<p>3-Feb Carnegie Mellon (NYC) Thurs
4-Feb Elon FRIDAY
4-Feb Carnegie Mellon (NYC) FRIDAY
5-Feb Catholic Univ Sat
5-Feb Unified Schools (NYC) Sat
5-Feb Univ of Miami (NYC) Sat
5-Feb Carnegie Mellon (NYC) Sat
6-Feb Unified Schools (NYC) Sun
6-Feb Univ of Miami (NYC) Sun
6-Feb Carnegie Mellon (NYC) Sun
7-Feb Unified Schools (Chicago) Mon
7-Feb Univ of Miami (Chicago) Mon
7-Feb Coastal Carolina SC (Chicago)Mon
7-Feb Carnegie Mellon (Chigaco) Mon
8-Feb Unified Schools (Chicago) Tues
8-Feb Univ of Miami (Chicago) Tues
8-Feb Coastal Carolina SC (Chicago)Tues
8-Feb Carnegie Mellon (Chicago) Tues
9-Feb Univ of Miami (Chicago) Wed
9-Feb Unified Schools (Chicago) Wed
9-Feb Coastal Carolina, SC (Chicago)Wed
9-Feb Carnegie Mellon (Chigaco) Wed
11-Feb Elon FRIDAY
12-Feb Coastal Carolina, SC Sat
13 Feb Unified Schools (Los Angeles) Sun
13-Feb Carnegie Mellon (Los Angeles) Sun
14-Feb Carnegie Mellon (Los Angeles) MON
14 Feb Unified Schools (Los Angeles) MON
18-Feb Elon FRIDAY
19-Feb Shenandoah University Sat
19-Feb Carnegie Mellon Sat
19-Feb Boston Conservatory** Sat
20-Feb Boston Conservatory** Sun
25-Feb Elon FRIDAY
25-Feb Boston Conservatory** FRIDAY
26-Feb Shenandoah University Sat
26-Feb Coastal Carolina, SC Sat
26-Feb Carnegie Mellon Sat
26-Feb Boston Conservatory** Sat
27-Feb Boston Conservatory** Sun</p>
<p>Key: **=Unified School</p>
<p>So I lined them all up by month. I put Feb on CC above because it’s the craziest and will be amusing to those of you who have survived this drill. </p>
<p>Now the sop and her family must figure out the wheres and whens. I was hoping to drive to many schools in the Mid Atlantic/North East but I’m now realizing the value of the Unifieds, bless them. </p>
<p>I am even considering, for the first time, asking the sop to make videos for a school or two. </p>
<p>She has dance rehearsals on weekends, which complicates matters. </p>
<p>Anyway, thought you all might like to see a bit of this before we thin it out. I thnk I want one of those table maps you see in old WW2 movies, where some guy with a poker pushes the little men across the table top as the Generals ponder their next moves. That might help us figure this out! </p>
<p>Praying for no snow and no strep for everybody! :)</p>
<p>I don’t know if it is as nutty as it appears. Your list has all the possible audition dates for your child’s list of schools in the month of February and is not a list of just the dates she will actually attend. </p>
<p>My kid applied to 8 schools and did 8 campus auditions. This involved 6 trips from Dec. through early March. I will not deny that it was a nutty year on top of all else she had going on, but even without doing Unifieds, it was just 6 trips (we combined CMU/PSU in one weekend and Syracuse/Ithaca in one weekend) and we didn’t try to do them all in one month.</p>
<p>Classical, Thanks for a commiserating chuckle for the day! Although we’re not doing all the same schools you are, our February is going to look a lot like this! In fact, my daughter just registered for senior year classes yesterday, and we cut back her schedule so that she wouldn’t get in academic trouble with all the missed days, as we will be traveling to everywhere from Oregon! Her counselor understands, but most people just don’t get it! Even though we tried to warn him, her show choir director is going to go into shock since he moved their major performance from April to late February saying he would rather just try to catch her up on missed rehearsals!</p>
<p>Unifieds in Chicago will certainly help as we need the 3 days, but that will be most likely a full week of school missed, as we’re hoping to travel to NYC from there - just waiting for NYU to post their dates. (yes, we know to submit a dvd and get an invite:-)</p>
<p>Noooo, of course we won’t do them all in one month! Just have to pick which ones in which months. Really want to try to get through as many as possible before the New Year, actually, especially any with rolling admissions. </p>
<p>She’s ready to sing/dance/act tomorrow if we can just figure out the logistics somehow without messing up her last Nutcracker and full length spring ballet of her life, as she says, with feeling. I know lots of kids are trying to keep up performing while auditioning and it’s going to be brutal. At least mine isn’t wearing her voice out at the same time.</p>
<p>I really don’t worry about the actual auditions, because she’s in good shape and she’s either what they are looking for or she’s not; it’s the process of getting there that frightens me. Deadlines, paperwork, scheduling, all of that. </p>
