<p>This time last year, I was given some incredibly helpful advice by KatMT here on CC (don’t remember if it was the Theater or MT forum). She mentioned that the Virginia Theatre Association (VTA) was having a conference in late October, and high school seniors would have the opportunity to audition for the college representatives attending the conference.</p>
<p>We live only 8 miles away from the conference site, but our useless high school drama teacher never tells anybody about it – which reminds me, I need to print out some kind of information sheet and post it on the drama bulletin board over at the high school, even though I don’t have a student there. But I digress.</p>
<p>The students attending the conference are usually with a group from their school, but individuals can attend also, so I signed us up, and my son and I went to VTA.</p>
<p>Most of the Virginia schools and several from out-of-state had booths and representatives at the conference. My son had the opportunity to speak with many of them (and got a lot of free pens). At a typical college fair or school visit, the college reps aren’t going to be from the theatre department, but at VTA, they were – and in many cases a few students from the college were helping staff the booth. It was extremely useful for him. It made the whole college thing seem real, all of a sudden. </p>
<p>The audition was done in the cattle-call style with each student having a minute to do a monologue for 20 or 30 college representatives (I think the MT students could also do 30 seconds of a song). The students entered the room in batches so they heard some of the other students’ auditions. Later in the day, callbacks were posted, which usually were more conversations than additional auditions - a marketing opportunity for the school reps to talk to the students who most interested them. He got a lot of callbacks, some of which entitled him to skip the prescreening for the college audition. In one of his callbacks he did work on his monologue with the director of the school’s acting program, and in some others he was treated to a rather hard-sell recruitment. Based on his callback conversations he added a couple of schools to his “maybe I should apply there” list, and took at least one of them OFF his list. </p>
<p>We attended some interesting workshops, and saw a bunch of one-act plays, ran into a bunch of friends from various previous theatrical pursuits, and generally enjoyed the whole thing.</p>
<p>Fast-forward a year, my son is extremely busy and happy in an excellent BFA program (though not any of the ones from the conference). Attending that little conference really did make a difference. It told my son “Yes, I do want what these colleges can give me,” and “Yes, these colleges do want what I have to offer.” Definitely a turning point.</p>
<p>Here’s the link to the VTA: [url=<a href=“http://www.vtasite.org/]Virginia”>http://www.vtasite.org/]Virginia</a> Theatre Association<a href=“Do%20note%20that%20in%20addition%20to%20the%20high%20school%20auditions,%20there%20is%20another%20big%20audition%20taking%20place%20at%20VTA,%20which%20is%20a%20prescreen%20audition%20for%20SETC%20and%20not%20for%20high%20school%20students.”>/url</a></p>
<p>This thread might be a good place for people to list other similar events for the fall of 2013.</p>