Five ACU theatre students are spending the last semester of their senior year in a new place, New York City.
Senior theatre majors Ashley Parizek, from Dublin, OH, Peter Hargrave, from Pasadena, Kelley Barker, from Mesquite, Blake Rogers, from Athens, TX, and Jefferson Ferguson, from Houston, are spending the spring semester in Manhattan with a program called Tepper Semester.
The Tepper Semester is a one semester program started in 2008 to give senior theatre students across the country a chance to experience New York City as a possible post-graduate career choice.
The program allows students to learn about acting in New York without some of the pressures of moving into the city permanently.
“Something great about this program,” Ferguson said, “is that it really lets you know if this is where you want to be without having to make a firm commitment on a lease or something like that.”
Students take 19 hours of intense training and have a chance to attend Broadway performances and visit museums. They spend the semester practicing their trade and also experiencing the culture and deciding if it is where they want to work.
“Last Saturday I hit the town and just spent the whole day taking pictures and video,” Ferguson said. “It is fascinating. I have gotten to experience a lot of cultures and religions.”
This semester, the program selected 60 students from five universities which include Carnegie Melon and Syracuse. ACU’s relationship with the program stems from Adam Hester, chair of the theatre department, who visited during his faculty renewal leave last spring.
During his time off, Hester set a goal to either find or create a program that would help ease students’ post graduate transition into New York City.
“There is always that stark awakening of culture shock or the expense of housing,” Hester said.
After meeting with program director Lisa Nicholas, Hester felt that the Tepper Semester would offer just what the students needed.
“[Nicholas] invited me to sit in on classes,” Hester said. “There were echoes of what we were doing here. I loved the nurturing sense and also how challenging the atmosphere was.”
Hester returned to Abilene to propose the idea to students and with help from many services on campus, Hester and students were able to make sure a transition into the program would go smoothly. Hester hopes this will lead to an ongoing relationship that allows students to go each year. With this new option, students would be able to consolidate a Christian education with an opportunity to work in New York.
“Students who really want to have a Christian education,” Hester said, “can choose our program and [through the Tepper Semester] they can have both worlds.”
Alumni currently acting in the city have helped the students feel welcome in New York. 2005 Alum, Juliette Trafton, performed in the off-Broadway production of “The Fantasticks”, the worlds longest-running musical. Both 2006 graduates, Ben Jeffrey starred as Pumba in the Broadway musical “The Lion King” and Lara Seibert was hand selected by Hugh Jackman to be one of five backup singers and dancers in his “Back on Broadway” show.
“There is actually a pretty large body of ACU alumni working here [in New York],” Ferguson said. “When we got here, a lot of them really made themselves available to us.”
Ferguson is studying acting while Parizek, Hargrave, Parker and Rogers will be focusing on musical theatre in the very competitive program.
“There is something that every actor goes through,” Ferguson said. “Every day it is like ‘what the heck am I doing.’ There are so many people trying to do this exact same thing. [The professors] don’t sugar coat it at all. Not that they are constantly discouraging us but they always remind us of the realities of the stage.”
Even in such a competitive environment, ACU students are able to stand out.
“Everyone here is extremely talented,” Ferguson said. “There really are no weak links. I feel that the ACU theatre program really prepared me for this. We have got some great training and teachers.”
At the end of the spring semester, the students will return from New York to graduate with their classmates in Abilene. After that, the students can begin their acting careers with a bit of confidence.
“This is so far beyond anything that they could acquire here,” Hester said. “We can talk about New York and how to audition and network but you don’t really know what it is like until you’re there and you begin to experience those things yourself.”
