Thoughts from SETC 2015

College Majors Musical Theater Majors
1

Shenandoah decided not to sit in on the college auditions at SETC this year for a number of reasons. However, my wife and I did slip in for one round of about thirty students and I thought I would share a few notes. Sadly, even though there is a plethora of great information out there about what NOT to do in auditions, I am still seeing some of the same mistakes over and over again. In fact out of the thirty students I saw, I would say half of the auditioners did something that was really a turn-off. Here’s a brief list of some of those things:

-The sex monologue. We do not want to hear about your character’s first time. We do not want to hear a character awkwardly relating his experience of buying condoms. You are 16-17!!! Sex may be on your mind because, let’s face it, you are teenagers. But we DO NOT want to hear about it and we don’t want to know about it. It sends a weird message to us, one that does not play in your favor.

-The rape monologue. Rape is real. It is a traumatic event that will forever affect the victims. Playwrights that take on the subject do so with a specific purpose and handle it in a broader context than just talking about the actual incident. When you bring a rape monologue into the room, you deal with only the traumatic event with no context and no resolution. If there are members of the panel who have been victims of rape, it is very likely going to stir up horrific memories. Is that how you want to impact the panel? By reminding them of being raped or their sister being raped or their best friend? Probably not. PLEASE find better material.

-Monologues about your parents dying. This is similar to the rape monologue. I was sitting with a colleague who just lost a parent. They said it is rough hearing those monologues and furthermore they don’t think students can truly understand the devastation and the feelings that accompany losing a parent unless it has happened to them. Even then, it is too depressing of a subject to bring into the audition room. There is better material out there.

-Parenting monologues. Monologues that portray characters who are parents are hopefully a MASSIVE stretch for most of you. If you are 17 and auditioning for a theatre program, it is very unlikely that you are a mother or father. When you do a monologue about being a parent it is just confusing. And PLEASE do not do a monologue about burying a dead child. Talk about depressing. Not something we want to think about in the audition room.

-While there are some schools out there who really like slapstick comedians, many others do not. A colleague in the room said “we are not auditioning students for clown school, we are auditioning for THEATRE.” Seriously, flailing around the stage and trying to make us laugh does not work for most schools. Especially not for the conservatory style programs or the competitive BA and BFA programs.

-If you cannot nail every note in a song, on pitch, with the correct registration, don’t sing the song. For example: if you can sing most of “On My Way” but not the high E on “me,” don’t sing it. You can’t sing the song. We want to be impressed by your perfection, we are not impressed by what you are working towards. You are 17-18, we know your voice will continue to grow in school. If you can nail a song perfectly with a belted B4, we know you will have D5’s and probably higher by your senior year of college. Show ONLY what you can do really well!

-Try to stay away from the hot new thing. There is great material out there besides what is currently on Broadway or in the movie theatres. Obviously the material is great, but it is very likely a lot of other students who don’t read this forum will be doing that material too. You are better off being judged on your interpretation of a song that the panel has not yet heard that day than being compared to all of the other students who sang the same song before you.

I would love to hear other thoughts from those on this forum that sit behind the table.

~VT

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Wonderful!!! Thank you for posting!! We try so hard to get the kids understand their angst does does not always translate as well as they think… I would add be careful with monologues that are filed with assaulting curse words. (Not being a prude and saying don’t curse, but be thoughtful and make sure it isn’t just for shock value)

3

Great advice. My d loves doing physical comedy type monologues.

“On my way”? What’s that from?

4

Violet!

5

Great post, btw! Love hearing about what it’s like to watch all the auditions :slight_smile:

6

You’re right @NAtlantaStudio I forgot about the %^#$ monologues. There weren’t any in the session I saw. At least that is one step forward!!!

7

VoiceTeacher- may I add the abortion monologue and please be careful with the suicide monologue?
It is not to say that the above monologues are never done well- they are; I just agree that they are difficult for both the actor and the audience without context and resolution. There is a lot of material out there that allows for an honest connection without requiring the performer or the audience to do the emotional equivalent of 0-60 in 15 seconds.
-Michele

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Thank you for taking the time to post helpful information to those who audition for college programs from those on the “other side.”

