@collegemom2000 - I really don’t know how important a showcase is - we’ll find out, lol! D hopes she gets an agent, but if not, she’ll just keep doing what she’s doing.
@Jamieand Winthrop - I was joking about law school. I’m a lawyer myself! D would rather starve than go to law school, believe me!
@toowonderful is correct that having an agent does not necessarily mean you won’t be waiting at calls. My D graduated in May. Her school had agents come once a week last semester senior year. About 50% of the kids were signed, she was not. She was signed 2 months after graduation from one of the agencies that had come to the school. Having an agent gets her into auditions that she would not have access to without an agent (mostly bigger projects with major names that don’t bother with open calls), but these auditions are not often so if she wants to work, she still has to go out on her own pursuing auditions everywhere. You also have to remember that when you are signed by an agent you are still competing with the other actors on that agent’s roster to be sent on the audition. As we all know, this is not for the faint of heart. You must be extremely tenacious, determined, a hard worker, and resilient. Working in order to work never ends.
@actingdreams I totally get that and college is not affordable for anyone anymore. Even the college funds I started for my kids when they were newborns will barely make a dent. I guess my point is, even after changing my mind two years in, I was able to get my BS in three years as most of my credits transferred so it definitely wasn’t a waste. And in the end I knew more of exactly what I wanted to do. 
^^^^This! At the end of the day, it comes down to the audition. The agent only gets you into the room - D/S will need to do the rest.
My D is out of school. She never had a back up plan.
In terms of expenses that some are mentioning after they are in college…we never paid for anything over my kids’ college summers and did not pay for MT D to attend summer auditions. I did not pay for them to secure work. Each of my kids worked every summer in their respective fields, away from home and supported themselves doing that.
Also, our kids knew that once they graduated with their final degree, they were on their own supporting themselves, though I paid for their education (on top of the financial aid and scholarships they received). Both have supported themselves in their fields since graduation day. My MT D has supported herself since graduating NYU/Tisch at age 20, entirely in the fields of music and theater. My daughters have never lived at home since high school.
Also, some mention open calls and getting up early to attend auditions. My D has never done that. My D does have an agent. She rarely auditions because she is booked up with various projects and is not available to be cast in something new. She has also told me she will only audition for a show she is truly interested in or involves people she wants to work with. She has turned stuff down. I know she is not going to audition for the next two years as she is booked up.
As mentioned here in the past, my D doesn’t have all her eggs in the audition basket, as some do, and those who do, when not cast, have to pursue something else to make money. She has a three pronged career in music and theater and all 3 of her areas are busy right now, but she doesn’t have to rely on any one particular one. She is actually too busy! She also believes in not waiting for work to come to you but creating work for yourself and she has done that. Her 3 careers are: musical theater performer, singer/songwriter, and musical theater writer/composer/lyricist. She has work right now in all three areas. Also, for most shows she creates, she also performs in them, so she is “cast” that way.
Also, over time, as her network has grown, she is often asked to do a project and one job leads to another and so it is not “audition or bust.”
She has also been on the side of casting shows and I can tell you that sometimes roles are offered to people without any auditions being held. She has cast people that way and she has been cast that way.
The first few years out of college, while working professionally in musical theater, she had some survival jobs, but ALL of her survival jobs were in music and theater too. But for many years now, she has not had any survival jobs. (she’s 29)
Just offering a view of a different journey that doesn’t exactly fit ones being talked about here.
@soozievt your D sounds amazing! I think it’s incredible that she has created her own path and is a working artist. Her story shows that there is no one way to do anything and to think outside the box!
Thanks, @jbtcat. I shared this because I think it is a narrow focus to think that the main thing that a MT kid needs to do to get work is attend open calls and then do a side job like waitressing. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But that is not the only way. My D has a lot of peers from her program who are doing very well in the field and I don’t think any of them are attending open calls (or waitressing).
I also wanted to mention after reading people saying the money they are spending to send their kids to summer stock auditions is not something we ever did or could or would do. Yet, my musical theater daughter worked in this field every summer of college and we didn’t pay for her to obtain work, or pay for her room and board or summer expenses either (same with her sister in another field). So, just offering that some have gone about it differently than others have shared.
@soozievt Your D is exceptionally talented in many areas. Few enter into the arena with her skill set. Waiting to see her write, orchestrate, direct and star in a Broadway show soon!
@uskoolfish …well, thank you. She went to college to become a MT performer. She was not trained in creating original songs or musicals, but in general, is someone who likes to create stuff. She didn’t intend to do that as a career, but it evolved and people also are paying her to do it. But it also means that you get to perform in your own creations.
