Harvard Students Puttin' On Glitz

So, you want to be in showbiz.

All of your friends are carousing with consulting firms, and you are working on your Academy Award acceptance speech.

It is true that the Office of Career Services (OCS) is flooded with future investment bankers, lawyers and academics--not Oscar-winning hopefuls. Gail Gilmore, associate director of OCS, notes that only about 150 patrons visited the office last year expressly for guidance about careers in the arts. And although Gilmore provides resume advising to budding artists and performers, she recommends that "if you see yourself doing anything else, do it."

Is there no place for the ambitious star of stage or screen at hardhearted Harvard?

There is, and the professionals in the House offer advice and anecdotes to give you a taste of your future in the footlights.

The Neon Lights Are Bright

While other 15-year-olds were juggling soccer practice and chemistry homework, Jedidiah S. Cohen '99 was starring in a Broadway musical.

Cohen spent four months as Dickon in the New York production of "The Secret Garden," later reprising his role on the national tour during his junior year in high school. Now he's an astronomy and astrophysics concentrator in Adams House. "[Astronomy] is an interest of mine--but it doesn't have anything to do with my career," Cohen says.

Although the former child star wants to return to the stage after graduation, Cohen says Harvard was a necessary stop on the road back to Broadway.

"I thought about going to a vocal conservatory, and I thought about going to an acting conservatory," Cohen says. "But I decided that I really wanted to be a well-rounded person before I was an actor."

While Harvard does not boast a drama concentration, the "Cambridge connection" may not hurt one's chances in the long run. Cohen says performers are doubly impressive when they canshowcase their talent in the theater and intutorial. "I find it much more interesting when you lookat these really famous actors who are Harvard alums," Cohen says. "Look at Mira Sorvino['89-'90]. She graduated summa cum laude in East Asian Studies and now is this wonderfully talented actress who shows up and they say 'So, you went to Harvard--that's great. And you graduated summa. Wow. In East Asian Studies. Wow. There's a lot more to you than being an actor. You're a really incredible person who happens to have this talent and is making a fair amount of money."

Scott Weinger '98, best known around Harvard for his roles as the voice of Disney's "Aladdin" and as D.J. Tanner's boyfriend on "Full House,"says his ties to Harvard have helped his career in some ways.

"Last year I had an interesting meeting with some TV producers. It started out as a general meeting, I told them a little about my [Moral Reasoning 22] 'Justice' class, and the meeting ended with us arguing about Rawls," Weinger says."Now they want to develop a show for me."

But acting is not just about finesse--it's a business. Being in Cambridge means operating remotely from home base and dealing with the fact that you're not where the action is.

"Being so far away from [Los Angeles] and unavailable for projects has certainly been a pain for my agent," Weinger says. "[But] I know that casting people and movie studios get pretty sick of seeing these lightweight young actors with nothing going on in their minds."

Jason S. Chaffin '00-'01, who has performed in professional productions in regional theaters for several years (he recently won the New Jersey Theatre Critics Award for Best Featured Actor in"The Who's Tommy"), is fully conscious of Harvard's sparse drama offerings. Chaffin is also quick to note that if a student is looking for four years of formal theater training, a certain Ivy League school in New Haven has a rather prestigious drama program.

"But going to Yale is too high a price,"Chaffin--a psychology concentrator--says. "I'd rather get a non-acting degree from Harvard and go to classes in the summer than go to a school exclusively for drama. Not that it would be a waste of time but...casting directors are inundated with [actors with Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees]," he says.

Still, the liberal-arts quest forwell-roundedness can mean sacrificing formal resume-building.

Cohen notes that it is nearly impossible to maintain a career while at Harvard.

"You're stuck in a very academically rigorous program where you have to devote a lot of time to your studies, and it's tough," Cohen says.

But college can be a time for honing basic skills through vocal, dramatic or dance work. Cohen spent two years as a tenor and a featured soloist in the all-male a cappella group, the Harvard Krokodiloes, and says the experience has helped him prepare for re-entry into the theater world after commencement.

"Singing with the Kroks for two years kept me performing, made me very comfortable on stage, and got my voice into the best shape it's ever been in," Cohen says.

For Chaffin, it's been participation in campus productions that has sated his desire to be in the spotlight.

Two weeks ago, the first-year spent 10 hours aday rehearsing for two shows simultaneously. "It's always a blast meeting new people and sharing the stage," he says, "and, yes, Harvard shows will help my resume."

Although Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) productions can offer limited exposure to both roles and professional contacts, campus theater is a student activity--not Broadway.

"It's important to have connections," Chaffin says, "but given that Harvard will produce exponentially more Freuds than Lloyd-Webbers, it's more important to use acting in college as a friend-making opportunity."

According to these students, it's when you start acting outside of college that life starts getting complicated.

On The Road Again

These days you might see Irene S. Ng '97 in Cabot Library, studying furiously for her mid-April MCAT exam.

But not for long.

Ng--star of Nickelodeon's "The Mystery Files of Shelby Wu"--will be on the road again soon, packing up and moving to Montreal for five months of week-long, 12-hour-a-day tapings for the teen-detective show.

The aspiring Harvard Medical School student is also one of Boston Magazine's 50 most intriguing women and one of Ms. Foundation's most positive role models for young women with, among others, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

by ANDREW K. MANDEL
Harvard Crimson - March 06, 1998

RETURN TO ARTICLES