So Many Acting B.A.'s, So Few Paying Gigs - New York Times

Law schools are not the only ones facing struggling with how to balance traditional standards for graduate education with increasing demands for practical skill training--so are acting schools. See the article in today's New York Times (registration required): So Many Acting B.A.'s, So Few Paying Gigs.

At a time when more colleges are producing more actors than ever and the job market is stagnating, Ms. Hoffman's class is emblematic of how the training of American actors has shifted in the 21st century. Instead of the pure education-of-an-artist approach that dominated in undergraduate acting programs through the 1980's and 90's, there is now a growing emphasis on helping students find work in a famously competitive field.

The result is something of a confounding dilemma both for educators and for some professionals, who fear, on the one hand, that vocational training robs student actors of necessary artistic exploration and, on the other, that schools have to do a better job of preparing actors for the grim realities of professional life.