Thanks for your high hopes. If only! This year, she will be in an Off Broadway musical she adapted and wrote all the music/lyrics for. She’s working on a new musical she will eventually be in and who knows where it may go, but she has the backing of a Broadway producer and she has a reading coming up at a well known theater, for the parts she has written so far. If that is staged, and I have some confidence it will be, she’ll be in it. She also is working as I write this on a third musical project that is quite major, but won’t be in that one. She also has a new album coming out in which she performs her original songs, and a regular monthly concert series in NYC. She has almost too much on her plate, but these things were too good to pass up. She will have to pass on auditioning for right now as she sees these projects through. But, she is performing both in concert, and eventually in 2 of the 3 musicals she is working on.
We were devastated when the S did not get an agent through showcase, and now, nearly a year later, he still doesn’t have one. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Kids who did are getting bigger opportunities (though not all of them are booking these opportunities). However, the S is working very consistently on interesting (but low-paid) projects and he is in NYC this week performing a short play that is involved in a festival … something that none of his agented friends have managed so far. He has very minimal student loans and knows how to keep living costs down (he lives in Chicago which helps a lot), so he can keep at this more or less indefinitely. He works his ass off at everything he gets. He has two projects lined up for after New York, and he’s auditioning all the time.
My observation: Type plays a very large role in getting an agent now, and if you’re not what they’re looking for, it doesn’t really matter what you can do or (even) what you’ve done.
I would also say that the kids who wrote their own material for showcase did better than the ones who performed from existing plays. At least in Chicago. At least last year. Very limited sample. YMMV
@soozievt -amount of money budgeted for travel and auditions may depend where your child attends school. Your d was at NYU but as you know my daughter is an MT at Michigan. If you want to audition for Strawhats you have to travel. There are many senior MT’s in her program who have been flying to NYC for auditions before graduation, (which is wonderful), but it does cost money to get there. Also my daughter is very fortunate that theaters come to Michigan (and I am sure they audition at other schools as well) but if you are fortunate enough to book summerstock over the summer all you get is a stipend. We just looked at one that looks amazing and has a great summer line-up (stipend is $100 a week). So yes you get your housing but you don’t put money away like you would if you were working a full-time summer job (and summerstock stipends are the norm for major professional theaters) - in my daughter’s case she needs that summer money for school expenses and if she is lucky enough to get a callback and needs to travel to attend it. Maybe your daughter’s location simplified things for her? I do know Michigan kids are traveling all over the place including LA and New York (and have to pay for it some how! and there is no time to work a part-time job between classes and shows!)
I am hopeful however that my girl will be able to provide for herself once she hits that big city. I agree with you that there is work if you diversify and make your own opportunities. My daughter is a smart cookie and can always tutor for the SAT’s on the Upper West Side if need be - however, she is a musician and writer as well so I think she will make her way. But there is no doubt that travel, money and auditions do not end once your kiddo gains acceptance to the program of their dreams!
There is no doubt that being in NYC - or on the east coast in general can simplify summer stock things during the college years. But I have always figured the additional costs of living in NYC (NYU dorms - NOT cheap) more than offset that
@singoutlouise No matter where our daughters went to college, we would not have paid for them to obtain summer jobs. Not in the cards. One even worked in Paris in her field one summer and in NYC one summer in her field. But we did not pay for them to secure those jobs or for their summer living expenses.
Yes, my MT D did go to college in NYC. However, summer stock is not the only way to work in theater for the summer! My kid only tried to do summer stock for the first summer after freshman year. She only attended Strawhats (yes, she didn’t have to travel to get there) and got a summer job that year (the only audition she did). I think what helped her get cast was that the director of that theater had come to observe her class at college one day. The theater paid a stipend smaller than you mentioned, but came with housing. Did my D walk away with profit after the summer? No. But then again, no money was spent getting the job either. My kids had to make enough to support themselves all summer and they did. My MT D had no interest in summer stock for her remaining years of college, though not knocking it and it was a good experience for her that first summer after freshman year and she was only 17 at the time. She and many of her Tisch peers, preferred to work in their field in NYC for the summer and she did for all her remaining summers of college…she did MT.
You mention seniors traveling to auditions. My D didn’t audition until after she graduated college and she booked the first one, which happened the week of graduation and got her Equity card through it.
I’m simply saying that there are lots of ways such students have gone about things.
