gkoukla

Doctor John: I know Debbie as well and she is top notch. You are so fortunate to have her on your team. Give her Greetings from Haslett!

dancersmom

Doctorjohn,

Congratulations! I know it does a teacher's heart good to hear of a student's success. Dan obviously credits Otterbein for giving him the tools he needed to help propel Spelling Bee to Broadway. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the show.

Did you hear about the following? I happened to read this just a couple of minutes ago in this week's edition of City Beat (a Cincinnati arts weekly):

"It was a sad weekend at Dayton's Human Race Theatre Company: Shortly after opening its current production of THE DRAWER BOY, directed by CCM drama chair Richard Hess, the show's production stage manager, SHERRI N. NIERMAN, was killed in a traffic accident following the Jan. 28 performance. A graduate of Ohio's Otterbein College, Nierman, who was 29, spent several seasons with the Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara, Calif., before moving to Dayton. Nierman planned to be married in June. Drawer Boy was her third production with Human Race. I send my condolences to Nierman's fiancé, her family and the theater company. ..."

So sad....

doctorjohn

Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. Yes, they're all my kids; doesn't every teacher feel that way? Dan's one of the oldest, actually. He was a junior when I came to Otterbein in 1992, and he was the stand-in for the late and great Ron Richardson who played Jim for our production of BIG RIVER, my first at OC. Can you imagine a skinny white kid standing in for Ron, who won a Tony for that role on Broadway? But we couldn't afford to bring Ron in until ten days before we opened. So I created all the blocking with Dan, and he couldn't have been more generous about all of it. No attitude whatsoever. I haven't seen SPELLING BEE yet, but one of my colleagues (Ed Vaughan) saw it last week and said it's charming. Not a great piece of work; but he agreed with the NY Times reviewer, that it's honest, heartfelt, and not in the least pretentious.

Thanks, too, dancersmom, for catching the notice in the paper about Sherri Nierman. She graduated in 1997, did (I believe) an MFA in stage management at CCM, then worked on the west coast before coming back home to be the PSM at the Human Race Theatre in Dayton. We were all devastated when we heard two weeks ago. She was much too young.

Gkoukla and Vocaldad: I passed your greetings on to Debbie. I suspect she'll be stunned. I'll let you know. We are very, very pleased to have her with us. One of the most positive people I've ever met.

Catsmom: I will have space in LA. My assistant just sent me the list, and I have room. So do drop by and say hello, and I'll sign your d up for an audition. By the way, I also have some space in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon if any of you in the Bay area want to come by.

wct

doctorjohn-
It is those stories that make my heart feel good. Tears have welled in my eyes. I hope for more of these kinds of stories as time goes on. This is one of the reasons we do what we do.

DD1986

Thank you so much for shedding some more light on the audition process , as a student who is going through this very difficult process your explanations have helped immensely. I was wondering if you could shed any light on a question I have had for a while now. Although your school's theater program does not have rolling admissions many top school's programs do, including Ithaca and Mich U. My question is how is this fair? After reading your posts it became very clear to me that the selection process for a school , although it has a lot to do with the individual , also has a great deal to do with forming the best possible group. I am confused as to how a school can accept someone before they have seen everyone else. Doesn't this put kids who are auditioning later for their schools ( such as myself!) at a great disadvantage since many people have already been accepted? Hopefully ypu know the answer to this because it just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense ! thanks again - DD

doctorjohn

dd1986:

That's a really good question, and it forced me to think about it. I don't work at UM or CCM or Ithaca, so I don't know what their thought process is. But I can guess. They want the best students they can get. Making an early offer to a very talented candidate gives the school a competitive advantage. If UM, for example, makes you an offer in January, and it's one of your top three schools, are you going to put them off to see if you can get a better offer from your other two top choices, who may not be able to notify you for another two months? Not likely. As Ben Franklin once observed, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I know from reading cc.com that it's not unusual for a student to cancel auditions once they've been accepted at one of their top choices. I'd do the same if I was auditioning. So you can see that rolling admissions is a good thing for the schools that do it.

