Conservatory Training Quotes

Upon graduating from my acting program at The Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts in Santa Maria, CA, I went to my first tap audition. It was for the 1st national equity tour of '42nd Street.'

I learned my profession onstage. I didn't have a musical background. I had no conservatory training. I don't play an instrument.

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting.

I thought I should go to New York because it was the place to go to study. I went and tried to get an application from the Juilliard School but they wouldn't even give me one because I didn't have my high school graduation.

Being an actress wasn't realistic. I knew that I was going to have to do it in a way that would speak to my parents. So I went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts for theater, and I studied at the conservatory.

I worked in theater my whole life. My mom was a drama teacher at my middle school. In high school, I was Drama Club President every year, and then I auditioned for conservatory acting programs.

My mom is an avid musical theatergoer. My dad would always get a subscription to the Syracuse Stage. I was always exposed to theater. So I went to a theater conservatory at Boston University.

Going to college helped me, because I had four years in the conservatory program, which is close as you can get to a professional environment. It's like all day.

I majored in drama and theater arts at Columbia and was always in acting studio, but that was a liberal arts degree, not a bachelor of arts degree, so I didn't have a traditional conservatory training. There was a lot of reading and a lot of writing involved, and only about 30 percent of my classes were directly theater-related.

I come from a classical background.

There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice.

I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent.

Conservatory training is so much. There's so much emphasis on playing perfectly in tune and being perfect and doing everything as it's written.

In pop music, people take a stand. When you look at a Beyonce or a Kendrick Lamar, they are going to tell you what they think. And audiences totally get it. They totally love it, and they are totally hungry for it. But in our conservatory training, I think it's a little lacking.