My D’s friends and peers from her BFA program are doing a variety of things…performing on Broadway, Off Broadway, and on tour, directing and choreographing on Broadway and Off Broadway, acting in movies and TV shows, directing Off Broadway, starting and running theater companies, writing and starring in their own musical TV show, writing songs/performing/recording albums, playwriting, musical directing, writing new musicals, producing, teaching/coaching, writing/performing children’s theater, and others I don’t know about. I think it helps to maintain a broad outlook and vision and skill set, rather than narrowly focusing on “I want to be on Broadway” or “I have to do summer stock.”
@soozievt what did your D do for summer work in Mt then? Since it wasn’t performing in Summer stock theatres? I mean I was just wondering. Was it a job or paid internship in NYC? And the job paid for her living in NYC at the time? I mean I know that in itself would be expensive for someone in college to do…to get a job in MT, secure affordable housing in the city & not have any $ from home. I mean that’s great but wow, quite a feat!
I mean your D sounds amazing and obviously has had great success in all she has done. But I do think her story is the outlier? I mean not many MT graduates book their first and only audition out of college and earn their equity card also during the week of graduation!. I guess we all wish that to happen!
I would also think the field has changed dramatically since your daughter graduated? I mean if she is close to 30? I am sure she is very talented and driven . I just think so much has changed from when she would have entered college and graduated. More competition for girl roles in s stock, etc…
To those wondering: Just called Hartt and they said NYC unifieds auditions are being processed currently so we should hear very soon.
Soozie will have way more detail - but every year NYU students write an original show (the NYU reality show) that is presented to the incoming freshman - and those students receive housing and a stipend over the summer. My own kid has had friends who have done that as well. It’s a pretty good gig - and I believe that is what soozie’s kid was a part of.
@mtmom911 When did the person who was rejected over the phone audition?
@theaterwork…the field was and still is VERY competitive. It so happens that many of her classmates are doing well. I know several who have starred on Broadway. It’s never been easy and still is not.
As far as booking her first audition out of school, she got lucky. But she was not unique in this way. One of her classmates who she also roomed with for two years and did MT theater with in our home state of VT, booked a lead on tour before her graduation day (and eventually went on to do it on Broadway, as have several of her friends and classmates. Does it happen to every graduate? No, but she is not unique.
As I wrote, my daughters worked every summer of their college years in their respective fields and we did not support them. They had to earn enough to be able to pay their living expenses for these jobs. Some jobs came with housing and some did not. They did not walk away with profit, however. They did walk away with gaining experience and a resume.
As I wrote, almost all of my D’s closest friends from NYU wanted to live and work in NYC over the summer and not in summer stock and my D decided to do that starting her second summer of college. My recollection now of those summers:
After freshman year: a professional theater in another state (not really called summer stock)…but they called the position for college aged actors “interns” and pay was pitiful, but D performed with Equity actors. She lived in a house with the Equity actors and mostly just had to pay for food. Then, she came home for two weeks to run and direct a MT program for youth she had started the summer before college and did it that one more summer and earned a lot doing it.
After sophomore year: auditioned for and got cast in what is called NYU Reality Show, which involves spending the summer writing the show and the songs with the other actors, and being paid to do it, and in her case, she also was hired and paid to be musical director, and then performing the show at the end of the summer at Madison Square Garden. Besides the salary, she was given free housing and 10 meals/week at NYU. That summer, she also was in a musical in NYC, that her peers were directing and it was held at an Off Broadway theater.
After junior year: again, got cast in NYU Reality Show, plus hired as musical director, and paid for both positions and to spend summer with cast writing/composing the show and performing it at the end of the summer. If I recall correctly, I believe that summer she also was cast and had a job as musical director for the Reality Show for the NYU Abu Dhabi campus and traveled there to perform the show too. As well, she was cast that summer in a workshop of a new musical through the NYU Graduate Program in Musical Theater program and performed in that too. Again, was given housing (in fact, moved out of her off campus apartment to the dorm housing which was free for her for the summer and sublet her share in her apartment to her sister who had a paid internship in her field that summer in NYC!).
After senior year, didn’t want to perform any longer in NYU Reality Show since she had graduated and got to do so for two years, but kept the job as musical director for the NYC show and the Abu Dhabi show, all of which she arranged before she knew she would be cast on a tour upon graduating but that tour didn’t start until October, and so she kept the paid NYC job. I believe she also did some other gigs, like concerts and other stuff I don’t remember now too. Also, the director for NYU Reality Show was a Broadway director and playwright who my D learned a great deal from. Also, my D’s husband to be was in this every summer too as an actor and as assistant director!
Believe me, it was very competitive even when my D graduated. And she was just 20 and had a young look.