<p>Like Enjoy… I did not read the entire thread, but when I started the process with my D we were very ignorant. If anyone is reading this thread they are lifetimes ahead of where we were! Just being here (MT Thread) is a great thing!</p>
<p>The information I wish I had known the most was… audition with at least 6-8 schools of varying levels… unreachable, reachable and safety. And be as knowledgable about each school as you possibily can!</p>
<p>Three years ago I was going through this with my mt d auditions. We are now going through the audition process with our younger d for instrumental performance. My best advise is to enjoy every minute…make the audition trips fun. Having an older child to pave the road has helped so very much. Her advise would be to let go of the audition as soon as it is done. It is hard to do, but it is something that needs to be done. Especially if you are going into another audition right away.<br>
Best to all of you!</p>
<p>Generalizing from a topic on a specific school thread – Gather as much information as possible for each school’s audition. If they say prepare 2 songs (or cuts), do they say you will definitely do both? Or just one? If one, do you pick or do they? Are you guaranteed the opportunity to perform all components of the audition, or do they only see you dance if you pass the initial “cut”, so to speak? Or do they only have some students perform their monologues?</p>
<p>If dancing is your strength, and you have to pass the singing/acting bar to get to show that, it may not be the best place for you to audition. Likewise, if you consider yourself an actor/singer - if they only request some people to do their monologues after their singing portion - it may not be the best choice for you.</p>
<p>One factor that I was totally unaware of, until I read about it here… My D auditioned for 6 schools. At 5 of them, there was a consistent auditor panel who saw all applicants for the school. (The other one, I didn’t know until afterwards that wasn’t the case.) It may not be a deciding factor in assembling your list of schools, but I personally like the knowledge that your primary instructors were all personally invested in the decision to accept you. The downside to this could be that these schools are likely to be the ones whose audition slots fill the fastest, since they can’t run another room with a different auditor in it to fit in more auditions.</p>
<p>And, as helpful as this site is - don’t use it as your primary source of information. Check the school’s website; talk to current students if possible; call or contact the MT department if you are at all unclear about things. Information sometimes changes, and things on here may be out of date. In the length of time that I’ve been reading, I know that some schools have dropped or changed cut programs; some schools have changed their decision notification process or timing; some schools have changed audition requirements; some non-audition schools have added auditions. </p>
<p>Then - some information on here is fact (which may or may not be current), but some is opinion, and not all opinions are created equal. Is the post by a student or the parent of a student who is currently going through this process? Is it by someone involved in the field? Is it from one of the teachers/professors willing to publicly indentify themselves as a college rep. of a certain school? I have seen people thrown into a tizzy by something written by a student or parent who quite possibly has less understanding of the process than the reader has. I have seen people make posts disparaging a specific school, only to discover that their child had auditioned there, and been rejected. One would like to think that all advice was offered in a helpful, positive vein; unfortunately, in any anonymous site such as this, you can’t always be sure that is the case.</p>
<p>My last - which I DID know, and which are already on this board a lot - but I think bears repeating.<br>
Start early! On everything - developing your list of schools; paperwork and applications; preparation and material choices. My heart breaks when I see a kid post on here a few weeks before an audition that they are still looking for a song, or a monologue.</p>
<p>Don’t obsess about finding the “perfect” song or monologue. Sometimes in a quest for perfection, you bypass things that would be great for you. Know yourself, know your type, build repertoire in advance so you know what works for you and what doesn’t, so you can winnow through things. Then find something that you are passionate about performing.</p>
<p>Best wishes to those still on the journey!</p>
<p>There are so many helpful peeps on this board and all have wonderful hints at preparing for the college search and audition process. It was eons ago when my daughter was on this journey. She ended up switching majors from MT to dance and has become a professional dancer living in NY. (She does have to supplement her income by waiting tables but happy to be doing what she loves.) I am now helping out a nephew that is determined to be a musical theatre major which brings me back to this website.<br>
My daughter has many friends in NY that are actors (and dancers) and I thought that some information regarding the current job market for performers might be useful to those that are just starting out on this journey.<br>
Reports are coming in that huge numbers are turning out for the few auditions that have been held so far for summer stock. Since many of the shows with a large chorus have closed, there are many (talented) performers that are out of work. Rumors of regional theatres being in trouble are out there also. And shortly there will be a new class of hundreds of graduates to add to the mix. I am not writing this to discourage anyone from their dream, but to encourage parents to sit down with their student to discuss the realities of pursuing a career in this business. I would still encourage my daughter to get her degree in dance (or MT if that was what she had wanted) as I still think any degree is valuable. However I know that she is aware that she won’t be performing forever, and wishes she had taken advantage of the time she had while in college to perhaps double major, or at least take several of the required courses for a second major. Fortunately we were able to convince her to attend college on a scholarship which enabled her to graduate debt free. She has many, many friends that have HUGE student loans to pay off and struggling to survive in NYC. Kids are so sure that they can easily land a waiter job to get them by until they are cast in a big show. She has friends that have had no luck finding any work at all as the economy is down, and some of these friends have years of waiter/bartender experience and not able to find any job at all in the city. (And add to the mix that high cost of housing in the NY area.) She also has friends that have had major roles on Broadway and are now unemployed. She says that she is hearing all the time of people talking of changing careers.<br>
I have shared this information with my nephew and he is still determined to carry on, as I am sure that all of your students will want to also, but hopefully he won’t be naive about the job prospects at graduation time.</p>
<p>To add to all this misery my daughter said that a job for being a waiter or waitress looked like a call for a broadway show. This is a scary time, lets all hope and pray the economy rebounds soon.</p>