Is it fair to the students who are scheduled to audition later in the season? Perhaps not completely. But it isn't inherently unfair either. Look at it this way. Suppose a school uses a 6 point rating system, and they want a class of 20 (10 men, 10 women). Suppose over the course of the entire audition season, they see 10 kids they rate as 6's and 30 kids they rate as 5's. That's 40 they're considering for 20 places. They're going to make offers to their 10 top prospects no matter when they do it. If you're one of those 6's, you're getting an offer whether the school does rolling admissions or not. If you're a 5, you're probably going to be deferred, and considered later along with the other 29 in your group. The school will build a class around the 6's that commit to them early.

The only problem for students auditioning later is if the school (unwisely) makes too many offers too early, and its capture rate is high. Then they may not have enough wiggle room for top students who audition later. But my guess is that UM and CCM have this reasonably well refined to take that into account. So I'm not sure that your individual chances are terribly diminished by auditioning later.

Looking at it another way, however, your sanity is enhanced significantly by having an early offer in hand or even, if it should work out, having your college decision made by December or January. That's why many of the posters to these boards have urged others to take fall auditions.

Finally, the great disadvantage is not to you, but to schools like mine which wait until we've seen everyone to make our offers. This is why many Ivies (the real ones, not the metaphorical ones) starting going to early admission a couple of decades ago. Once one school did it, they all had to, for competitive reasons. It's also why the NCAA created a single national signing day, to prevent boosters from OSU going after boosters from UM with Uzi's. There's been a lot of talk on cc.com about early admission/early decision, etc. and I have read that some schools are starting to go away from it. Perhaps.

I admit that what I've just written is making me wonder about the wisdom of our approach. Have we lost top prospects to schools who've made earlier offers? I'm sure we have. But given that we take such a small class, I still think it's ultimately fairer to everyone to wait and look at the whole picture. If we took larger numbers, or if we needed to take larger numbers to make a quota, we might not have that luxury. I can only hope that students who are auditioning for us can afford to wait, at least until late March, to hear their status with us.

Does this help?

MTaussie

doctorjohn,
I posted this on thread 38 and then realized that it would be better posted here. I Went to the Otterbein website today and saw that you have a BFA with Advanced Dance. How is this degree program different from from the regular BFA? It seems a perfect fit for my S who has been dancing 25+ hours a week (ballet/jazz/modern/tap/lyrical/hip hop) for the past 6 years. Yes, he does sing and act too, so he's not a dancer looking for a dance program. When you say you only take 8 MT freshmen does this include any accepted into the Advanced Dance track or are they accepted as part of a second group? I'd appreciate any inofrmation you would be willing to share.

DD1986

Thank you so much this does help a lot i feel much better going into my audition this weekend ...

doctorjohn

MTaussie:

Thanks for asking. Yes, we do offer a BFA in Musical Theatre with a Concentration in Dance. That's the formal title.

The differences between it and the regular MT degree are minimal. MTD students are only required to take 9 hours of voice lessons instead of 16. But they all take a full hour voice lesson every term anyway. They are not required to take Combat, but most do. MTD majors take one course in theatre history and two courses in dance history instead of three courses in theatre history. Otherwise, MTD students take all the same Acting and Music courses which the MTs and the Acting majors take, including Studios devoted to Shakespeare, Chekhov and non-linear styles. But MTD majors get to dance every day, and they also take beginning and advanced choreography.

We can't offer 25 hours of dance every week. Wish we could. But I'm not sure there's an MT program in the country which can. Our dance classes meet on MWF from 9:30 to 10:50 (one hour and 20 minutes) and on TR from 9:00 to 10:50 (one hour and 50 minutes). We teach the same technique at three levels on any given day. We can do that because we have three dance studios. So today (Thursday), for example, Heather is teaching Intermediate Jazz in our Towers Hall studio, Sue is teaching Intermediate/Advanced Jazz in the Campus Center studio, and Stella is teaching Advanced Jazz in the Battelle studio. Students are placed in each technique at the beginning of every term. So it's possible for a student to be in advanced jazz, say, intermediate ballet, and intermediate/advanced modern. Scheduling is easy because the classes meet simultaneously.

