@“boola boola” where was the very rude audition, if I might ask?
@4angels page 304, it was FSU (Florida State I’m assuming)
Dang. I liked the director. No excuse for that.
nm
Hi all. I just started a final decisions thread. We are finished this part of our journey, so I shared our story as well. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/musical-theater-major/2129876-final-mt-decisions-background-class-of-2023-p1.html?new=1. I’m not sure if somebody could pin this, but I’m hoping to learn about everyone’s journey in the coming weeks.
Talking about rude auditions. This one I’ve been keeping inside since LA unifieds but I feel it takes the cake for rude auditions. My daughter had a very bad experience at the BEGINNING of a dance call (even before it started) with the dance director. She asked if the director needed a copy of her resume (she had given one to them before during her singing/acting audition. The director responded, “well how else am I supposed to remember each one of you?” My daughter didn’t say anything, just got it from her bag and gave it to her and didn’t think another thing about it, until later she noticed the “b-word” written across the top of someone’s paperwork laying on the table. Her first thought was “wow, I feel badly for that person!” Then her heart sank as she noticed it was her paper! It was left out on the table where anyone looking would see! She had to go through the rest of that audition with that in her head! She tried her best to smile and ask/answer questions, but I can’t imagine it didn’t affect her dancing! I was so mad when she told me about it afterwards. And this was after she had such a wonderful singing/monologue audition earlier that day with same school. That director spent so much time with her asking questions and working with her. She asked her specifically to let her know how the dance audition went. I was all ready to send her an earful, and I even had a whole email typed out, but hubby talked me down. But after that experience, even if she were to get accepted there (which I highly doubt now) she would never go if that’s how they treat people. Simply no excuse. It is unprofessional, hurtful, uncalled for and out of line. I’m sure plenty of directors have long, bad days during unifieds, but honestly, that was pretty tacky. If you don’t like the look of someone or simply have decided you don’t want them in your program for whatever reason, fine. Do you really have to write b!*$# across their paperwork???
@mommyMT Wow, that’s difficult to read. I hope your daughter has overcome that horrible woman. These kids are so resilient. Of course, I’m like you. I would never get over that as a parent. And although I agree with your husband about talking you down, if she wrote the B word on your daughter’s resume, I think I would say something to the head of the program. It could be this woman has done this, or something similar, before and maybe she needs to find something she enjoys more than working with young performers because it seems that she doesn’t enjoy her job.
Edit: This is actually something that can be verified by the head of the department. They just have to look through the stack of resumes. If they see those types of comments about students, she should be given her walking papers. I would encourage a controlled and concerned email to the head. Or give me their names and I will do it!!!
@mommyMT That is horrible. I’m sorry for your daughter…especially to have seen that paper during her audition.
Auditioning for “real world” gigs now, I had one director (who is now my boss actually) flat out tell me, “ugly people are not performers,” and another respected theatre company bragged about how they have “never hired an ugly person” and will write “butterface” on people’s resumes. Isn’t this business tough enough as it is without the nastiness?! So sorry that happened to your daughter, @mommyMT. Absolutely unneccesary and not at all where you want her to be. I understand if you don’t want to share, but if you’re comfortable I would love a PM with what school this happened at.
@BWmama, I have wrestled with this, believe me. My husband thought I should ask for her paperwork back. Part of me wanted to wait until decisions came out and then email them. I was just so mad at the time! I still have the email and am ready to send it…just biding my time. I, like you, don’t think someone like that should be working with these young adults! I don’t care how good she is! We have no proof she actually wrote it, but I can’t imagine it was anyone else bc no one else had any interaction with my daughter during the dance call. But believe me, after calls are made, I will be sending the email. I’m not even sure why I’m waiting. I guess I’m curious to see if they will still admit her. If I email now, I’ll never know.
@mommyMT No words and no excuse for that! Wow! I am so sorry that had to happen to your D. My D luckily didn’t experience any rude schools.
S waitlisted at CMU for MT BFA. Hoping for some good news down the road as we make other plans!
SO my D applied to Montclair St. back in Nov. We have followed up to make sure her file is complete as we thought we would have heard academically a while ago. We reached out and they said it was and we should hear soon. That was weeks ago. Any suggestions of what we should do or should we just wait?
@“boola boola” Congrats on your CMU waitlist!
@mommyMT First of all, as a member of the human race, I would like to apologize for certain members of our race who, for whatever reason, have become so bitter and ugly as to do something like that. I also support you, as I imagine we all do, in whatever decision you make regarding contacting the MT director of that school. I will say that in my short experience in this process, I have contacted three directors with regards to unpleasant issues (though nothing nearly as personal or as nasty as what happened to your daughter). All of those interactions have been friendly and I think productive. All three directors seemed to be genuinely grateful to me for bringing these matters to their attention. Although it may be that some schools as a whole have developed a culture that is less than pleasant, I tend to believe that most people (especially in MT!) are good people who have the best interests of their program and the students who audition for their program in mind. I would encourage EVERYONE who has had similar experiences to contact the directors of these programs in a constructive way and make them aware of your experience. It may not feel like it, but we actually have much, much more power in this process than they do. Can you imagine what would happen with a program if 5-10 students withdrew their applications to a certain school before a decision was made letting the director know that they were not interested in attending a school that treats their auditionees poorly?
@fribee3 If you are from out of state, make sure you have agreed to the OOS tuition paperwork on the portal as well as the response to whether your D will go there if not accepted to program of choice (if those options are available to you). We did that yesterday after reaching out to the school (Montclair) to find out if we were missing something, and the answer came today (No). We actually find it kind of funny that we had to jump through that last hoop before they would give us the No!
Just reread your post and realize that you haven’t received the academic admittance yet…I would contact the school again then.
@mommyMT I’m incredulous. My D encountered some rude people in the process, but this is over the top extreme. I would wait until the audition cycle is over and your D has made a decision, and then I would write to the Dean of the College (departments like MT are located in colleges, headed by Deans). I am a university Dean and I can assure you that if one of my faculty acted this way, I would want to know.
@ZukAndSowash thank you for your kind words. I’m still wondering if I should contact them now or wait. I will contact them for sure though.
WOW, @mommyMT!!! I’ve heard some bad stories here on CC, but that might take the cake for the absolute worst! How incredibly rude and unprofessional! Once all your acceptances are in, and your daughter chooses the school that she will attend and it’s all over, could you share which school that was?
Regarding contacting colleges for “poor attitudes” and rude behavior. We had an experience at a "BIG Top Tier college, where I really wanted to give the director a piece of my mind that “you don’t treat people that way”. But in my son’s wisdom, he said…this is a small world. All these professors shift around, and many work in professional theater. He wisely said “let it pass”, as he didn’t want to be the one to run into them again at an audition in NYC in the future, or something like that, and be remembered as the one who called them out. It really is a small world. You can see this by looking at the resumes of all the teachers and people in charge of the programs.