Monmouth theatre grads have ‘a leg up’ as they begin new roles.
If you follow the Monmouth College theatre scene, you’re familiar with Emma Romano. The 2025 graduate played the leading role – complete with Ariel’s trademark red hair – in The Little Mermaid, then played the title role two years later in Cinderella, both times drawing rave reviews.
Not bad for a business major.
That business major, who also secured a second major in theatre, is one of a half-dozen recent theatre grads continuing in higher education. Romano is starting her second year at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where she’ll earn a master’s degree in entertainment industry management. Other recent theatre majors in grad school are Gabbay Madu ’23, MFA in acting at the University of Arkansas; Andrew Cliffel ’23, MFA in technical direction at Western Illinois University; Sam Zigmant ’24, MFA in sound design at the University of Memphis; Ryan Bowman ’25, master’s degree in Asian theatre at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa; and Edrass Chávez-Alvarado ’26, MFA in acting at Florida Atlantic University.
Her Cinderella story
Romano’s program includes time studying in Pittsburgh and New York City, as well as a year in Hollywood. She’s also remained active as a performer, doing commercials, print modeling and background work on films. After networking at the Cannes Film Festival in France, she’s interning with a casting director in Hollywood.
“Emma is the perfect encapsulation of the Monmouth experience,” said Todd Quick, who teaches in the theatre department alongside Vanessa Campagna. “She came to the theatre major pretty late in her time here, but we managed it carefully to make it work with her business major. And then she took those two majors to get into an incredible program at Carnegie Mellon.”
“I’d always had a love for performing but never saw it as a reality, career-wise,” said Romano of her non-traditional path. After being cast as Ariel, “Vanessa and Todd became my biggest supporters and encouraged me to do more in the department.” A theatre minor at the time, Romano also picked up a minor in music.
“The community is truly what makes Monmouth College, but especially the theatre program,” she said. “These connections don’t leave you after you graduate, either. I call Todd and Vanessa on the regular for advice and to catch up. The theatre program made me who I am today, and I am forever grateful for that.”
A distinctive element
Such graduate-level success is made possible, in part, by a graduate-level course Monmouth offers.
“It’s a specialized class commonly found in graduate school programs,” said Quick of Monmouth’s 400-level “Theatre Capstone & Career Preparation” course. “You don’t find it in many undergraduate programs. It’s a general overview of the types of things they’ll need after they graduate, learning about unions and talent agents and the different types of grad school programs. We also teach interview skills and how to write cover letters, and we make sure they have proper portfolios, including industry-specific résumés and headshots.”
Similar to the college’s moot court competition for pre-law students and its Doc Kieft Summer Research Program in chemistry, the half-credit class is a distinctive element of a Monmouth education.
“I know I didn’t have a class like this as an undergrad,” said Quick. “We were on our own. I had a rough first year of auditions until I figured things out. This class has had a great impact and really sets our students apart.”
“The class opened opportunities I wasn’t even aware of, which is what led me to my graduate program,” said Romano. “It really helps you decide what you want to do with your theatre degree and how to best set yourself up for success. One of the most important takeaways from that class was that your passion needs to be fierce in this industry to make it – it won’t be easy, but it will have been worth it.”
Madu and ‘Much Ado’
Since leaving Monmouth, Madu has worked professionally with TheatreSquared, Florida Studio Theatre, Indy Shakes, the UArk Opera and The Momentary. This summer, she toured with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks doing two shows: Much Ado About Nothing (playing Beatrice) and The Merchant of Venice (playing Solonia).
Madu called the college’s capstone class “useful and helpful. Being able to do a lot of the research beforehand and in a safe space to ask questions was something that I valued personally. I could look into different theaters and actors, what actors were doing for their website, how they were getting auditions, and how I should prepare emails to send to people. I think it’s one of the most useful tools for an aspiring actor.”
Monmouth’s academic catalog says “the course is delivered in hybrid form, blending seminar and independent study pedagogies. (A requirement is) the creation of a website that houses evidence of their education and experience as an artist and scholar.”
“I still use the journaling habits that I got from that class, but I think the most helpful thing for me was getting a head start on creating my website,” said Madu, who recalled that students were assigned to reach out to a theater or an individual every week. “That was a very healthy habit to integrate. To this day, I still find myself every week making sure that I am submitting and asking questions and inquiring about auditions, which is a very prime way to ensure that you keep working and growing.”
After a broad experience in the major for three years, each student in the class fulfills the requirements of a capstone project in their area of concentration. Those five areas include acting, musical theatre, directing and theatre tech, history and literature, and management.
Another built-in advantage is the number of credits in those portfolios. The college stages four “fully realized” productions each academic year, so theatre majors graduate with up to 16 production credits, including multiple responsibilities in some. Quick compared that double-digit total to the three or four credits he saw on the résumés of other colleges’ upperclassmen with whom he worked over the summer. “Monmouth is really distinguishing itself from schools of our size,” he said.
“Something specifically helpful to the contract I’m currently on is that we’re on tour, and it’s a non-union tour,” said Madu. “We build a stage every day, and we’re selling merchandise, we’re doing sound, we’re setting up and striking things for the show each day. I think the versatility I got at Monmouth is something that helps me every day. Both my acting and technical résumé when I left Monmouth were pretty substantial, which I felt gave me the confidence I needed to pursue further work and ultimately grad school.”
A pulse on the industry
Campagna has a strong interest in theatre history, but she doesn’t allow it to drive the shows that she and Quick schedule each year. Productions do include Greek/Roman plays, works from the Restoration area, and the works of Shakespeare and Chekhov, for example, but there’s no obligation to do one from each category every year or to have a sense of chronological order.
“We’re not beholden to ‘The Canon’ in our season selection process,” said Campagna. Instead, she emphasized the program’s commitment to “keeping a pulse on what’s going on in the industry. We want our students to experience with us what they’ll encounter in the profession, so our production seasons seek to mirror the trends we see,” which is just another way that Monmouth theatre majors leave for their next scene with a clear advantage.
One genre that Campagna and Quick do make a point of regularly scheduling is family-oriented productions, thanks, in part, to Monmouth College’s relationship with the city’s Buchanan Center for the Arts.
“A big part of getting our students ready for success beyond Monmouth is exposing them to theatre for young audiences,” said Campagna. “Our community partnership shows provide awesome career training,” and it led to immediate post-Monmouth work for Madu and Cliffel.
Putting the ‘eat’ in theatre
In short, the success Monmouth theatre majors are having disproves the oft-used “starving artist” descriptor.
“They’re not starving. They are working successfully in grad school or industry,” said Campagna, who noted that, in many cases, their grad school experience is paid for by the universities. Simply put, she added, “a program doesn’t reach they type of success we’ve experienced without various strategic initiatives. We have an ethical responsibility to the students to teach them about the industry, and we’re really intentional about student learning outcomes. You have to scaffold the students to success.”
Romano and Madu are among the beneficiaries of that approach.
“My career goal after graduating is to of course still be performing, but I have a real passion for talent management, as well as casting,” said Romano. “I’m changing my mind by the day due to the amount of possibilities there are in this industry. I know no matter what I end up doing I will ultimately love it.”
Madu said her graduate school experience has been “really rewarding,” working with people she could have never imagined and reaching unanticipated new heights.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would still go to the University of Arkansas for grad school,” she said. “My goal is honestly to continue performing for as long as I am able. I love the stage, and I love telling stories.”
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***
