Too wonderful: As a Director you have NEVER chosen a show considering your talent pool? I find that hard to believe. You must know your talent pool when considering show choice. If you have a stand out boy for example you may choose a show with a stong male lead or if there is a particular girl who is very strong you may choose a show with a lead for her. If you are at an all boys school chances are you will not be doing Annie. You say you NEVER consider highlighting a particular student? Hmmmmm
Just trying to cast a light on what is happening after college.
I have spent many years in NYC in both Bway and Off Bway and Regional theater and I wanted to throw out a perspective to parents who are worried that a 32 bar song is too hard to quick to gauge someones talent. Trying to let parents know that for professionals…they can tell almost as soon as you walk in the room…confidence, personality, the way you introduce your song and relate to the accompanist, your overall look and presentation all are considered before you even open your mouth. Often times callbacks have to be decided immediately after someone sings so the ppl at the table have made their decisions almost immediately. Believe it or not 32 bars is also on the higher end in NYC especially at open chorus call.
At large chorus calls 16 or even 8 bars are requested (this is done to avoid the harsher "typing’ where 10-15 ppl are lined up at a time across the room and certain people are asked to stay and sing based on their look and their resume only.
@mamaboyz , I think @toowonderful & @NYKaren were simply pointing out that if you look back at these threads over many many years and many many different people , you see many kids who were never the lead in their school play & do very well in this crazy process. In fact there are many comments about how the colleges couldn’t care less what roles you had in HS , simply the resume is to exhibit sincere interest in performing arts. I also think that the skills you mention about how you audition, how you walk in the room, etc… can certainly evolve beyond whatever you present at 17 years old…these kids ( many of them) are rightfully nervous, & while the nerves never go away they learn how to control their nerves/ excitement/ anxiety as they grow as a performer…& isn’t that what college is for? Many examples of kids who didn’t pass a prescreen of " safety" but got accepted to a " top tier" school. I think recently @El-Cee commented that her daughter passed 10/11 pre-screens- the one she didn’t pass was her so called " safety or less competitive…so what rhyme or reason or conclusions can truly be drawn from the randomness of pre screens?
Ill steal a line from my screen name- Derek Jeter ( famed yankee shortstop for those of you who don’t know said that in the biggest moments ( like the World Series) he always had butterflies, the difference was when he had been to the World Series over many years, the " game slowed down for him". That is due to experience ( & many failures)…anyway I just needed an excuse to make a yankee reference as one of the few dads here
Happy New Year to all & Good luck in the height of the audition season- I say go for it regardless of what success or lack thereof you have had in HS, in Pre screens or whatever- if you can’t chase your dreams at 17, when can you??? life will be happy to throw curve balls at you & give you a wake up call plenty of times along the way. dream now!
@mamaboyz - of course I consider the “pool” - and there are certain shows you don’t choose unless you know you have “someone” who can do a part. But, in my experience, the school/youth level that takes males, rather than females into consideration - b/c you will ALWAYS be able to find a female who can do the parts that exist in youth theater world. I don’t need to find an Elphaba, a Christine or an Evita - I need a Harold Hill, a Joseph, or a Tevye. (I just did a production of Fiddler in the fall for that very reason). I have never had to make that determination for girls - there is ALWAYS a Belle, or a Maria, or a Millie. Have I thought “X girl would be lovely as…(insert role here)” of course. Have I said “We should do Little Women next year so X can play Jo” - no. To be fair, I also did not say “we will do Fiddler this fall b/c I want X boy to be Tevye”… I said “we CAN do Fiddler b/c X boy COULD play Tevye”. A subtle distinction perhaps.
The programs I direct for are not in the business of preparing kids to be professional performers - they are garden variety extra curricular and arts engagement programs, and that makes the thinking different. (though several kids that I have worked with in one capacity or another have ended up at prominent BFAs). YMMV - but choosing to suit a specific girl performer is NOT something I have seen in the school/youth theater world - so it seems insane for a kid who has “only” participated there (and now everyone has $$ for the big national type programs) to assume they shouldn’t go forward if they aren’t having shows chosen for them.
There is a great theater meme I have seen:
Girl: I have been studying dance since I was three, I have studied voice since I was 10, gone to theater camp since 3rd grade, and am so excited to be playing townsperson #3
Boy: My teacher cornered me after English and told me I had to be Shrek
This is NOT meant to diminish the hard work and efforts by young men trying to get into colleges or make a career in theater - it is for SURE hard work. But it rings true for a lot of schools
Btw - I do totally grant your point that the audition panel knows WAY before you finish 32 bars if they want you…
I tried to find a CC MT discussion thread which focused on whether school decisions are “all-in-one” or bifurcated but to no avail; this information is not clear from viewing school program websites either. Besides NYU-Tisch, which schools / MT programs are “all-in-one” and which ones are bifurcated or where is this information already listed?
