The Class of 2024 - Audition Day Reviews

College Majors Musical Theater Majors
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Here are the reviews for all the MT auditions my D did in LA this weekend:

Pace: Well organized in LA. Incredibly friendly and supportive faculty. Fairly difficult dance call if you aren’t a true dancer. D performed both her songs but it seemed they weren’t asking anyone to do their monologues in the morning group.

University of the Arts: No dance call. One auditor. Extremely friendly and personable. Asked D to do a second song and her monologue and stay for a chat where she asked questions that made it clear she was interested in getting to know her.

Hartt: Information session in the morning was so helpful. The faculty seemed so nice and invested in their students. Dance call was tough because it was a fast-paced number and much shorter than her others so it needed to be picked up quickly. Two songs and a monologue. Warm and friendly.

Montclair: Fun dance call. Vocal audition very business-like/efficient, straight to the point. In and out.

Molloy/CAP21: Friendly, asked her to sing an extra piece and stay to chat/get to know her. No dance call.

NYU: Great audition process. Wonderful information session about the program and what to expect that day. Dance call was more about storytelling through movement. My D loved it. Short interview to get to know her after the monologue. Sang her two pieces and workshopped one of them with her. Three different auditors. She loved this audition.

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I thought about that too – but it was really unrealistic. DD said that everyone gave it a shot.

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@IStressSoDWont We just did Montclair - there is an in-audition call back I don’t think a lot of people know about. I was talking to a bunch of parents and their kids just did the dance and the one audition for the most part it was all buisness. When I spoke with my d after the audition she told me that after the dance and her regular vocal/monologue audition she was given an index card to see another person and she auditioned for him as well. The first audition was kind of all business-like thank you and here is the card - at the other audition she sang her songs again and did her monologue and this one person and he was a little friendlier asked her some questions - like what her goals were etc… My feeling is that if you didn’t get passed on you probably won’t make it - but I could be wrong. They have rolling so I guess we will know soon. Also, they said they auditioned 1700 for a class of 20 yikes! Not sure if that includes acting who was also there that day ??

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@DivaStageMom was this on campus or at Unifieds?

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@NeensMom on campus

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That’s good to know. I wonder if it is different for Unifieds. I know the University of the Arts has a callback process on campus but not at Unifieds. If anyone knows anything about Montclair’s callback system at Unifieds that would be helpful!

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@NeensMom - They were all split into different rooms so it may have been harder to do that at Unifieds - everyone may have sat on the panel. I don’t know the names - I have to say Montclair was strange in that they had no information session. We asked some of the kids and they told us maybe we could catch a tour?? Usually, somebody gives you the stats on the program - I guess with 1700 applicants maybe they don’t need to sell anyone. But the first room had two people and the second just had one man. D said everyone was very friendly - I don’t think she got anyone’s card outside of the index card. The facilities and campus were very nice. They thought we should hear back soon - so you should be hearing even sooner if you did Unifieds. I did hear they were waitlisting and rejecting - although somebody on CC said they got an offer early on.

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Montclair did have some people called back for acting at Unifieds, haven’t heard of any for MT.

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I was at Montclair yesterday for their auditions! I had a great experience the whole day and had a lot of fun. I didn’t know anything about a callback for the MT program. I didn’t get an index card to see another person - not sure if this means I am out of the running for them or not. Anyone able to speak to this? Thanks!

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Is anyone going to Shenandoah next weekend?

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I wasn’t there, but my guess with Montclair is that you probably would not get an offer without being seen by Clay. If there were two rooms it may be that some kids were seen by Clay originally and did not need to be passed to a second room, and other kids who started out in the non-Clay room probably would have had to have been passed on to still be in the running. So being passed on is a good thing but not being passed on does not necessarily mean you are out of the running. I don’t know for sure though.

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@BloomingGirl good point. Clay was in the room (with others) at Unifieds.

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I was able to confirm with my daughter that she did see Clay - she auditioned in a room with two people and they gave her an index card and told her to see Clay and he was in the room by himself. So maybe if you started there you didn’t have to see the two others - I really don’t know, but she did audition twice technically. However at Unifieds if they were all at the table maybe this wasn’t necessary. Montclair is rolling so we should be able to unpack all of this pretty soon. D is on a site Crucible Cast Party on FB that’s like the CC for kids and people seem to hear pretty fast from Montclair one way or the other - but some are getting waitlisted…

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Warning…venting coming about. Need guidance.

Drove 8 hours to Texas Tech on campus audition where they are building a program. Program started in earnest 3-4 years ago. Great new facilities, although they are tearing down their mainstage that won’t be rebuilt for 2 years. It was stressed the day before auditions by students and faculty that the department head likes to get to know people. Be prepared for questions. It is a small program and we want to make sure your personality fits our family.

