For a video overview of CCM Drama please watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J37R30KWXUQ

(Mikayla Stanley, Amy Berryman, and Dione Hardin in Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley)

CCM Drama . . . imagine the possibilities

We don’t know what we do not know.

As you start the 2009-2010 school year at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) as students and actors in the Department of Drama I have wishes for you that I would like to share in the hopes of inspiring you to action.

You have chosen to go to college. You have chosen to go to college to study acting. You have chosen to go to college to study acting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in the Department of Drama.

To gain the most from your education, to share the responsibility for using what you are learning, to prepare for a career in a field where you will always be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of your own small business takes rigor, seriousness of purpose, and a great sense of humor. You must cultivate a demanding worth ethic early in your career and you must never let up. You must demand of yourself a vision of what you want to be and where you want to be and you must set realistic goals to help you take steps in the direction you desire.

You will never be a success as a performing artist if you are passive and if you do not engage actively in your education and in setting goals and taking action. A CCM Drama education does not happen to you nor is it placed upon you; it is best used by students who engage with the training, with those who use it fully and openly to begin to know more about what they do not know. An actor in college must be a hungry generalist ready to study history, literature, psychology, physiology, voice and movement to be an expert on the human condition. It is our profound responsibility to nurture the artist in you.

In CCM Drama we do not dictate your goals nor do we push square pegs into round holes.  We hand you many tools. Your hands will always be full. Keep the tools in your hands, put them in your pockets, save them in a toolbox, but whatever you do you must not discard them. You never know when in the future you may need that exact tool to get at the heart of a role; a discarded tool never works.

               Care.      Embrace your ambition.      Connect.

Approach everything you do with care this year. Care. What a great word. Care. It feels so good to look into an actor’s eyes and see that they care. It’s so much better than the alternative. I don’t care. A student who cares about herself will have a better capacity for caring about others. I start teaching Viewpoints every year by having actors experience a group gesture of giving. In this short exercise actors touch their own hearts, the physical manifestation of caring, of life, and then with a gesture they give their hearts to the group. Simultaneously. The moment of giving our hearts to the group effortlessly turns into a moment of receiving, as the ensemble takes on each heart in the group and receives what was given. Give and receive deeply from your hearts. Care. Care about yourself and care about others this year.

Cultivate ambition this year. Ambition. I love that word and I love that trait in actors. It is not a dirty word with negative connotations but rather a necessary characteristic of those who find success in the field of acting. It is attractive and gleams clearly in the eyes of those who see clearly through its veil.  Ambition. It is desirable. It is necessary. Without it stagnation and defeat and a chronic lack of inertia can afflict even the most talented. Ambition is defined as the desire to achieve a particular end. Those who have ambition possess a praiseworthy desire. Ambition. May your ambitions cause you to reach higher and further this year as you use your training to define the type of actor you hope to become.

Make connections. Connect. Connect with your classmates. Connect with your teachers. Connect with those in the classes above and below you. Connect with artists during master classes. Connect with the material in your classes. Connect during rehearsals. Connect with your audiences. Connect with the world. Connect with other departments. Connect as an audience member. Connect through research. Connect with history. Connect with all that CCM Drama has to offer. Connect with CCM. Connect with UC. Connect with Cincinnati. Connect with opportunities around this country. Connect with yourself. Connect with each other. Connect. Now is the time to learn to connect as artists with yourself and your work, and to make connections that will last you a lifetime and put your feet firmly on the path to success as an actor.

Care.      Embrace your ambition.      Connect.
CCM DRAMA

Interested in applying and auditioning?
Applications to begin your studies in 2010-2011, the Class of 2014, are due by December 1, 2009. http://www.ccm.uc.edu

This 2009-2010 school year is our 26th year of training actors who earn the BFA in Dramatic Performance from the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati.Enjoy watching this YouTube video that highlights productions from the past 25 years of CCM Drama history.

CCM Drama 25
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12j64UW6Ws

In addition, new YouTube videos have been posted highlighting previous CCM Drama productions. Enjoy!

Spring Awakening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9dEAIX34U0

On The Verge: or The Geography of Yearning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTPG8Tf9rNY

Anon(ymous)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5E5W2bfFt8

Big Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4SOSMylkjU

Charley's Aunt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kj0oc_cOJg

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdEKHawgHbY

Noises Off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y0-dTVmbwE

CCM DRAMA will have 57 Undergraduate actors in the program this year, the most in the history of the program. We welcome actors from around the country, from Maine to Alaska, from Texas to Illinois, and from around the world, especially Bulgaria, to study in Cincinnati in our exciting program.

Masterclasses last year included a Mongolian cultural exchange with students from the Hanhorgor Secondary School, School of Performing Arts located in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, BUTOH classes with Leigh Evans, KUNG FU Animal Forms classes with Bill Lengfelder, New York agent Gary Krasny of the Krasny Office, New York Casting Director Geoffrey Soffer of ABC's UGLY BETTY, and the Moscow Art Theatre trained theatre company STUDIO 6. I know this year will be just as exciting. Details to follow.

Our exciting season this year features the classic American comedy You Can't Take it With You by Kaufman and Hart, and William Inge's Picnic, both winners of the Pulitzer for Drama. We are also proud to present Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending in our Studio Theatre. In Addition TRANSMIGRATION: A Festival of Student-Created New Works will return after it's spectacular debut last year. New this year will be a co-production of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead, which will be presented off-campus at the Carnegie Theatre in Covington, Kentucky for a 3 week run.

