film, television and associated mediums as well as theater, and expanding the theater program to “combine live performance, devised work and screened performance to respond to robust student demand for a degree program that integrates all of these forms.”
The BFA in Film Production program will integrate actors, designers and technologists into the filmmaking process and more film production coursework will be added for undergraduates in film and television, the memo states.
“This is one of the most exciting developments in our field nationally,” Brant Law Pope, the school’s interim director, said in a written statement. “That’s the most important element in this change. In virtually no other university in North America can actors, designers and technicians receive training in live theatre, film, television and entertainment media in the same program. What the University of Arizona is doing by creating this synergy between live and screened training and performance identifies us as a trend-setting national leader.”
But some alumni said the loss of musical theater could deny students a chance to experience the full gamut of training they will need to thrive professionally, whether that is screened or live performance.
“I think by opening one door it’s great, but closing the other is not,” said 2001 theater alumnus Tami Hook, a theater professional in Chicago. “They are not just shutting down a musical theater program; they are shutting down a nationally-recognized musical theater program. It devalues all of our degrees.”
“This whole thing is just upsetting. I’m feeling sad and angry at the same time,” Lisa Pierce, a former marketing director at the School of Theatre, Film & Television, posted on the school’s Facebook after the news was released. “The program evolved into something wonderful over the years. The training was among the best in the country. To be an alum from this program came with prestige.”
Musical theater found itself in the spotlight not long after Pope was named interim director of the School of Theatre, Film & Television last August.
Pope, with input from faculty members and direction from Schulz, launched an internal assessment of the school to determine if its resources were being used to meet the students demands “to ensure that students succeed, graduate and are well prepared for current and future directions of the increasingly integrated worlds of theatre, film, television and associated media,” according to the Feb. 16 report.
In November, a memo of possible scenarios including eliminating musical theater was leaked, prompting an online petition at change.org that garnered nearly 3,500 signatures.
At the time, Schulz told the Star that he was looking for “transformative” change that he said could impact the theater program going forward.
In an email interview Wednesday, Pope said that he understood the “sadness surrounding the need to move away from” musical theater, but the school is obligated to deliver “instruction and training to more than 500 majors across six degree programs and more than 100 minors,” the majority of whom, school officials have said, are pursuing film and television.
“All university programs must continually assess their focus and, from time to time, must pause to ensure that the needs of current and future student populations are being met and that curriculum remains in step with the direction of the disciplines,” Pope wrote in his email interview; he was not available to answer additional questions by phone.
Entertainment news site The Wrap, which ranks the best colleges in a variety of fields, ranked the UA film school No. 25 in the nation in 2021 and 2022, which UA officials said placed the school at No. 6 among public university film schools nationwide.
The Wrap in its recent listing of the top 25 best colleges for musical theater had UA at No. 24.
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