STACY WOLF: "Why music theater?" is
the question we asked ourselves as soon as we wanted to start
this program at Princeton.
And we are excited that we can have this kind
of expansive vision in a place
because we're small, we're very undergraduate focused,
we're completely collaborative in everything we do.
Wherever the student is coming from in terms
of the art, that can lead.
So the theater, the text can lead, the music can lead,
the composition can lead, or the dance can lead.
And we are supportive of any of those balances
among these different forms.
We don't have an agenda in terms of what music theater
creation can mean at Princeton.
We are excited to see where students are coming from
and how we can help them as artists
and as scholars to make new stuff.
I'm Stacy Wolf.
I'm a professor in the program in theater
at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University,
and I'm the director of Princeton's new Program
in Music Theater.
WESLEY CORNWELL: Princeton for me is this great combination
of the academic side and then the creative side with faculty
that are really there to support you every step of the way,
from visual research to scene breakdowns
to technical drawings or costume sketches
through tech all the way to the performance.
OGE UDE: The school has been incredibly supportive in terms
of just giving me the funding to get where I want to go.
I know exactly what I want to do.
And oftentimes, it lives outside of what is available.
And I think Princeton has been really supportive of getting me
to that very specific, niche place
that I have said that I'm very passionate about.
JULIA PEIPERl: I have had this guidance that
has helped me to radically increase
the quality of my work, or at least
the quality of my research and the foundations
that are going into my work.
And that's because of the classes
that I've gotten to take.
STACY WOLF: And we very much pride ourselves
on balancing scholarly pursuits and artistic pursuits,
performance and creation.
All of our students are scholar- artists and artist-scholars.
We do not see the difference between making scholarship
and making art.
WESLEY CORNWELL: And you have an incredible diversity
of academic backgrounds all being brought
into the same classroom for the same project,
asking the same questions.
And that diversity of academic thoughts, I think
yields so many more interesting results.
The combination of intellectual rigor and creativity
is really astonishing and something
I've found immensely rewarding.
STACY WOLF: We've had directors, designers, critics,
musical directors.
And they come to class and talk about what they've done,
how they've made their careers.
They engage with the students.
And because we're so close to New York,
it's very easy for them to hop on the train
and come and spend an afternoon with us.
And to have access to artists in that way
is absolutely unique and amazing.
DEAN MOSS: What I like about students,
and Princeton students in particular, is their openness.
They come from a wide range of academic experience
that they bring to the art-making process.
And it's their love of making art that forces this to happen.
And I have been excited by that engagement
and what they bring to the table.
BILLY COHEN: The resources are obviously crazy,
but what I like about it is the professors take
a genuine interest in each and every student,
no matter what their background is
or what they plan on doing with theater or musical theater
in the future.
They really focus on bringing to life what each student is
capable of doing every day.
STACY WOLF: This program very specifically is music theater,
so it does include the Broadway musical.
It also includes opera.
We have a very strong opera program here as well as
what we think of as more avant garde music theater,
different ways that music theater, dance, text
and performance all come together
to make an entirely new hybrid form.
[MUSIC PLAYING]