In Conversation with David Sullivan: Unveiling the Academy's New BFA

The Academy is excited to introduce a new educational opportunity for actors: the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Acting for Film, Television & Theatre. After several years of planning and preparation, the first cohort will begin classes in January 2027. Designed to build on the Academy's rigorous conservatory training while preparing students for the realities of today's industry, the BFA combines intensive acting training across stage and screen with industry preparation, content creation, and a broader liberal arts curriculum.

The program also creates a new pathway for Academy alumni, with eligible graduates able to apply 60 credits from their previous Academy training toward the 120-credit degree and potentially complete their BFA in two years or less.

For more insight, read a one-on-one conversation with David Sullivan, Vice President of Academics, as we dive into this bold new undertaking.

The Academy has always been known for rigorous training; what does a BFA add to this legacy?

The BFA builds on the rigorous training we've always had, but provides additional areas of study that we have crafted to make the education of the actor more complete. While the BFA and the AOS have the same foundation – acting, voice and speech, movement, Alexander technique; those core studio courses – there are also liberal arts and science courses tailored to the education of the actor in the BFA.

While taking a voice and speech class, you might have already had an anatomy and physiology class to better understand the physical instrument. With a course in Film Studies in addition to the drama and history of theatre, you'll understand the form that you're working in. It allows us to give more breadth of understanding of the craft, and the environment actors work in.

A BFA program also gives us more specificity. Students will have the opportunity to go into scene study classes for sitcoms and procedurals, shorts, devised web series, and begin their reel. We can build on the rigor we have with more credits.

What should previous graduates of our conservatory know? Is there anything noteworthy for someone who graduated 20 years or just a few years ago?

Anyone who graduated from the AOS program and earned 60 credits will be able to transfer them directly into the BFA program. Any student who completed the Academy's two-year program is already halfway through the BFA.

There may be slight differences depending on when you graduated, so there may be additional classes with the BFA that you didn't take. But you'll still be coming in with 60 credits. If you have other college experience – particularly liberal arts courses – we're also looking to offer a transfer evaluation of coursework. And for students with professional work experience, we're looking at ways to recognize this through prior learning credits.

That could mean entering the BFA with even more of your credits already fulfilled.

The BFA offers a three-year and a four-year pathway. Does one sacrifice depth for speed?

The three and the four-year pathways for the BFA have the same exact curriculum; the same 120 credits sequenced a bit differently. There's a reason to do the three-year for an economic consideration; to complete a BFA degree in three years and save a year's-worth of tuition. The three-year will be more intensive, because you're taking 18 credits per semester instead of 15 credits in the four-year program.

With the three-year pathway, you'll have a slightly heavier workload during the fall and spring semesters, and then in the summers you're going to take six credits remotely or hybrid; these will probably be your liberal arts courses.

Students can expect to participate in a few productions?

There are three fully-produced stage productions built into the program; a contemporary drama, a historic play or musical, and a third from any period or genre. For screen acting, every student will participate in a sitcom production, shoot procedural scenes, a web series production, short films on location, and create a professional demo reel. While this is another full production experience, it's different because it is student-generated. Students will write, produce, direct, shoot, act in, and edit the project themselves, working collaboratively with their classmates. We're giving them all the tools they need to create their own content.

How is the BFA equipped to train and prepare actors for today's market?

We have a career preparation class with both the AOS and BFA to provide graduates with everything they will need when they first enter the industry. The one thing that has become clear today in addition to selftapes, is to have a really strong reel. The BFA will generate more material, and we want to make sure that every student leaves the Academy with the tools they need to take their first steps in the industry.

Having excellent, conservatory-level acting training will sustain you; training the full instrument of the body will sustain you.

You also need to be an actor-entrepreneur who understands the industry they're entering. You're not sitting around waiting to be hired, you're creating your own opportunities. We give actors the tools to create their own content through screenwriting, playwriting, and creative writing courses, plus screen production and editing courses. They'll gain a fundamental understanding of how to shoot and edit their own work, allowing them to create and build their own projects.

We're also giving them an understanding of the industry, along with marketing and branding skills, so they know where they fit within the industry; whether that means pursuing opportunities with other companies or creating their own work and productions.

A lot of our faculty are industry pros, too.

Our faculty model what it is to be a professional working actor, and bring a wealth of knowledge to our students about today's industry. They benefit from the perspective of what a 21st century actor is doing, even if they are at a different point in their career.

The idea is to get students to be not only the best actor they can be, but to be great collaborators. Our faculty reflect this, and offer the mentoring students need as they're finding their voice as an artist. We want to make sure we're empowering students to continually prepare themselves to enter the industry in many different ways, and to build successful careers.

“It's not what you know, it's who you know” – what might you say about networking and relationship-building at the Academy?

I think it's one of the reasons someone wants to come to the Academy. With one of the great benefits being that New York City is our campus, access to the industry is embedded throughout the entire program. We bring industry professionals in to teach, to assess, and to network. One of the ways we do this is through our Industry Insight series' panels, Q&As, and master classes.

Within the audition technique class, final exams are conducted with industry representatives who come in for mock auditions. Students are able to work directly with people who do this professionally every day, and begin building those relationships while they're still here.

We hire professional directors for our theater and film productions, so students are working with industry professionals – beyond their faculty – as part of their training. We see ourselves as a bridge between training and the industry, bringing the industry into the building so that students can go out into the professional world with a network already working for them.

Say more about New York as our campus.

The environment in which an actor trains and learns is just as important as the training. The Academy is small and boutique, housed in a historic building on Madison Avenue in Midtown, with the facilities actors need for their training. Our campus extends beyond the building. New York City itself provides artistic, cultural, and life experiences that enrich students in ways you simply can't find at every institution.

From the beginning, we connect students with the resources available to them in the city. That includes the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, as well as the museums, theaters, film productions, and cultural events happening throughout New York.

Film and TV scene in New York; why would I go there for screen acting?

New York has always been a center for theater, but it's becoming a really important hub for film and television. Studios are growing throughout all five boroughs, and in a 45-minute radius of the city; studios are growing in Northern New Jersey, Brooklyn, Yonkers, Queens, and in Astoria. Netflix is building a huge studio in New Jersey. An entire ecosystem of film and television production is being developed in New York.

What are you most excited for with our first cohort?

We have an opportunity to innovate and really look at how we train actors for the industry today. We're able to build in 30 credits of liberal arts and sciences, with courses like intercultural communication, introduction to film studies, creative writing, and the entrepreneurial actor. These are areas that help expand an artist's understanding and experience and give them a broader foundation than we've been able to provide in the past.

Students have the room to grow and acquire the tools that will help them thrive in today's industry; rigorous acting training and developing skills as content creators and entrepreneurs in ways we haven't previously had the time to develop. Everything in the program is very intentional.

We're building on what the Academy already does well, while also experimenting and giving students the tools they need to move into the 21st century and understand what it means to be an actor today.