Val Kilmer knew from a very young age that he wanted to be an actor and there is also no denying his incredible raw acting talent. However, it was at the Juilliard School, where Val spent four years learning all the basics of his profession and honing his craft, that his gift was nourished and shaped. Val himself credits Juilliard with his attitude towards acting: "Juilliard taught me that there is no FINISHED in art; it's never done. It's never JUST RIGHT." (1) So let us take a look at this institution that had such an impact on Val Kilmer, the actor. The school actually began in 1905 but at that time it was called the Institute for Musical Art. In 1926 it began a gradual merger procedure with the Juilliard Graduate School that finally came to fruition in 1946 with the founding of the Juilliard School of Music under the guidance of composer William Schuman. But the changes were far from over. Up to this point, it was widely known for its excellence in instrumental music but those horizons began to expand in 1951 when Juilliard added a dance division. When Mr. Schuman left the school in 1962 to become president of Lincoln Center, he was succeeded by Dr. Peter Menin who then hired the renowned European conservatory teacher and administrator Michel Saint-Denis to head up a new acting division for the newly renamed Juilliard School. At the same time, he appointed the illustrious actor /director / administrator John Houseman as administrative director of the drama division. Together these two men designed a four-year conservatory curriculum which was based on a European-style training method originated by Saint-Denis. This entire theory is described in explicit detail in Mr. Saint-Denis' book, "Training for the Theater: Premises and Promises." Obviously the original curriculum was most effective as, except for the recent addition of the scriptwriting and directing programs to Juilliard's repertoire of drama program offerings, the courses have stayed the same over the years. In fact, to this day Juilliard still remains true to the beliefs expressed in this excerpt from their very first recruitment brochure for the drama division: "We are trying to form an actor equipped with all possible means of dramatic production, capable of meeting the demands of today's and tomorrow's ever-changing theater - an actor who is capable of participating in those changes and who is, himself, inventive enough to contribute to them. For in the final analysis, whatever experiments may be attempted through fresh forms of writing, on new stages, using the latest technical devices, everything ultimately depends on the human being - the actor." (2) Juilliard's drama department accepts a maximum of 20 students into the first year of the acting program each year. They receive an average of 1,000 applications for these positions so competition is fierce, a fact of which the young seventeen-year-old Val Kilmer was all too aware. He therefore decided he needed to do something entirely different for his audition from the usual fare so as to make the maximum impression. As Val explains, "I wrote my own piece because I couldn't find anything that would be fresh. They'd heard everything and I knew that, so I decided to do my own thing and see how it went." (3) His strategy worked as he was accepted into Juilliard and the rest is history. Since the drama classes at Juilliard today are still almost identical to the ones Val attended, let's have a look at the sorts of courses Mr. Kilmer would have participated in. Juilliard's four-year drama program is extremely intensive - in fact, it can probably be best summed up as a boot camp for actors. There is no facet of the acting profession and its surrounding fields that is not covered at some point. The first two years is spent strictly learning the skills and disciplines needed to truly act but, other than classroom exercises, the students do not perform in any productions whatsoever. 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. This last year is individualized to the needs of each student so that they can work on whatever area they are weakest in and concentrate on that. Every student will participate in at least four plays in this year which are all staged as full-fledged productions. A great deal of foundation work is laid in the first three years to ready the students for that last challenging year of performances. Beginning in year one, the classes consist of: Acting - improvisational work and exploring the initial stages of scene work Basic Masks - wearing simple masks and working to free the students from feeling self-conscious Theater History - a series of lectures and seminars about various dramatic forms down through the ages An Approach to the Play - a thorough examination of two completely different play scripts Rehearsal Projects - participation in a variety of plays which are shared with an audience made up solely of fellow students and faculty and performed in the classroom Alexander Technique - a mind-body method of becoming aware of one's own movements Movement - a series of stretching, flexibility and strengthening exercises with emphasis on rhythm, phrasing, dynamic, intent and moving in space Speech - the teaching of the correct individual sounds of spoken English with the goal of the eradication of any speech impediments or regional accents Stage Combat - the development of safe and effective techniques for theatrical fighting Music Studies - the study of music written for the theatre from the Middle Ages to the present The