Andrea Olmstead's Juilliard: A History

The Juilliard School removes an actor’s previous knowledge of performing and starts from the beginning, following a planned out intense four year actor training curriculum. Juilliard’s drama division faculty in 1968, created the school’s four year drama division curriculum. Andrea Olmstead, writer, affirms in the novel “Juilliard: A History,” that the “Drama Division of the Juilliard School could only develop originality in acting if it could train its own actors from the very beginning” (Pg. 217). When accepted into the prestigious school, students have obtained speech and movement habits trying to recreate other artists. Juilliard’s mission is to generate originality in every student's performance by training from the beginning. Jeni Dahmus Farah,

Olmstead affirms, “the first year was called the “Discovery Year”; the second, the “Transformation Year”; the third, the “Interpretation year”; and the fourth, the “Performing Year” (Olmstead Pg. 229). A student will discover weaknesses and strengths while obtaining knowledge of new techniques and skills to begin their transformation from students to professional actors. Students will utilize the skills they have acquired during the third and fourth years at Juilliard. The article, “Juilliard: Where It All Began,” reveals, “the first two years is spent strictly learning the skills and disciplines needed to truly act...The third year is a combination of classroom work and productions and the fourth year is spent solely utilizing and perfecting all the abilities garnered in the first three years” (Par. 5). Performing during a student’s first two years at Juilliard is not permitted, a student will focus on theater history, movement, rehearsal projects, speech and acting techniques to apply during their third and fourth