Life after MT courses. Any success stories?

[jennifer1972]

I have just been reading the Sept 2015 thread and all of the time, effort and money being spent on our DCs trying to fulfil their dreams. It would be lovely to know if any of those who have now finished their MT courses, be it diploma or degree are actually doing what they set out to do - not cruise ships or theme park characters (not that there is anything wrong with that, I hasten to add!) but really getting those roles they dreamed of as an aspiring MT student, be it on a West End stage, being part of a fantastic dance company or singing professionally. Just to inspire us who are yet to go down that path, knowing how tough the reality is afterwards. I would love to hear some inspirational stories!!!

[Katymac]

If you follow the main colleges on Facebook,each time an ex-student gets a job they announce it

At least, Performers, Bird, Urdang & Millennium do.

Plus if you look in any programme from a show you can see whereeverone trained - DD & do this a lot and ar starting to Get a feel for which colleges styles fit which shows (iyswim)

DD's initial teacher is ex West End & did a combination of shows in the UK, UK tours, International Tours & Cruise ships intersperced with teaching and some shorter term bits - a true "portfolio career"

[Caroline A-C]

My ds finished Arts Ed last summer having completed his BA in Musical Theatre. He went straight into a 10 month contract playing Rum Tum Tugger in Cats with Royal Caribbean which was an amazing experience. He came home in May and had a month off before starting the audition rounds again. Can't say too much yet (cast announcement due in next couple of weeks) but he has just got an amazing new contract. Although some of his peer group have yet to find employment, most have been working since leaving college. A number of them got Westend shows through auditions at the college. Hope that helps you a bit.

[Caroline A-C]

Just thought I would add that Royal Caribbean Cats show was cast by The Really Useful Group and a number of those in the first cast with ds are now in the UK tour of Cats. There were a number of very seasoned performers in the production including a Christine from Love Never Dies so don't dismiss cruise ships. They pay very well too with no living and food costs to pay. Plus you get to see some amazing places.

[Katymac]

I agree with Caroline - cruise ships seem quite looked down on (indeed when I first started looking I thought so too) - but not I realise how hard you have to work to get any job at all & you have to be very good to get a cruise job

[Pearl]

Cruise ships are no longer feathers, boobs and bums!!!! as they used to be 25 years ago but most cruises nowadays put on huge productions and full musicals.
What a fantastic way to see the world and get paid for it!!

[Pearl]

Haha Jomist! I did a cruise back in my youth and I swore I never wanted to see another feather again!!
We had the hugest feather head gear you can imagine and I'm only 5ft 2. I nearly toppled over a few times

[2dancersmum]

I think Katymac's comment about portfolio career is probably true for most - if you want to stay in work. Most of the people we know that have graduated in the past few years have done a mixture of UK tours, UK theatre and theatre in Germany, panto, cruise ships, hotels and holidays resorts and West End. Getting a job is incredibly difficult as competition if fierce and there is the timing issue of when you are available as well. Cruise ship auditions are brutal - especially for dance which tend to be open call. The singers can often go in through agents to get seen. They have literally hundreds in the room (and hundreds more in a queue outside sometimes) and they start teaching a routine and then quite literally just go a row at a time 'no,no,no,no,yes,' and cut over the course of a few rounds until they have maybe a dozen people left - and that still does not mean you get the job. DD went to one 'closed or invitation only' audition and there were still 250 of them there and they kept 10 for the final round.

[jennifer1972]

That's really interesting! The feathers, bums and boobs comment made me chuckle! So, does anyone know what percentage of graduates get an agent? Does it vary from college to college? And if they do get an agent, is it usually off of the back of the end of year showcase?

[Caroline A-C]

At Arts Ed everybody got an agent in ds's year and I think that has been the case for the past few years. Agents come to the various final year shows and of course the showcase. Agents leave their cards for the ones they are interested in. The students then organise to go and meet the various agents and finally choose who they want to represent them. However, nobody was allowed to sign with an agent until after the showcase. I presume that things are pretty similar for the other London colleges.

[carriecrafts]

Laine's posted this on their Facebook page today:

"Graduation day for the amazing class of 2015! Over 30 of them already have jobs and several are in the West End! Yes indeed...this year is a bumper crop for stars!"

I suspect there are plenty of academic degrees that can't boast such high employment rates before graduation!

[riverdancefan]

I wonder about the peripheral colleges though , I think the top 4 are pretty much sorted ... But what about everyone else ...

[jennifer1972]

I hadn't thought about the colleges Facebook pages, thanks for that Katymac! Got to keep up with the times!!

[Katymac]

Riverdancefan - which top 4......

[Selina2]

As Katymac said, we also always look at the programmes to see where people trained - particularly the young ensemble who are often fresh out of college.

The information is usually available online for current West End musicals too, and if you click on the images you get a brief CV for each cast member and it usually states where they trained. If you do it a lot, you get a feel for the schools that are currently well-represented, it used to be Mountview and Laines that came up a lot, in the past couple of years it seems to be more Arts Ed and Bird, but there's always a good spread from the main schools (and some smaller ones too). And obviously some shows are more dance orientated so you will see more from the dance schools. Here's the current Mumma Mia cast:

http://www.mamma-mia.com/london-cast.php

I guess for every successful graduate though there's always a few who don't get lucky, as there's so many coming into the industry and only a limited amount of roles