Homepage
Student Experience
Success Feed
By bringing music, theatre and dance under one roof, the BW Conservatory of Performing Arts provides students with transformative, professional-level opportunities to master the art of collaboration both on and off the stage.
At their very core, the performing arts require interdisciplinary collaboration to be successful. While the stars of the shows, movies and musicals we all love are often recognized and celebrated, the full array of other arts professionals required to produce these shows often remains unseen.
Recently, the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory grew to include the university's programs in theatre and dance and has been rebranded as the BW Conservatory of Performing Arts.
This reorganization recognizes the interdependent nature of the performing arts. It creates opportunities for students to build skill sets in multiple areas while increasing collaboration across artistic disciplines among students, faculty members and arts partners in the region.
The art of collaboration is best learned by doing, trying, failing, learning, trying again and succeeding. The arts require the opportunity to practice not only the skills related to performance but also the skills of teamwork and collaboration.
At BW, Conservatory students, faculty and staff partner to create fully realized productions. Of course, students perform on the stage, but alongside them, other students are serving as directors, designers, stage managers, musicians, carpenters, electricians, costume stitchers, backstage crew and box office staff.
In addition, arts management students plan the marketing, create educational events and opportunities to extend the impact of the production, and manage the budget. Throughout, students are mentored by professional staff and guest artists while actively learning the art of collaboration.
This is expanded at times through off-campus partnership productions at organizations including Playhouse Square and Near West Theatre. Students leave these collaborative projects with a better understanding of the industry, where they fit, their opportunities for growth and focus, and with expanded professional skills and contacts.
BW's fall production of "Dear Evan Hansen" Nov. 12-15 will provide students with an exciting project on which to partner and learn together. New BW faculty member and Broadway veteran John Hemphill will direct the show; he spent four years playing the role of Larry Murphy in the national tour.
Actors will get to connect with BW music theatre alumnus Colton Ryan, class of 2017, who was in the original Broadway production of the show and later went on to earn a Tony Award nomination for his leading role in "New York, New York." BW arts management alumna Bailey Ford, class of 2020, who has worked on multiple Broadway shows and assisted with the marketing for the national tour of "Dear Evan Hansen," is mentoring the arts management students.
Broadway director, lyricist and Tony Award winner Richard Maltby recently attended a BW production. In a follow-up, he shared, ". . . I couldn't stop thinking about how lucky all those talented kids were. Cast, crew, designers, management, musicians, projectionists, artistic team . . . they were all participating in the creation of a musical that was being produced on the highest professional level. As such, they were learning the only way theater lessons are ever learned, by doing, that there is a standard of excellence out there that is the only thing to aim for. This production was, in every category, professional — and every student participating was learning what that level is . . . They will never be the same."
The BW Conservatory strives to provide this sort of transformative experience to all of our students, making sure they are prepared to enter the arts sector ready to lead, innovate and collaborate.
Bryan Bowser, a graduate of Baldwin Wallace University, is the associate dean for Theatre Arts & Entrepreneurship for BW's Conservatory of Performing Arts and an associate professor of arts management and entrepreneurship.
A version of this column first appeared on cleveland.com and in The Sun News in Northeast Ohio.
The BW Voices series explores a rich array of topics through a diverse pool of contributors. Guest writers offer personal narratives relating to topics of expertise, insight and perspective with the goal of enriching the educational experience of students and the BW community.
