ALYSSA TOOMEY
Staff Writer
Most buildings at Pepperdine are lifeless at 2 o’clock in the morning. But take a walk through the Fine Arts building at this time of night and more likely than not, a student will be singing, acting or painting a picture.
The vibrancy of the Fine Arts Division and the strong dedication of its students can easily been seen in any Pepperdine performance or artistic show.
Throughout its plethora of performances and constant expansion of programs, three-year chair Cathy Thomas-Grant insists that the department’s mission has stayed the same. “We work to train young artists to pass on the tradition of the Fine Arts Division,” Thomas-Grant said. “It’s important to keep the fine arts alive.”
Thomas-Grant’s passion stems from her belief that the arts are incredibly important to the mental health of a society. She believes her students are ultimately teaching or healing their audience through creating, singing or acting.
Although some students think the arts are simpler than other majors, Thomas-Grant stresses that there is a great deal of discipline and knowledge involved. “The arts take the study of politics, philosophy, history, sociology and humanities and fuse them together in a moment of performance,” Thomas-Grant said.
Students wanting to take classes in the arts have opportunities in a variety of areas, including music, voice, instrumental, composition, theater, acting, production design, art history, studio art, sculpting, painting, drawing, film, and multi-media design. In recent years, the division has added a music lab to enable students who are interested in composition. The art history program has also been added as well as a variety of new, impressive faculty.
The division brings in guest teachers and choreographers from a variety of areas for master classes. The department ultimately works to serve as a resource for students performing both on and off campus.
A major advantage of the program is its size. Classes are small, so students receive a great deal of personal attention. At larger schools, undergraduate students are often unable to perform until they reach the graduate level. But at Pepperdine, both a freshman and a senior possess an equal chance for the lead role in a production.
Theater scholarship student Brooke Lowry believes that the personal attention she has received from faculty in the department has greatly improved her skills. “My musical theater class only has eight people, so we get a lot of one on one attention. We are also encouraged to perform in an outside musical and the teacher brings a lot of people from L.A. to our class.”
Lowry also believes in the department’s work to uphold the individualism of each student. “Pepperdine is not a school that only produces members of a division; it produces individual actors with unique attributes.”
Freshman Jazz Brice originally considered Pepperdine to be her non-theater school, thinking that the department was less impressive than the other schools she was considering. She is now actively involved in Pepperdine’s many productions and insists that she “was pleasantly surprised with the quality and amount of opportunities available within the division.”
Describing the theater community as “small, but vibrant,” Brice appreciates the encouraging environment and the opportunities open to all students.
Both Brice and Lowry credit their decision to come to Pepperdine with its location. “Pepperdine theater carries a name in L.A.,” Lowry said.
“I know a lot of people who stay during the summer and work to pursue careers,” Brice added.
Despite the department’s plethora of opportunities, students still tend to choose Pepperdine for other divisions. One reason for this may be the facilities available to fine arts students. Dressing rooms have to be shared for every performance and Smother’s Theatre does not belong solely to the department. In order for the division to grow further, an expansion of the facilities would be necessary.
“We currently do not have the space to add a dance division,” Thomas-Grant said. “We are short on space.”
Even with the shared facilities, the Fine Arts Division boasts alumni studying at Yale and Juilliard, performing on Broadway, or working as a commercial artist at Disney. Graduate of Pepperdine University and pursuing a master’s degree at Juilliard, Christin Wismann attributes much of his success to the professors at Pepperdine. “I had an amazing experience at Pepperdine. It’s a wonderfully supportive environment.
“I felt like all the professors really believed in me and took personal interest in seeing me succeed.”
He also believes strongly in the small environment and personal attention he received. “Since there is no masters or doctoral program at Pepperdine, I feel like the undergraduates really are able to get the uniquely focused attention that they need. At many places, undergraduates never get opportunities like that and it’s this experience on stage that is so vital to one’s development.”
Betsy Spina, a music and theater contract major and graduate working as a background character on the ABC series “Greek,” agrees. “The training I received at Pepperdine gave me the strength and courage to go out and try new things.
“The environment was competitive, but it made me realize how much I loved acting.”
Students like Christin Wismann and Betsy Spina prove that although the Fine Arts Division may be relatively small, the department only seems to produce big careers for stellar students.
04-17-2008