SETC Professional Audition Observations

<p>For those of you unfamiliar with SETC, (Southeastern Theatre Conference), the main part of the conference each spring is a “cattle call” style audition for summer stock primarily. While it is has been many years since I was last there and the OP has more recent experience, each auditioned has one or one and a half minutes to impress with a short song and monologue. It’s a pressure cooker for the kids, mostly college students who attend. Back in the day there would be around 70 companies or so in one large hotel conference room watching auditionees on a standard conference center platform in terrible lighting.</p>

<p>To the OP’s observations regarding Elon where my son was accepted - that matched our assessment as well. Very strong in vocal and dance - not so much in acting. In fact, we were told that the small talent scholarships they had went to kids who danced. “If” my son had been a strong dancer, he would have received a scholarship. Now we know he needs to continue his dance training, but he is a principal actor first and foremost. Seems to us they need to be recruiting some actors who sing to play leads. Son saw one of their productions and this matched his assessment. Great singing. Great dancing. Acting - ok. We liked Elon but it eventually fell off the list because of acting concerns and no scholarship - the only school that did not give him either an academic or talent scholarship out of list of CMU, PSU, TSU, TCU, Rider and Pace. Even waitlisted CCM gave him 5 k. </p>

<p>Anyway, SETC is a rite of passage for college students looking for summer stock jobs in the southeast.</p>