<p>Going to go make some file labels now for the biggest 3 ring binder I could find! :)</p>
<p>Christie- perhaps we’ll see you in Chicago. I know my way around NYC rather well by now, but having those weekdays in Chicago is a bonus for us. Just worried about the Chicago airport, which, even in perfect summer weather, hasn’t been reliable of late. Fly early early in the day! Your show choir director sounds like a good guy…</p>
<p>In my D’s college audition year, she also was performing in several things all year as well, and it was a juggle but she did inform all directors and teachers of days she had to go to college auditions. It helps to spread them out so you are not missing weekend after weekend for your rehearsals and such back home.</p>
<p>My sympathy and complete understanding to all.</p>
<p>My daughter elected not to try out for Nutcracker this year. It makes me sad, because it would be her last year ever to be in it, but she knew that she would not be able to keep her commitments if she did and still do what she needs to do to prepare for this crucial year.</p>
<p>She didn’t audition for it last year either because her theater teacher made it clear that she cannot figure out how to deal with a student who has any outside obligations at all, (so she also gave up her very nice assistant dance teacher job…) and the year before last, told her AFTER all was said and done, “if you hadn’t been in Nutcracker I would have given you the lead role in (the fall musical which my daughter had really wanted”). So that was her last year to ever do the big community ballet. And will probably be her last ballet ever, as she is taking a somewhat different direction.</p>
<p>It happened to be, that last year of hers, one of the best productions ever, and the number she was in (waltz of the flowers) was absolutely brilliant and took down the house and really outshone the whole show, it was amahzing, so it was a great note to go out on.</p>
<p>But still. It makes me wistful. But you have to make hard decisions sometimes, I guess. I generally let her decide how much she can and can’t take on and she’s doing pretty well at it…last night she came home just pep talking herself up a storm “I can do this! I just have to manage my time well! I can get through it!” and she wants me to let her figure it out, so I am…but I am monitoring, just to be sure she doesn’t unintentionally miss something that would have tragic consequences…(and it’s not helicoptering, is it, if I make a contact for her that needs to be made during the day while she is in school, that is only forwarding the communications she decided on for herself? It occured to me that we theater parents are actually having to be their agents, as it were, because they are so busy with rehearsals and time consuming things that it’s hard, sometimes almost impossible, for them to physically and literally be able to get some crucial things done unless they can be two places at once.)</p>
<p>is there ANY other parent out there who has to go through anything like what theater parents have to go through? (not to mention the kids!)</p>
<p>When my D was auditioning last year for schools (she leaves for Marymount Manhattan on Friday!) she elected not to be in any big shows her senior year. One of her best friends had auditioned the year before (and got sick!) and was also cast in the big high school musical and she had a very difficult time.</p>
<p>D was sad not to be in her final musical in hs, but she said she was happy she did not have the added stress of rehearsals on top of auditioning.</p>
<p>I kind of sniffle through the whole Nutcracker…I know so many of the girls and have watched them grow up and I’m just such a sentimental mushpot anyway. It’s always beautifully done here and the talent that young people have amazes me sometimes.</p>
<p>My D also missed her senior school shows because of college auditions (I wouldn’t let her), and boy was she ****ed. We just didn’t need ONE MORE THING to plan around that year! Sometimes it is tough being the parent. I kept telling her to keep her “eyes on the prize,” reminding her that next year she would be in a great MT school and that HS would be a distant memory. She sees the wisdom now that she is in her first-choice school but it was a difficult time.</p>
<p>Snapdragonfly, ONLY parents of kids in the performing arts understand!</p>
