'In your own backyard': Texas State University ranks in the world's top 25 theater programs

If you don't know about theater at Texas State University in San Marcos, you haven't been paying attention to what's happening in your own backyard.

For years, the training program that thrived in the shadows of the mighty University of Texas in Austin has produced top-notch shows and top-notch talent.

Now it has been named by Hollywood Reporter magazine as one of the top 25 places to study in theater in 2024, not just in America, but in the world.

The magazine's list reflects a wider trend toward full-ride scholarships and increasingly free tuition.

 “Just knowing how volatile the industry is for these creatives,” Emily Roxworthy, dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, told the Hollywood Reporter, "it’s extremely important that they not be saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of debt."

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'It's always been about the people'

John Fleming, who earned his Ph.D. in theater at UT, chaired the Texas State program for years before he became the university's College of Fine Arts and Communication dean. He learned of the department's ranking in a note from current chairwoman Sarah Maines.

"It’s always been about the people," Fleming says. "When I started as chair, we had people like Chuck and Michelle Ney, Laura Lane and Michael Costello. High-caliber faculty who wanted to build a national program. And soon we brought in (recently deceased) Tom Copeland to start working on building a film program." 

The crucial next step was to draft Kaitlin Hopkins to build the musical theater program. An accomplished artist with a golden theatrical lineage, Hopkins hired people who knew how to do, as well as how to teach. Within a few years, Texas State was named one of the top 10 American training programs for musical theater.

More:Kaitlin Hopkins takes Texas State to the top in musical theater

"As I told a recent New York alum gathering, when I hired Kaitlin, she was still at the top of her profession," Fleming says, "but as soon as she accepted, it stopped being about her career, and it was all about students, and what did we need to do prepare them to have Broadway careers, to be leaders in their field."

More recently, among the other catalysts has been Richard Robichaux, a widely respected teacher who is a passionate advocate for arts education.

"When I interviewed Richard a year ago, he walked into my office, and said something like: 'So we’re finally going to get this done,'" Fleming says. "Though we had never met, he knew that about 10 years ago, when Laura Lane — briefly — left for Carnegie Mellon University, that — based on Michael Costello’s recommendation — I had my eye on hiring him. And in the interim, I had followed his career at Penn State and UC-San Diego, where he regularly recruited Texas State undergraduates for the MFA programs he lead."

Caring about student success

Not only were these new people good hires, Fleming says, they are good people.

"They have personal character and they care, care about department success, care about student success," Fleming says. "And I’ve found that hiring people with good values attracts people with those same values. And as you know, theater requires long hours, lots of nights and weekends, and so you want to be around people you enjoy working with, people who have a common set of goals."

More:How to see 'Guys and Dolls,' 'Legally Blonde,' 'Little Mermaid' and more in Austin

Ramped up backing from donors and high administrators has smoothed the way. Backer Patti Harrison, for instance, put her money on a new performing arts center. Others funded scholarships that allowed Texas State to sift through as many as 900 musical theater applications from 40-plus states for just 12 to 14 spots a year.

Which theater schools were ranked?

Some of the ranked theater schools have been big players in the field for generations:

• The Juilliard School (New York City) (1)
• Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut) (2)
• University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) (3)
• Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh) (4)
• New York University (New York City) (7)
• University of California-San Diego (9)
• The Old Globe and University of San Diego (10)
• University of California-Los Angeles (11)
• University of Southern California (Los Angeles) (12)
• University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan) (14)

Others are overseas powerhouses:

• Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (London) (5)
• London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (6)
• Guildhall School (London) (8)
• National Institute of Dramatic Arts (Kensington, Australia) (13)

Still others have been very good for a long time, or they are new to the list:

• Brown University/Trinity Rep (Providence, R.I.) (15)
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (16)
• Columbia University (New York City) (17)
• Savannah School of Art & Design (Savannah, Georgia) (18)
• Case Western Reserve/Cleveland Play House (Cleveland, Ohio) (19)
• Baldwin Wallace University (Berea, Ohio) (20)
• Northwestern University (Chicago, Illinois) (21)
• Penn State University (State College, Pennsylvania) (22)
• Syracuse University (Syracuse, New York) (23)
• Purchase College, State University of New York (Purchase, New York) (24)
• Texas State University (San Marcos, Texas) (25)