This fall, the Oberlin Music Theater department began its first semester of classes. The program has enrolled its initial first-year class and accepted many transfer students from other institutions. At least 80 percent of students transferring into the program came from Baldwin Wallace University, a private school located in Berea, Ohio, only about 20 miles away.

Oberlin’s Music Theater program is led by Professor Victoria Bussert, an award-winning music theater director and educator who previously led Baldwin Wallace University’s music theater program for over two decades. She has staged more than 400 productions worldwide and serves as resident director of Cleveland’s Great Lakes Theater and the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. During Bussert’s final year at Baldwin Wallace, the school was named the 20th best drama school in the world by The Hollywood Reporter. The same year, Backstage listed it as one of the best college music theater programs.

Bussert was joined by three faculty members who have previously worked with the music theater program at Baldwin Wallace: Laura Welsh, Matt Webb, and Lauren Marousek. The list of students in a post on the Music Theater program’s Instagram page suggests that the entirety of Oberlin Music Theater’s second- and fourth-year classes, as well as more than a third of the third-year class, were previously at Baldwin Wallace.

Students who made the move said the transition was eased by the continuity of faculty leadership. 

“It definitely does help to have familiarity with our faculty professors that we’ve been with the past few years,” Music Theater fourth-year Tobias Yeung, who transferred from Baldwin Wallace, said. 

Music Theater fourth-year Reese Henrick recalled learning of the planned turnover in faculty during their junior year. 

“We were all really blown back, but over the course of that year, everyone respectively had to make their own decisions about what they wanted to do and how they wanted to move forward,” Henrick said. “It just so happens that a lot of people transferred; almost all of the underclassmen and half of [this year’s] senior class.”

The departure of faculty and students from Baldwin Wallace for Oberlin came amid institution-wide financial troubles at the University. In October 2024, Baldwin Wallace eliminated more than 10 academic programs and laid off over 80 employees in order to deal with what started as a $20 million budget deficit. Music Theater was not one of the eliminated programs. This fall, they enrolled a first-year class of 23 students, led by their new director, Jennifer Hemphill.

“As I began thinking about the next step in my professional career, it was important for me to find a place that had a strong brand, a sterling reputation in the music world, and valued music theater as an art form,” Bussert wrote in a statement to the Review. “I found that and more at Oberlin, an institution that was able to provide me with the significant resources it would take to build a music theater program from the ground up.”

First-year student Seger Ott-Rudolph said Oberlin quickly rose to the top of their college list once the new program was announced. 

“Baldwin Wallace was high on my list for a lot of the reasons that then transitioned over to Oberlin,” Ott-Rudolph said.

At Oberlin, significant preparations to establish the program took place over the summer. The Conservatory East Studios, a specially designed 9000-sq-ft facility next to the Hotel at Oberlin and the new program’s home, opened the same day classes began. Though some work — signage, lockers, and wall finishes — were not complete at opening, the facility was fully functional for teaching from day one and is expected to be finished by early October. The adjacent Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space will also be used by the Music Theater program for recitals, cabaret-style events, and other performances.

Performances will also take place in facilities across campus; the program’s first production — Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 — is scheduled to open Dec. 3 at the Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theater. 

“I would say that it’s exceeding my expectations completely,” Ott-Rudolph said. “We’re already right down to work. The shows are being rehearsed. It just feels like we’ve been here forever.”