“Industry Baby”: Surfacing Acting Students’ (Mis)perceptions, hopes, dreams, and expectations in relation to Vocational Actor Training (VAT)
As a University and as a course, we often talk about preparing our students for “industry.” And indeed, equipping our students with the skills and resilience they will need to have a successful and fulfilling professional life is an important part of our job as educators.
But, in the specific context of an Acting and Performance course, what are our students’ perception of the “industry” they hope to join? Especially given the very fast-shifting artistic, social, and artistic field know as the Theatre Industry? This Action Research project aims to surface their dreams and expectations so that we as a staff can best support them in those aspirations. This is especially urgent for students from less affluent and other marginalized backgrounds who already face historically exclusionary exclusionary practices.