My daughter has been working professionally in musical theater for seven years since graduating her BFA program. I do not believe she writes thank you notes for her auditions. She doesn’t attend open calls. She auditions via agent submission. This has included casting and offers for Broadway and Off Broadway and the like. And sometimes she gets offers without even auditioning. She also has been in the position of casting people in high level professional shows, often where offers go out without auditions. I don’t think she receives thank you notes for the opportunity to audition. I’m not against these, but just saying that they are not necessarily the norm for auditions for college or in the professional world of theater. I don’t think my kid was taught to do these in her college program.
Believe me, I think thank you notes, generally speaking, are nice. Again, for interviews or individual meetings with faculty my kids have had, they wrote them, because people went out of their way. But for the opportunity to audition, they did not.
PS…what Rachel Hoffman did in the linked article is spot on. She thanked Dave Clemmons with a thank you note after he chatted with her at the stage door. This is great networking and follow up for someone who talk time out to talk with her, given her interest in his field (casting) in terms of her career interest.