Our 11th Anniversary New York Showcase will be presented at the York Theatre on April 12 and 13, followed by our annual Los Angeles Showcase at the Falcon Theatre on April 27th. Our Cincinnati Showcase and annual DOLLY AWARD Ceremony will be held on March 31.

We are a busy school. The actors in our program are busy. I would have it no other way. We play hard, we train voraciously, and we reach for the stars.

If you are interested in CCM Drama applications will become available on-line September 1. Please use the links above to the application. They are due by December 1.

We love actors.

C C M    D r a m a . . .
. . . i m a g i n e   t h e   p o s s i bi l i t i e s

Opportunities
When you are a student in CCM Drama you are bombarded with opportunities galore. It takes planning, care, communication, hard work, and maturity to juggle the abundance of opportunities successfully. I get weekly e-mail requests, which I forward to the student body, for actors to do something. Some people want actors to volunteer to work with students, some people want to pay people to do voice-over work, some people want to have actors dress up as celebrities and serve food at parties, some people want actors for movie roles, some people want to pay actors to teach, and some people want to use actors to help train doctors and lawyers. The possibilities are endless. I pass along all requests that I feel are legitimate. From that point on, however, what you do with those requests is up to you. Be thorough in questioning when replying to a job opportunity. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. By responding to opportunities of interest you will gain valuable experience in booking a job and following it through to completion. Students in CCM Drama have booked wonderful side jobs while in school, and I’m sure that will continue this year. Be sure to be present when opportunity knocks.

Pressure
If the pressure of being a student in CCM Drama reaches a critical stage, seek help. The faculty is always willing to listen and offer advice. If you need help of any kind at any time, please just ask for it. We love to help when asked.

If the pressure of being a student in CCM Drama reaches a critical stage, seek release. Get away from CCM. Volunteer. Help someone else. Pursue an outside interest. There’s a great big world out there to connect with whenever the pressure-cooker of CCM becomes too intense.

BACKSTAGE put out an edition on colleges in 2007 with a special insert titled "Ten Acting Programs You Might Not Have Considered". We made their list of 10. "The University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music isn't just for music students. It also has a first-rate BFA program in acting."

Am I proud? You bet.
It is a challenge, a joy, a privilege, a chance for greatness to come to work each day and work with such talented and hard working students and faculty.

-Richard E. Hess
A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair in Drama

Why CCM Drama?
For more than 135 years, since 1868, the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) in Cincinnati has been training young artists. The Department of Drama joined the Conservatory in 1983, and for the past two decades has been training actors who are now working from New York to Los Angeles and abroad, in theatre, television, and film. Each year 18-20 young actors are chosen from around the country to study in the Conservatory-style undergraduate training program, which grants the BFA in Dramatic Performance. These talented young men and women move to Cincinnati to begin their training and their careers, and for 4 years study together as an integrated ensemble in our exciting program.
Our actor training program is designed to prepare students for a life in the profession. CCM Drama creates young actors who are versatile, unique, imaginative, and grounded in a solid technique. We train young actors in both the art and the craft of the profession, actors who are fearless, confident, and ready to meet the demands of a life as an artist. We are serious in our mission and rigorous in our methods, and each year we eagerly welcome a select class of the most talented students from across the nation to study in our state-of-the art facilities.

Study with nationally recognized experts in:
Viewpoints Training - The Viewpoints, developed by Anne Bogart, allows a group of actors to function together spontaneously and intuitively and to generate bold, theatrical work quickly. It develops flexibility, articulation, and strength in movement and makes ensemble playing really possible.
The Meisner Technique – For Sanford Meisner, acting was about reproducing honest emotional human reactions. Meisner explained that his approach was designed "to eliminate all intellectuality from the actor's instrument and to make him a spontaneous responder to where he is, what is happening to him, what is being done to him."
The Michael Chekhov Technique - Movement, Atmosphere, Concentration and intense Ensemble work are essential tools for the building of a role and the birth of a production.

Fight Training
Learn to be proficient as an actor in both armed and unarmed combat, with emphasis on rapier, dagger, and quarterstaff, culminating in yearly skills testing by the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD).

Mask Characterization Work
Create characters in year long training in full-face primitive masks, half-face character masks, quality masks, and commedia masks.

Voice and Speech Training
Unparalleled training at the undergraduate level: comprehensive training in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), verse and scansion, Alba Emoting, dialects, and the creation of voiceover demos.

Freshmen Showcase
Perform with your classmates in an evening of scenes and monologues created by the freshmen ensemble and share your work with not only the University and community, but with local industry professionals and commercial agents, in conjunction with AFTRA. (The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists)

Senior Showcases in Cincinnati, New York, and Los Angeles
We are one of a select few BFA programs in the nation presenting bi-coastal senior showcases, creating opportunities for actors to quickly sign with top industry professionals on both coasts.

CCM is a comprehensive school of the arts. CCM is devoted not only to the professional training of actors, it also offers training to students in the fields of dance, opera, musical theatre, theatre design and production, television, radio, audio production, all areas of music performance, music education, arts administration, jazz studies, and music history, theory, and composition.

Over 1,400 undergraduate and graduate students, from 47 states and territories and 47 foreign countries attend CCM. With superb facilities, a wide range of theatres, including the 700 seat Ralph Corbett Auditorium, the 400 seat Patricia Corbett Theatre, and the 140 seat Cohen Family Studio Theatre, CCM is the largest performing arts institution in Ohio, presenting over 900 performances annually. CCM offers a high energy, conservatory style training, in a center for performing arts of all kinds, enjoying all of the resources of a dynamic state university in a vibrant city.

Imagine the possibilities. It starts here.

-Richard E. Hess
A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair in Drama
513-556-9575
hessre@uc.edu