classes at Juilliard are progressive so in the second year the courses build on what came before with the addition of Character Masks which help the students to further develop their imaginations in preparation for equally courageous characterizations without masks. Added to the curriculum in the second year are: Comedy Techniques - a workshop focusing heavily on improvisation in a variety of comedy styles Physical Comedy - training in such specialized physical areas as pratfalls, tumbling, counterbalance, levers, lifts, mounts and stunts using props Dramatic Verse - techniques for interpreting verse in plays by Shakespeare and others Singing - Working on extending vocal range through group singing, madrigals, chorales, duets and individual songs Year three once again continues the themes of the first two years but with these additions: Suzuki Method - a rigorous physical discipline combining ballet, traditional Greek and Japanese theatre and martial arts Jazz Dance - the encouragement of complete physical freedom to enhance enjoyment of the body in motion and to find a fuller expression of sensuality Makeup - a practical workshop teaching the use of makeup and wigs as well as prosthetics. It is also in this third year that special emphasis is placed on singing and, by the end of the year, every student is required to do a cabaret act in a New York City nightclub. The final year of the drama program sees the culmination of all the techniques that the students have been studying up to that point. Now the students are given the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned in a wide variety of productions. Added to this are Auditions Workshops which deal with the effective selection and preparation of audition material for both the stage and screen. Some Well-Known Juilliard Students: Nowadays, with Juilliard having its own Scriptwriting students, there is a wealth of fresh new works for the young actors to sink their teeth into but Mr. Kilmer and his classmates enjoyed no such luxury. However, they came up with their own solution for this dilemma. Val describes, "There were no examples of what we were learning. The search for acting led to my co-authoring a play to integrate what we were learning - the mechanics of voice production, etc. I graduated on Friday, and we teched on Monday and opened a week later. It was supposed to run three weeks, and it played all summer." (4) The play in question is "How It All Began" and it was written by Group X which is the name given to Val's class (all the Juilliard drama classes are numbered according to their chronological progression dating back to the original first group which was named of course Group I). The thirteen students in Val's class spent the better part of two years researching newspaper articles, personal interviews, political pamphlets, government statements and statistics and all the books they could find dealing with the life of Michael Baumann and his associates. Naturally, one of their greatest sources was the book, "Terror or Love," written by Michael Baumann himself. The Juilliard School obtained special permission to dramatize this book. After all that preparation, the production opened originally on Wednesday, May 21, 1980 in Room 301 of the Juilliard Theater Center under the direction of Des McAnuff. It ran for four consecutive nights and during that time it caught the eye of Joseph Papp who subsequently staged it at his Public Theatre using the entire Juilliard cast. This play posed a daunting challenge for the fledgling actors - that of depicting how frustrated students changed from political idealists into bomb-throwing terrorists. Adding some real-life drama to the scenario is the fact that while this play was being presented, the character that Val portrayed (Michael Baumann) was awaiting trial in Germany after being extradited from England. According to one reviewer, the young cast was more than up to the challenge: "Val Kilmer's sympathetic portrayal of the shockingly naive and likable Baumann gives the quicksilver piece an unwavering point of reference. But the young radicals played with such care and commitment by the likes of Benjamin Donenberg, Brian Hargrove, Pamela M. White, and Richard Ziman have a strong sense of individuality, even when the actors exchange roles, or when women assume male parts." (5) And so Val Kilmer and his contemporaries saw their four years of hard work culminate in a unique production which had its roots at Juilliard but then launched them successfully into the public eye. Mr. Kilmer, like so many other Juilliard alumni has gone on to enjoy a successful acting career, using many of the lessons learned during his tenure there but continuing to grow, develop and challenge himself as an actor. For more information about the Juilliard School, visit their website at http://www.juilliard.edu/ References: Johanna Schneller, Saint Elsewhere, Premiere, April/97 Juilliard School Press Kit Chris Kelly, Unsolved Mysteries, Polo, October/99 Kathryn Bernheimer, Movie Star Sharpens His Skills on the Shakespearean Strop, Daily Camera, July 1/88 Marilyn Stasio, 'How It All' Succeeds, New York Post, June 23/81 Additional references: Juilliard Viewbook The Juilliard School 1998-1999 (course catalogue) Photos of the Juilliard School and Val Kilmer/Linda Kozlowski from Electra and Orestes provided by Jenna Soleo from THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL and are used with permission. Photos of Juilliard Students come from various resources on the web.