<p>Haha I’m going to be auditioning for schools this winter also, and my mom won’t even let me do my school’s fall drama that opens in October. It sucks to miss out but I understand that I need the next 3 months to prepare for my auditions as much as possible.</p>
<p>^I know, it’s hard, right? So conflicting…on the one hand, you want to be in the show, get the experience as an actor/student/teenager who wants to be involved; on the other hand, you know you need the prep time and that the show would take a ton of time out of your prep schedule…
Just think about it this way: when you get to the college/conservatory of your dreams, there will be four years worth of awesome productions!</p>
<p>So when I proposed the idea of no Nutcracker this year, the daughter says “That would be death.” She’s sort of dramatic but you get the pointe.<br>
At least when my empty nest happens, I will be too exhausted to cry. Perhaps I’ll manage a whimper! :)</p>
<p>I’m still a little surprised to hear myself posting “post” college acceptance. Still so new to have my son in his first week of college orientation. But I will tell you this. Like so many others, my son was under a lot of pressure his senior year. Not only college, but he had been picked up by a highly respected talent agency for his “potential.” So he was running around on professional auditions, while trying to maintain his grades in order to get into a highly selective school that had a 50/50 policy on grades/audition. And he very much wanted to do his fall play and spring musical. It was his call. He chose to do the high school shows. He loved it, and we, the parents, loved seeing him at his best. What a loss to have missed his last performances in high school. I realize it’s a tough balance, so I won’t tell anyone what’s best for them. Still, we all love to see our young performing artists “perform!” So, if there is any way they can balance it, I suggest they do. Even encourage them to do so. They will remember it, looking back. As will you.</p>
<p>How is everyone hanging in with audition scheduling/senior year, etc? Kiddo opted to do the fall play…ended up with the lead…and as I look at the schedule looming, well, I tell my husband, if anyone needs me, I’ll be under the bed! It all starts this Friday…
College audition #1 10/30
College audition #2 11/6
College audition #3 11/12
College audition #4 11/13
The Play 11/17-20
Thanksgiving (travel)
College audition #5 12/3
College audition #6 12/4
Big Ballet Show 12/10-12/11
Finals
Holidays…
A break in January…
Then…
Unifieds 2/5-6
College audition #7 2/11
Spring musical early April
Big spring ballet end of April</p>
<p>But she’s hanging in there…thankfully, chose to work hard and fast to get her apps in at the very beginning of the school year. Now just got to keep her healthy and relatively mellow. How about the rest of the auditioning crew?</p>
<p>that looks like my son’s senior year…except you forgot non-stop show choir practices and competitions! good luck to you! there is sanity on the other side!!</p>
<p>Hi again, all exhausted MT parents! As I write this, my d is finishing application #13 of 14. The number of essays involved as just about been the death of her! At least she is learning skills of consolidating, writing succinctly, etc, all of which have never been taught to her! The Common App only covered 5 of her schools! Now, just for the dreaded rep list and she will be done! Thank goodness she’s been in charge of her own spreadsheet!</p>
<p>All dates for auditions have been picked, beginning Jan 29 and ending the end of February. I may have to lock her in a disease proof room for the month! Auditions at Chicago Unifieds are bookended by Oklahoma City, North Carolina and NYC. Since we’re from Oregon, we’ve had to consolidate wherever possible. At least, if she gets ill, there are possibilities for many in March. We were unable to do any earlier due to school choir, fall musical and Musical Theatre class concerts. I imagine many of us will be running into each other - particularly at Unifieds.</p>
<p>I feel like I have a 2nd job; finish the first one each day and come home to my app for college/auditions one! My d keeps asking me what I’m going to do to fill my time next year . . . maybe rent myself out to other parents who don’t have a clue???</p>
<p>Best wishes to everyone as we set out on the audition journey!</p>
And will probably be her last ballet ever, as she is taking a somewhat different direction.</p>