"The world is your oyster": Using foreign languages to educate Australian music theatre students

This case study reports on the first three years in the development of an innovative music theatre voice curriculum at an Australian university. The aim of this curriculum is to equip tertiary music theatre performers for the changing world of performance by exploring the integration of foreign languages as part of their musicianship development. While the music theatre industry in Australia is dominated by English language productions, this is not the case when considered on a global scale. Thus, Australian tertiary music theatre students will need to gain exposure to various foreign languages to equip themselves to take advantage of the diverse world of international music theatre and broaden their understanding of this global phenomenon. This paper draws on the professional conversations (Healy et al, 2001; Van der Westhuizen & Okeke, 2020) of the lecturers involved in the curriculum design. Using conversational analysis as proposed by Clayman and Gill (2012), the findings suggest that the approach of embedding the foreign language content within the format of current music theatre songs, and as part of the aural musicianship curriculum, builds stronger student engagement with each of the foreign languages studied, enhances aural skills in part-singing and sight-singing, and fosters an international mindset within the tertiary music theatre performer.