Then we change techniques every day. This term, at the Advanced level, Stella is teaching Musical Theatre style on Mondays, Scott is teaching Ballet on Tuesdays and Fridays, Maria is teaching Modern on Wednesdays, and Stella is teaching Jazz on Thursdays. In the Fall, Tap replaces MT style. (We also offer separate Tap classes.) There are always two ballet classes per week. We find that this kind of "cross-training", if you will, has excellent results. Our kids get good fast.

Your question prompted me to do something I've been meaning to do for weeks. If you'll go to our website, click on "Department Brochure", then click on "Musical Theatre", you'll see a place to download .pdf files showing the complete 4-year sequence of classes and a sample freshman year schedule for the MTD degree. If I have time, I'll try to do that for the rest of our degree programs this week.

Finally, you asked about numbers. The MTDs come out of the same 8 that we accept in MT. Usually we only have one or two students who have the dance skills and the vocal and acting skills to do the degree. But this year we're seeing more, which may mean that 3 or 4 of the 8 will be MTDs.

I should point out that our MTD students take advanced dance classes with dance minors, who are specifically recruited for their dance skills. (We do not have a dance major.) So our MTDs are being challenged at a fairly high level.

If there's anything else you'd like to know, feel free to ask here or in a private message to me at school.

Hope this helps.

Jacisme

DoctorJohn, Thank you! I was searching for the 4 year course schedule and it was difficult to find. The schedule gives a nice snapshot of the four years. How would the MT without the dance concentration differ? I assume less dance, but what would take its place? Thanks.

MTaussie

Thank-you so much for clarifying the MTD program and for all the great information you post. It really helps. Printed out your reply and gave it to S to read. He was excited by the program. I fully expect we'll see you at Otterbein next audition season. By the way when do you post the dates for auditions 2005-2006? I'm trying to plan out our year and want to get the information as soon as its available. Thanks again:-}

doctorjohn

Jacisme:

Glad it was helpful. You couldn't find the 4-year schedule before because it wasn't posted until yesterday. I'm a bit slow with html skills. Need to hire Shauna. I'll post the other schedules (MT, ACT, DT, BA) today.

Again, not many differences between MT and MT/D. The "regular" MTs actually take almost the same amount of dance, they just start at the beginning level, whereas MTDs start at the Intermediate level or above. MTs are required to take more hours of voice (but MTD's typically take the same amount). MTs are required to take Combat (but MTD's typically elect to take it). MTs usually take two terms of Theatre History, while MTD's take one term of Theatre History and two briefer Dance History classes. That's it.

MTaussie:

You are way ahead of me. Normally we don't set those dates until July. But if we follow the same pattern we have for the last several years, then we would hold MT on-campus auditions in mid and late January, late February and early March: January 21 and 28, February 25 and March 4. Possibly March 11 as well. But I need to say that I can't promise that those will be the dates at this point. We need to evaluate our procedures after we get through this season.

We have considered the possibility of a fall audition date. But I'm reluctant to do that unless we can tell students their status, and we can't do that unless we're willing to offer early admission to some students. I'm not sure we want to get into that game, for the reasons I've outlined in the post on February 16.

Hope this helps.

2DsnMT

Doctorjohn,

One more question, please, about the two degrees. Do students 'declare' at their audition whether they are interested in the MTD? Are the auditions different? Or, does everyone audition the same and the faculty determines who should be offered a position as an MTD? Thanks.

doctorjohn

djoiner:

Stella always asks if a student is interested in being considered for the dance concentration. The on-campus dance audition is the same for everyone--an intermediate level jazz combination--but Stella will ask those interested in the dance concentration to demonstrate some advanced techniques in ballet, jazz, and tap. When we sit down to choose the class in March, we'll decide which ones to offer MT and which ones to offer MTD.

The statement that you're interested in the dance concentration is not prejudicial. That is, if we don't think you're advanced enough in dance to do the MTD degree, we'll still consider you for the MT degree. It's not an all-or-nothing situation.

Does that clarify it for you?

chrism

I just heard Spelling Bee get a plug on a nationally broadcast radio show from NYC. yea!