Dance call in the morning was very crowded and rushed. Dance call for MT students was held with the same students auditioning for BFA in Dance. Dance call was harder than most, but fine for my D given her extensive dance experience. The audition went long by about 20 minutes.

Next, they prefaced the start of voice/monologue auditions with the rules–you will have 5 minutes; 4 minutes to do your monologues and 1 minute for q&a. We will raise our hand with 30 seconds left and cut you off at 4 minutes so we have time for q&a. This is the first time we are hearing the “ground rules.” Beginning of the week, they said to come prepared with the materials you submitted at prescreens.

Voice and acting MT auditions were running over by 30 minutes because “we love everyone so much and have spent so much time getting to know everyone.” No question this was happening because the 2-3 people that went before my daughter were in there for 8-9 minutes each–I was watching the clock.

My D is next and goes into her audition. My D not only gets cut off by them during a song, but also a monologue. They asked her if she had any questions and she responded, “No. Your students and staff have been great answering all my questions so far, I don’t have any questions.” They say thank you and audition is over.

First, I recognize that my daughter should always be prepared with a question–even if she knows the answer–so she appears interested and gets them talking. I have coached her to always have a question prepared. Not sure how she missed this–probably flustered by being cutoff.

This experience was very frustrating and gut-wrenching. While I understand the above may be the normal routine at Unifieds/many auditions, but not when you spend time and money to be on campus coupled with the fact that they stressed the importance of getting to know you, we are frustrated.

As a follow-up, I may have my daughter email the department head to say thank you and ask for 10 minutes to “connect since we did not have time to engage during the audition.” Thoughts?

Or, should we move on and not read too much into this experience?

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My D had her first and only audition yesterday for the MT BA at UCLA (yes, she is on a much different path than most since she only applied to 5 schools and only 1 with an audition - she does already have an acceptance to a nonaudition Acting BFA).

The audition day was much like past posts have described as well as the UCLA TFT website describes.

The day started with a one hour information session with applicants and parents. There were only 25 applicants at this session (there have been 5 other sessions and 2 more today). The professor running this session was wonderful as he was funny and personable which really helped my D relax and feel more comfortable. He provided a great run down on how the day would go and different things to expect. Plus, he went over what a BA is and what a BFA is, what the program is like at UCLA (basically, a mix), and what type of students fit with UCLA and what type doesn’t. I thought it was great information.

After this, parents are asked to leave the building.

The dance call is next for all applicants and takes about an hour. They are taught a choreographed dance and then split into groups of 3 to perform it. My daughter is not a dancer and thought there were tough parts but were allowed to just block parts like turns if couldn’t actually hit them without messing up the timing. She said she just had fun with it, did her best, and made sure to smile through it.

Then the monologues, singing, interview happens but in different order for each applicant.

The interview was with one professor and was basically just a conversation to get to know the applicant.

The monologue session was with one professor and my daughter actually was asked to do both. She was given redirection for one of them and really enjoyed this part.

The singing session was with 2 professors and she was asked to sing both songs. She was also asked about her dance training at this time.

There was also time along the way to spend with current freshman and ask questions. My daughter didn’t ask much but enjoyed seeing how the current students interacted with each other and the applicants.

Overall, it was a great experience!

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@MommaCat My D will be auditioning today and I just want to confirm that your D wore her dance audition attire the entire time It just seems odd to me that they don’t have a chance to change into regular audition clothes.

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@BloomingGirl good point. Clay was in the room (with others) at Unifieds.

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@flippedout My D kept her dance clothes on, but she said many others did change after the dance session.

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@MommaCat My D auditioned in Jan. for UCLA - Acting only (Berkeley). BEST presentation EVER. The adults could not stop laughing! Based on the number of kids auditioning, we consider UCLA a “Hail Mary”. Looking forward to touring the campus this Thursday. Best of luck to all our kids :slight_smile:

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@MommaCat I auditioned yesterday and it was such a good experience, I wish your daughter the best of luck on her decision! The info session was great, the speaker was so funny and did a great job of creating a chill atmosphere. The dance call was quite difficult, but the choreo was really fun!! I was in the first group to go up, so I didn’t have time to get nervous before dancing lol. They had me do both of my monologues without redirection, and then I had my interview right after. Her questions were a bit confusing to answer, but I tried my best. I then sang, and the head of voice and the head of dance were there. I sang my first song (from “The Little Mermaid”) and he said that my voice is well-suited for the Disney style of music and that he didn’t need to hear my second selection :disappointed: I’m trying not to read too much into anything, I’m just gonna have to wait and see what happens! Overall it was well-organized and low-key audition, not nearly as nerve-wrecking as I thought it would be! :smiley: