Senior participates in prestigious musical theater program

When Logan O’Riley found out he had been accepted into Carnegie Mellon University’s Pre-College Program for Musical Theater, he screamed. After the initial shock wore off, he happily shared the good news with friends and family and prepared himself to spend six weeks studying singing, acting and dancing at Carnegie Mellon.

“I wanted to participate because of the program’s insanely impressive track record and highly renowned faculty, who have trained numerous Broadway and film celebrities such as Sutton Foster, Patrick Wilson, Cherry Jones and Josh Groban,” said O’Riley, a rising senior at Darlington. “Carnegie Mellon is considered one of the top five hottest schools for musical theater right now. They advertise an expansive list of Oscar, Tony, Golden Globe and Emmy winners, as well as 13 Nobel Prize winners. My training here will help my future endeavors because CMU drama is so well respected, and the instruction I’ve been given can do nothing but further my knowledge and ability in musical theater.”

O’Riley arrived at Carnegie Mellon on June 30 and soon found out that his six-week experience would be a far cry from summer camp. Participants would live in college dorms and take classes Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. O’Riley’s schedule included courses in audition, singing, ballet, acting, styles, jazz, drama lit and directing.

“On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I also met for the Augusto Boal Workshop,” said O’Riley. “I was lucky enough to audition for this group and be selected, along with about 30 other classmates. Augusto Boal developed a method of addressing and overcoming oppression through theatrical means … In the workshop, we met survivors from Rwanda and Sierra Leone and watched films like ‘Hotel Rwanda,’ ‘Blood Diamond,’ ‘Cry Freetown’ and ‘Invisible Children.’ It was a highly informative and an emotionally and intellectually maturing experience for me.

“And just the other night, I did a workshop with one of the most renowned voice teachers for musical theater, Gary Klein, who is also part of the CMU faculty,” O’Riley continued. “He’s amazing. He taught me so much about choosing music for the lyric and having a story behind every word you sing. I left his workshop energized and eager to keep working.”

Participants in Carnegie Mellon’s Pre-College Program for Musical Theater received college conservatory training for six weeks, the goal being for each student to create his or her own college audition. Because the program is geared toward individual progress rather than product, there is no “final production.”

“Working toward a particular performance while being trained limits you, I think. It narrows your horizon to one focus, one character, and one show,” O’Riley explained. “Instead, we spent our summer searching through tons of plays and sheets of music to find material for our individual college auditions.”

At the end of the program, O’Riley and the other participants tried out for CMU’s musical theater program – presenting two contrasting monologues (one contemporary and one classical or Shakespearean), two contrasting songs from the musical theater repertoire (one ballad and one uptempo), and a dance combination.

“My favorite part of the experience has been meeting all the talented and motivated students here,” said O’Riley. “One of my friends was in the National Broadway Tour of ‘Scrooge,’ and numerous others have performed in professional regional productions across the country. If you’re going to spend $6,000 and six weeks of your summer at college, you have to be passionate. Everyone here is so well informed and so zealous for the art form. It is truly inspiring.”

O’Riley said words cannot describe just how meaningful his time at CMU has been and that he is profoundly grateful to have had the experience. And with only one more year left with Darlington’s fine arts department, O’Riley has already started to think seriously about his college plans.

“I most definitely plan to pursue musical theater as a career track,” he said. “I’ve known that since fifth grade. I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else, and I feel so lucky to have something like this that I’m passionate about.”

He is currently considering Carnegie Mellon, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, the University of Michigan, Oklahoma City University, Elon University, Boston Conservatory and Juilliard.