ACPA'S DIFFERENCE

What is ACPA?

What Makes ACPA Different?

ACPA is an artist finishing school in a conservatory environment. Our students have already developed their artistic technique, prior to applying. We assist our students in defining how to best use those talents to make a living in their medium and the arts. We teach artists how to function in the market, how to have large vision, how to build those visions, to lead, to create opportunities from “nothing” (so that money is never a start or stop issue) and we push our students into the market, to gain real-world market experience, while still in school. There is nothing exactly like ACPA in American arts training.

Entrepreneurial Arts Training is a burgeoning discipline. The concepts have been around for a long time, but feel more vital now, than ever before. More and more focus is being given to integration of entrepreneurship and the arts. Few offer such an intensive, thorough, hands on approach, as ACPA does. Austin Conservatory of Professional Arts has a foundational philosophy of The Hart Technique, an innovative technique that has the potential to change the standard in American arts training.

What Makes ACPA Necessary?:

The standard approach in American arts training (in general), is “All arts technique” and nothing in way of real Business skill development. Most schools teach students how to create works of art, but not how to make a living. Austin Conservatory of Professional Arts addresses this need. We all know the cliché of artists really being waiters, bartenders, temporary office help, etc. ACPA strives to teach students how to increase their chances in these hardest of markets (the arts) and how to be players within their larger communities. Our graduates, through their training, learn how to build a career that is both financially rewarding, but also meaningful.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

We believe that the most effective way a student can learn is through experience.

Our students learn by doing. Our classes are 25% lecture and 75% experiential.

MARKET ENTRY

Austin Conservatory of Professional Arts is a highly creative and energetic environment. As students are learning to be more independent and to take greater control over their career opportunities and financial futures, they are often assigned large-scale projects.

These projects, more often than not, are original in nature (student written, directed, produced, acted in, etc.) and are student produced in professional or semi-professional venues in the community of Austin. Our students, while still in school, make bold strides into the Austin market.

With this hands-on learning approach, students are building their professional network while still in school, a network they can begin to utilize immediately upon graduation.

A PROVEN TECHNIQUE

Artists have performed as entrepreneurs throughout history. Entrepreneurship in the arts is nothing new. However, the discipline of Entrepreneurial Arts Training feels new, as it is only now coming into public consciousness. In this economy, we are we seeing the value and need for this form and a new standard in arts education. ACPA has a foundational philosophy and approach, based in The Hart Technique.

A VISION INCUBATOR

Each artist can use the incubator-like environment of the school to workshop or test original visions they may arrive at school with or develop in their course of learning. It is part of our goal, as an institution, to develop visionary artistic leaders. With this goal in mind, we strive to help our student artists find their unique artistic voice and talents and ways of utilizing those talents in the process of making a living.

The program is very intense and intensive. Most students will work harder while enrolled at ACPA, than they ever have in their lives. Via the highly structured and constantly mentored environment at ACPA, students typically feel inspired to take bold risks, knowing that there is a safety net of faculty mentorship in place.

PROCESS ORIENTED

Students are permitted to fail. Many of the assignments that are given in the process of course work at ACPA are so large in scale, that the primary goal, in such a process, is not to create history worthy art, but to simply complete the project. Genius typically comes with time, if at all. We aim to empower our students with the tools necessary to enable them to be in a constant state of learning and growth as artists.

RELEVANT COURSES

Every faculty member and guest artist strives, in their teaching at ACPA, to address the following questions with every class session:

1. How is this information going to help these students work?

2. How might this information help them discover their individual artistic voice?

REAL-TIME MARKET PERSPECTIVE

Every faculty member is a working professional, as well as a teacher. This gives our faculty a voice that is timely, relevant and of great value, as it is one that is based in current market reality and experience.

We place a strong emphasis on technologies available today and how artists can use such tools in the building of their visions.

INTERNATIONAL IN SCOPE

Though we do attract interest from many international students, our definition of “international” refers to philosophy. We want our students to have a global perspective regarding what theatre is, has been in the past and can be in the future.

SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS

The typical system of theatre training in America is to produce “stars”. Such a path is like playing the lottery. ACPA is not designed to produce super stars, though some of our graduates will go on to develop names of note. Our goal is to stimulate a sense of social responsibility and participation in our students. We believe that if an artist wants to live a meaningful, sustainable career in the arts, then they need to be committed to some act of service beyond themselves. We want our students to be active participants in the communities they decide to live in. Doing so can lead artists, not only to personal and career fulfillment, but also towards becoming necessary to their communities. Being necessary increases graduate’s odds of making a living.

A SOCIAL GOOD

We have a social agenda at Austin Conservatory of Professional Arts. We hope to inspire artists to find their personal artistic voice. We hope to guide them towards personal and career independence (not having to rely on others for ALL of one’s professional opportunities). We want to inspire in our students a sense of social commitment, individuals who are effective and willing collaborators, artists who know how to have and build original vision into concrete, profitable endeavors. ACPA will, invariably, inspire artistic vision and leadership. Every community needs artists with such skills and values.

HEAVY COLLABORATION FOCUS

As the program at ACPA is experiential, our students are often collaborating with each other (and sometimes faculty). We teach our students how to effectively brainstorm, collaborate, follow and lead. In order to build original visions, one must be able to inspire others to not only see their vision, but to want to take action to build it. The best leaders are equally adept at following.

STUDENTS’ INPUT IS HIGHLY VALUED

Our curriculum is not fixed in stone. Being a small private conservatory, not under the constraints of heavy bureaucracy, such as is found in larger institutions, ACPA is able to adapt its curriculum to market changes and demand. We value our students’ input and seek their voices, just as often as we faculty share ours’.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Most schools of theatre training are broadcasting a message that “We produce stars too”. However, few of these institutions advertise the success of their graduates, as the results are often embarrassing. As these students have been trained via an “arts only” approach and have had little to nothing in way of real business training, these artists know how to create a work of art, but not how to make a living from it or they must figure out such skills, themselves.

At ACPA we are happy to produce our graduates’ success stories. A very large percentage of our students work, as they are creating opportunities for themselves. When one has the tools to create one’s own creative and financial opportunities, one is much more likely to work with frequency.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

- Joseph Campbell

Contact

Austin Conservatory of Professional Arts, LLC

Jim Hart 512.410.9335

jim@austinconservatory.com

ACPA

Leading the next generation of

artists to a

lifetime of success.