Curriculum
What more can you be?
Our non-traditional curriculum is based on the philosophy that the best collaborations sharpen our creative voice and help us grow beyond it. Collaboration is part of everything we do: most seminars and labs are team-taught by our faculty, and students collaborate with each other extensively to create new work. That circle widens to include students and teachers from across Tisch’s extraordinary range of arts programs.
We believe the most innovative work in our field is ahead of us, and that the same principles of musical theatre writing apply regardless of style, genre or medium. We look to works from the past to learn how creators throughout history have tackled the same musical-dramatic issues you grapple with in your own work, and our deep connection to New York City’s theatre community allows us to invite some of the field’s most exciting artists to share how they approach those questions today.
During the first year, you work in rotating teams to conceive, write, and present standalone projects in a variety of media. For the purposes of these assignments, you are accepted as primarily a music person or a words person, though many of our students have facility in both.
During the second year, you work primarily with the same collaborator or collaborators to create the music and words for a full-length musical theatre work.