Hannah Kevitt ’23 was wrapping up her senior year at Elon University when she found out where she would be going directly after graduation: to Broadway. After flying back and forth between North Carolina and New York City for auditions and callbacks since August of the previous year, Kevitt had booked an ensemble role in “Back to the Future.”
“I remember looking at the breakdown and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh it says it starts rehearsals May 2023,’” Kevitt said. “‘I graduate then, that would be perfect if I could just slip right in there and make my Broadway debut.’ Of course not thinking that that might actually happen.”
Kevitt is one of 24 alumni who performed in Broadway shows from April 28, 2023 to April 25, 2024, leading Elon University to be named one of Playbill’s Big 10 Most Represented Colleges on Broadway.
Elon’s highest Playbill Big 10 placing in the past decade comes after Associate Professor of Music Theatre Brian Kremer was named the new program coordinator, which freshman Music Theatre major Laird Stearns said indicates changes to the program.
“On accepted students day, they said that this is the renaissance of Elon,” Stearns said. “All of our faculty are not necessarily new, but people who are fresher out of the industry that have a lot of those interconnections.”
Freshman Music Theatre major Za’Naisha McGuire said she was particularly inspired after seeing Elon alumnus and Broadway performer Fergie L. Philippe in “The Connector.”
“Every time he’s on stage, I can’t take my eyes off him,” she said. “And then I did research on him afterwards and was like, ‘No way, he went to Elon. That’s crazy.’”
Playbill, a well-known and respected theater industry news platform, creates the rankings for its Big 10 by counting the number of alumni who performed in Broadway shows during the Tony Awards eligibility period. This year, Elon originally placed eighth but after final adjustments placed ninth. Still, this is Elon’s highest placing in the past decade. The university is most often listed in tenth place or as an honorable mention.
Kevitt said Playbill’s annual list is a factor that goes into people’s considerations when choosing a school.
“When I was auditioning for schools, it was like, ‘I have to get into one of these ten schools,’” Kevitt said.
McGuire said she also looked at the Playbill Big 10 during her college search.
“It makes me feel proud that I got into this school and I belong to this community,” said McGuire.
Unlike some of Playbill’s other consistently-listed schools, Elon provides a liberal arts education rather than a specialized conservatory program. Kevitt, who graduated with a sociology minor, said this enriched the program.
“The time that you take to learn about the world around you and things other than singing and acting and dancing informs who you are as a human, and therefore informs who you are as an artist, which I think is a huge asset to have,” she said. “Actors have to portray the world and the way that we see it and the way that others see it, and try to do that as truthfully as possible.”
McGuiere said a limitation to measuring Broadway talent through universities is that there’s a large gap in access to high-achieving performing arts programs with steep application fees, travel for auditions, and acting and audition coaching.
“I couldn’t afford an acting coach. One of the main reasons why I was able to go here was because of the grants that I was given,” she said. “I think about that a lot. There’s so many talented people, but they just can’t afford to go to these workshops and to train with these people. It’s not right that they don’t get to have the same experience that we all do just because of money.”
McGuiere said she wishes that more opportunities could be given to actors in low-income families.
Stearns said measuring a university’s success based on their Playbill ranking is subjective, since the Playbill list looks exclusively at Broadway performers.
“Some people come here not wanting to end up on Broadway necessarily,” Stearns There are people who are like, ‘Oh, I would love to do a cruise line and travel the world.’”
Stearns said one of his biggest dreams is to perform in a national or international tour.
“I can travel and see the world while doing the thing I love,” he said. “So definitely people’s definition of success within the industry is very subjective and up to them.”
Stearns and McGuire both expressed appreciation for the flexibility of the liberal arts structure. Stearns said he is considering a double-major in arts administration or a minor in exercise science, and McGuire said she is interested in exploring film and other disciplines — both added that they wouldn’t be able to do that at many other schools.
Another factor Kevitt, Stearns and McGuire all said sets Elon apart from some higher-ranking schools is its welcoming environment and the genuine, supportive relationships among the students and with the faculty.
“I felt like everyone was very much a family, and there was a sense of togetherness that I didn’t see at a lot of other schools,” Stearns said about his experience while auditioning. “That really set it apart for sure.”
Stearns wasn’t able to make his originally scheduled audition after being admitted to a hospital for tonsillitis, and Elon allowed him to audition in the spring. Stearns said it was very rare for a school to give someone a second chance.
“When I walked into my audition room with Brian Kremer, the first thing he asked me was, ‘How are you feeling? How have your tonsils effected your journey throughout the college audition process?’” Stearns said. “I was so taken aback because that is not what college auditions are really like. They’re not talking to you on a human level.”
McGuire said Elon was different from other schools she auditioned for in its human approach instead of treating performers like robots.
“With other schools, it just was very intimidating and very hardcore, cutthroat,” she said “But with Elon, everything just seemed so natural and authentic. It didn’t seem like anyone was faking it or too intense.”
Among the factors Stearns said set Elon apart from other schools was a space comfortable enough to fail in and learn lessons from mistakes. He said this was an important factor that he wanted to find at his chosen college’s Music Theatre (MT) program, and Elon had it.
“I feel like you’re under a microscope as an MT and you can’t really make a wrong move, and you have a fear of judgment,” Stearns said. “At Elon specifically, I don’t really get that at all. … the professors are going to give me constructive criticism, but they’re going to say it in the most warm, supportive way possible that makes me still feel confident within myself.”
Framed alumni headshots with their show bookings listed below them lined an interior wall of the Center for the Arts last spring. Now, they have been replaced by framed photographs of Elon students performing. Stearns said he likes this subtle but meaningful change.
“It showcases more than just our success, it showcases the art we make here,” Stearns said, “as opposed to what we crank out, what we produce.”