soozievt

OH geez, I wrote out my whole description of that audition and when I went to post it, it disappeared in cyberspace. I'll try to drum up energy to rewrite it.

First, Collegebound87's account is way more important than mine because he actually DID the audition and I am merely a parent bystander. I will try to describe how I saw it from my end as my kid did audition there, got in, and is going to Tisch/CAP21 next fall. I am also going to describe it a bit as a critique, not meaning to be negative but more cause I think that can be helpful and I have now been to 8 different MT BFA auditions (could critique the pros and cons of each one but will stick with just this one) and I can afford to say what I am about Tisch's because after all, my kid likes it and is going there, so my intentions are not negative. Each audition we went to was run a bit differently. Tisch's audition set up was not the worst, nor the best of what we experienced. The audition once inside it, was just fine, however, and some of my critique is more on the organizational aspects. I don't think, however, that one should judge an entire program on how the audition was run. It is like one should not judge a regular college by how good the tour guide is, ya know?

My kid auditioned on one of the advanced/experienced optional dance audition days (there are two in Feb and two during early decision in Nov...she went in Feb). On those days, only kids who have CAP as a first choice audition so that is a bit different than CollegeBound87's more typical audition day at Tisch. On this dance option audition day, there were only 18 prospective kids auditioning and that was rather nice. Her audition took place at Tisch, not a casting studio.

It started out with some forms and then all the kids went to a two hour (estimate) dance audition. Because this was for experienced dancers, my D said it was great cause everyone there could truly dance which differed from other school dance auditions where there is more variation of backgrounds. She said some of the males were particularly skilled. She really liked this dance audition and found it sufficiently challenging. It was run well. They say the dance audition can help you but not hurt you since it is not required. I am of the belief that all programs should include a dance audition, to see simply if a kid can move comfortably at the least. One nice thing at Tisch, however, is that once in CAP, there are dance placement auditions and so experienced dancers are not in the same level classes as beginnners which makes sense for all concerned. My D does like that aspect.

After this, all the kids and parents met in a room with the three judges who were faculty members. One was a costume faculty member, one was from Meisner and one was from Experimental Theater Wing. Many, including myself, found it odd that there was no faculty from CAP present as everyone there was trying for CAP. At most other schools that offered a presentation, (some did not at all), the department head spoke or an admissions officer spoke. This presentation was rather brief and mostly reviewed the 8 studio options at Tisch and they strongly encouraged every applicant to specify a second and third choice studio after CAP since CAP has the slimmest odds. Had my D applied ED, she would have said CAP only but since this was RD, she did specify a second choice (Playwrights) and third (Stella Adler) but strongly preferred CAP21 (truly only wants MT) and in her audition did explain that and why she saw that as the placement for her. There was a brief chance for Q and A.

Then, they posted three lists of names with the order of auditions for three different rooms (each faculty/judge ran the audition in different rooms). Many found it odd that nobody from CAP was judging and that there was a costume faculty judging singing and acting and none of these judges were voice faculty. Another thing that many were remarking was that there was only ONE judge for your audition and that was not the case at other schools. Other schools either had several judges in the room, or you went to one judge for singing, one for acting, etc. or once you made it past certain judges, you were then seen by others (like at PSU and CMU). But at Tisch, not only did only one person judge both your acting and singing, that person is not the same person judging everyone else auditioning so the feeling of checks and balances was not quite there (but I guess they know what they ar doing).

Another thing that was different here was that this was the only school on my D's list where they did not provide a piano accompaniest and so you had to bring your own CD of piano accopaniment. I prefer a pianist because that is how auditions are run in the professional world. Also a pianist follows the singer, not the other way around. Some might like the CD thing cause some feel that then you know the accompaniment is how you like it but I feel most professional accompaniests do a great job if you mark your music well and you also chat briefly before you sing. Anyway, it is what it is.

Another odd thing to me was the set up. There were NO vocal warmups either as a group or no rooms to do it on your own. Then the rooms where you auditioned were adjacent to right where all the waiting kids and parents were sitting in a lounge and so there really was no privacy that way. I mean when my kid went in (she was second to go with the ETW faculty person who was very nice by the way), kids started to rush the door and listen because you could hear everything. I sat as far away as I could and I heard her entire songs. True her voice carries but this set up was nothing like I saw elsewhere except maybe BOCO.

A nice thing at this school is that you get to sing two entire songs, though you really should keep the length reasonable (under two min. each) and not do repeats, so make it more like 32 bars but still you can sing a bit more than at some schools. Do contrasting songs, one upbeat, one ballad. My D did get to sing both her songs through and was asked to redo the ending to one song a different way. She also got to do both monologues which were contrasting and I think this school is the one with two 2 minute monologues but this part was good. My D said that in the middle of her serious monologue, a girl was belting out a song in an adjoining empty room that she must have gone into to practice and it was so distracting that she felt she lost her concentration on the mood of the piece. Was not that great but I guess it did not affect her admissions. Then the person chatted a bit with her. I think she also looked over the resume and commented on a thing or two. She asked some questions, not a lot.

There were no current students present to ask questions of and that was too bad and most schools had that, not all, but most. I strongly encourage anyone to visit on another day as well (we had a year prior) and do the NYU and the Tisch presentations and talk to current students (my D even observed some classes and spent the night in dorms) as you get very little information at this audition day at this school.

I'd say that what was done IN the audition was just fine but the set up to the day was not the most ideal I had seen.

Hope this helps.