Our Musical Theatre Vision
What We Believe In
At Geneseo, we value a rich and thorough liberal arts-based education. We promote critical, analytical, independent thinking and we foster a diverse student body of curious, globally-aware citizens. In our welcoming atmosphere, we offer connections to our network of supportive alumni and provide you with the opportunity to actively participate in creative, transformational learning experiences every day.
Nestled within our strong liberal arts community exists a gem of pre-professional training in the arts: our musical theatre degree programs. The B.A. in Musical Theatre and B.P.S. in Musical Theatre are your catalysts for a fulfilling life in the arts.
We provide you with individualized feedback in our small classes, but we also understand the value of innovation on a larger scale. We prioritize imagination and creativity in our performances, and encourage our students to present their work on our many stages in fresh and exciting ways. We believe that collaboration across disciplines and majors is vital to the success of our shows, musicals, and recitals. When performers, technicians, designers, directors, faculty, and administrators come together, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its spectacular parts.
We’re proud to bring you the best of both musical theatre and the liberal arts, and we offer endless opportunities for merging your varied areas of study into a cohesive career path. Our goal is to support you as an individual student so that you graduate from Geneseo feeling thoroughly prepared to begin your professional career and genuinely excited to spend a lifetime actively contributing to the future of the art form.
Our Core Values
Transform and Be Transformed
We focus on honest, authentic, specific, joyful, true self-expression through scene and song. We believe the arts play a crucial role in better understanding yourself, your community, and the world.
Faculty That Have Your Back
Our teachers are committed to providing you with a strong yet malleable basis for your growth. Beyond building connections outside of the classroom, our faculty values your personal transformations as much as your artistic ones. We are constantly in communication with each other about your work and your needs in order to bring you the most comprehensive, personalized college experience possible.
Using the Arts as a Window Into Empathy, Change, and Social Justice
We are deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community and in the arts industry at large. While this is not a simple topic to discuss, we are ready to stand at the forefront of change in spite of — and because of — the complicated and essential nature of this work. Our musical theatre program is a place where you can feel authentically represented and free to express and discover yourself in an environment that celebrates individuality and honesty. We believe the arts can change hearts and open minds. Music and theatre are conduits to empathy and social responsibility, and we are proud to provide a nurturing environment for the next generation of change-makers.
Discovery Through Collaboration
Your years in Geneseo Musical Theatre will be a partnership: we’ll discover, explore, and innovate together. By learning a variety of styles from a network of student and faculty collaborators, you’ll receive a balanced education in musical theatre and a greater understanding of how to successfully work as a team towards any artistic goal.
Jumpstarting Your Career
Our B.A. and B.P.S. degrees are your launching pad to a life in the arts. We provide you with performance opportunities each semester on campus, as well as connect you to larger industry opportunities in Rochester and NYC. Our faculty includes working professionals who bring you the latest trends and offer thorough guidance toward starting your life in the arts.
Are we the right fit?
Choosing the right school can be an intuitive decision. Finding a program that fits your strengths and goals often comes down to much more than curriculum lists or alumni statistics. When you visit a school, meet its students, and walk the halls, you know — you know if you’re in a place where you can truly see yourself thriving for the next four years.
But what if you can’t see a school in person, or you didn’t get all your questions answered on your admissions tour? We know it’s crucial for you get a real sense of who we are, what we value, and the kind of environment we foster for our students.
When you’re in our B.P.S or B.A. programs, you’ll feel:
Prepared
You’ll graduate ready to jump right into your career.
Embraced
Our safe and positive learning environment welcomes all learning styles and strengths, so you can push yourself to new heights without the fear of failure.
Artistically and Personally Fulfilled
Our program offers a broad background of disciplines, perspectives, and techniques so you can find what works for you, as you transform into an incredible artist and thoughtful human being.
Taken Care Of
Our curriculum has been carefully and intentionally devised so that you don’t have to hunt around a course catalog: we provide you with a comprehensive training schedule to give you the most seamless, thorough, customized education plan for you.
Connected
Our NYC Immersion experiences drop you right into the heart of the city. We connect you with alumni, provide masterclasses with industry professionals, and invite agents to the senior showcase so that you walk out of Geneseo and right into a vivid network of opportunities and guidance.
Balanced
Not only do we provide you with a broad background of knowledge within our program, we also help you to match your musical theatre studies with your liberal arts interests. From this balanced perspective, you’ll learn to trust yourself as a performer and a person, and you’ll graduate ready to contribute to the arts as an independent, global citizen.
Ready to learn more about our degree programs?