@Twelfthman - are you asking in terms of evaluation, or notification? Some are bifurcated meaning you have to pass academic hurdles as well as artistic (in a selective school) but, “all in one”meaning you only get acceptance/denial to BFA (no “theater studies”) option. That is how NYU, Michigan, Syracuse, Penn State and Boston, (and others?) work.
@toowonderful - Thank you. I was asking in terms of notification to the applicant. Sorry for not being clear. I am assuming that most programs require passing an artistic as well as academic hurdle – some may send this decision all-in-one (i.e., jointly) and some may notify you separately. Are most other programs (i.e., the ones you didn’t list) two separate notifications?
@twelfthman - I don’t know if that info is consolidated anywhere but there was a thread on types of schools and whether academics really play a part in MT admissions. Relatively few programs have high academic bars, NYU (and now potentially USC) being sort of an outlier as academics are 50 percent of the admission decision. For the most part the artistic admission decision “is” the admission decision for BFA programs, whether they do an inital academic acceptance first or not. I do know of one boy who was admitted artistically to a program but didn’t make the academic bar (Chapman) but mostly it’s the other way around.
Agreed with what @CaMom13 says, it is more common that academics are forgone conclusion. But whether 50/50 or not, there are separate (and competitive) academic admissions at the schools I mentioned earlier (Michigan, Syracuse, Penn State, Boston). I specifically remember from info session at D’s Boston auditions them saying that when creating their class they have to check and see if kid has been academically admitted. Either way - you only got accepted if you passed both parts.
@twelfthman: all in one notifications that I know of: CMU, Michigan, Penn State, Boston, NYU, Syracuse, DePaul, Emerson(? I know they redirect to other majors…but don’t they still tell you all at once?) UNSCA. Ithaca rejected D from audition before notifying her she was accepted to university - No idea if that was ordinary, though the big CONGRATUALTIONS package that came after the thin “thank you for your interest” letter was particularly cruel in my opinion. Any others people can think of?
@twelfthman I also remember BW and CCM as all-in-one notifications. Academic before Artistic acceptances came from OU, UMD, Ball State. Both Molloy and LIU were all-in-one acceptances, but those were walk-ins for my son. They may do separate acceptances if you apply earlier. Muhlenberg - I’m pretty sure we received the talent scholarship offer at the same time as the acceptance. (Audition here was just for talent $$)
@twelfthman We got the same from Ithaca and also thought the same. Same for a few other schools. I thought it meant “but we still want your money for the next 4 years”.
LOL @FROG65 - Pace is kind of notorious for encouraging “accepted students” to commit to the U before they get the BFA decision but they are so generous with merit aid I always took it as “We really want your grades and scores rolled into in our freshman class stats”.
All-in-one notifications that I know of… USC, UCLA (and the other UCs), University of Michigan, LMU (Loyola Marymount), Chapman University. For USC, the academic bar is high for the Theatre BA, but much lower for the BFA (they have both). UCLA is a BA that is “like” a BFA, so word is the academic bar is lower than getting into UCLA as a regular student. The rest of the UCs you enter as a BA, and two of them (UCSB and UCI) you can audition into a BFA your sophomore year. Those UCs require high academics to get in as a Freshman. Chapman and Loyola are all in one notifications, but the academic bar is not that high at either school (exceptions there are for their Film programs). Elon gave us separate notifications, with the BFA admit coming first by weeks. Ithaca gave her a decline early, and thankfully we never got a general admit after that!
Hello all! Hope the audition process is going well. I was wondering what some good lesser known BFA programs are, as well as some safeties on people’s lists? (Non-audition BFAs or great BA programs) I need some to research for next year but it is so difficult to find them when everything online is about big name schools.
@NYYFanNowMTdad . Just a quick note from another “dad” in this process, and a HUGE Yankee fan, My S’s first 3 schools he auditioned for were some of his “top” schools, which I thought would have devastated him, but 2 quick acceptances before Xmas was a gift that seemed more important to me than to him. Learning to have butterflies and getting better after each audition was a great future learning experience and should be helpful going into Unified NYC.
If anyone hears anything from USC please post…So hard to plan auditions with such late notices!!! At this point even if my DD does pass we may not be able to fit in another audition!!!
For those waiting on USC… have you emailed or called? I am pretty sure there is staff working this week… at least checking email this week. Though I would try directly calling myself. My D is scheduled for BFA Acting audition here in January. She has had email interaction with the SDA department admin as recently as last Saturday night.
On Michigan’s all-in-one notifications… If you passed the prescreen you’ve passed the academic hurdle. You can’t get an audition spot if you are academically ineligible.
@lojosmo - vis a vis Michigan, true, but if you are not accepted for the BFA, they will not offer you an alternate major (as schools like Pace, Ithaca, BW etc do), correct? So with Michigan, if you don’t pass Prescreen it could be academic OR artistic
said that in the biggest moments ( like the World Series) he always had butterflies, the difference was when he had been to the World Series over many years, the " game slowed down for him". That is due to experience ( & many failures)…anyway I just needed an excuse to make a yankee reference as one of the few dads here