You’ve probably watched movies in which mobsters talk about “the mark”: the person they intend to scam, rob, or extort. “The mark” is someone seen as an easy target. Keep that concept in mind.
After our local choir, the Mad River Chorale, obtained its 501(c)(3) designation, we expanded quickly. Market conditions were good, and frankly, I wanted to earn more. Telling donors “pay me more” wouldn’t work, so I had to create activity that justified higher compensation.
At a budget meeting, our accountant kept calling the singers in a proposed new program “customers.” It irked me, and I corrected him with a flourish: “They’re singers, not customers.”
He just rolled his eyes. “Piero, they’re singers in your rehearsal, but in my books, they’re customers. If they stop buying what you’re selling, you aren’t getting paid.”
Chastened, I backed down. Our mission statement included “Serving Our Community Through Song,” but our bottom line demanded “finding enough customers to pay the bills.” Both had to coexist.
In my research, I stumbled upon Tim Evanicki’s “Tough Tunes: Unmasking the Musical Theater Training Industry” on Dramatics.org. The piece features an intriguing dynamic between the interview subjects and the seemingly neutral Evanicki—who, notably, owns a for-profit musical theatre training program. He and various college department heads discuss shrinking acceptance rates and skyrocketing applications for theater programs, driving home the necessity of early, rigorous prep. At the same time, the article hints at a symbiotic relationship between audition-training programs (like Evanicki’s) and the second- and third-tier college programs that absorb students rejected by top-tier schools.
They claim “there is just a lot more work now than there used to be” in musical theater—a statement that sounds optimistic, given that more jobs don’t always translate to truly improved odds (shifting from 1 in 109,000 to 1 in 105,000, for instance). One might wonder: is this genuine guidance or a carefully packaged sales pitch disguised as learned advice? Evanicki’s article opens with a dramatic statistic: “One half of one percent. That was the acceptance rate for the musical theatre program at Carnegie Mellon University last year—and such rates are becoming more common everywhere.” Yet just two sentences later: “This may sound scary, but don’t lose faith. With the right preparation and planning, you can still chase your dreams. The trick is to know yourself, your goals, and your options.” Conveniently, Evanicki runs an expensive training program called The College Audition, featured among my case studies. But for now, let’s just examine this article.
“We need to rewrite the old saying ‘Those who can’t do, teach’ for the musical theater industry. Ours is ‘Those who can do need to teach so they can pay the rent.’”
This rush to find a competitive edge—combined with an oversupply of underemployed talent—has fostered a vast training apparatus with perverse, self-defeating incentives. Ideally, a dream-driven industry would inspire, not disappoint. Yet many who’ve tasted disappointment turn around and encourage a new generation to follow the same path. On one web page, you might see two contradictory quotes:
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It’s a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle that continues growing. So why the rise in applicants? Most department heads blame the mainstreaming of musical theater—Hamilton and live TV musicals, among others. “There is just a lot more work now than there used to be,” says one. Others cite Glee and a run of big Broadway hits as fueling an appetite for theater. Young people are lapping it up. Valencia College, for instance, introduced an interdisciplinary associate’s degree in musical theatre with multiple musicals, opera-theatre workshops, and a student-choreographed dance concert. The underlying question is: Is this genuine expansion for the good of students, or simply another rung in a ladder that most will never climb to the top?