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ditto :smiley:

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@VoiceTeacher‌ - Thank you for this.

Next year sit in the Professional Audition room. I wish many college professors did, it would give you an insight into what is working and what is NOT at Unifieds.

SETC this year was much of the same. Strong schools were strong and weak schools were weak. A few schools were stronger than I remember (Shorter in Rome, GA and Illinois Wesleyn stick out as having many strong young MT actors). I didn’t see many SU students, though, VoiceTeacher - was there a major conflict?

A few bad habits I saw:

  1. STOP SINGING “SCREW LOOSE” LADIES! I have never seen this song done well in an audition, even by the best singers I know. It is annoying, and if you aren’t a Class 1 Belter it is painful. If you aren’t an A+ actress, it is painful. We heard this, “Pulled” from Addams Family, “Safer” from First Date and “Gorgeous” about a million times. I actually longed for a girl to sing “Breathe”

  2. There is some weird new trend of turning to a 45 degree angle. I don’t get it. Some Acting only school in GA is pushing the trend. I wish they weren’t.

  3. Don’t wear Character shoes to sing in. Even LaDucas.

  4. INVEST IN A FULL DANCE OUTFIT. Tons of kids dancing in jeans/sweats/pajama pants. With SOCKS on their feet. Stupid t-shirts that said stupid things. I crossed 95%+ of those kids right off my list. If you aren’t professional enough to wear appropriate dance attire to a professional dance call, I can’t trust you to know what you are doing. It isn’t your 8AM Technique class.

  5. Engage with companies in callbacks. I want to get to know you, see if I can work with you. I called you back because your good - the material performance portion is only about 75% of the callback, your personality is the other 25%. Crack a joke. One young lady talked with my colleagues and I about Game of Thrones and Walking Dead for ten minutes. It was great. The next few people seemed like real bores compared to her!

  6. I agree with VT about monologue materials. I will take it one step further. I don’t want any real drama unless you are Meryl Streep. I want a nice piece that you connect to. It doesn’t have to be slapstick, it just has to be nice.

  7. You are you. You are perfect as you. You is kind, you is smart, you is important. However, you are still you. Don’t be someone you aren’t. Know your type. If you’re a size 14, awesome, but don’t sing a princess song. If you’re a blonde don’t sing from Ain’t Misbehaving. Don’t sing a song from someone thirty years older than you.

  8. Have someone look at your music cut to make sure that it goes somewhere. I can’t tell you how many people sang cuts with AWFUL endings, mid-phrase. Your music cut is your friend. Resolve it.

  9. Take the advice of your screeners. I had students that I screened through who took NONE of my feedback. They made the same mistakes in their SETC audition. Their bad.

  10. Life is your audition. By the time you are in my callback room, I have texted everyone I know on your resume. Small business, y’all.

11

More helpful feedback from an auditor! Thanks on behalf of these young folks.

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@TheaterHiringCo - Thank you for the insight, which is valuable in the long term- and for allowing me to win an argument with my spouse, which is satisfying in the short term :wink: When we saw First Date (which I absolutely loved) I predicted “Safer” as the next annoying audition song. The song is fantastic, but I could absolutely see it becoming overdone!

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Theater hiring, a question. My D auditioned at one of the earleir screenings, and the advice/request she got from the folks there was completely oppsotie to what she is being taught in MT program. For example, she has been taught for auditons to not do a lot of extraneous movement when singing, but the screeners for SETC marked her down for not moving around more when doing her vocals. How do your recommend kids deal with those sorts of conflicting opinions deal with it?

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Theater hiring, a question. My D auditioned at one of the earleir screenings, and the advice/request she got from the folks there was completely oppsotie to what she is being taught in MT program. For example, she has been taught for auditons to not do a lot of extraneous movement when singing, but the screeners for SETC marked her down for not moving around more when doing her vocals. How do your recommend kids deal with those sorts of conflicting opinions deal with it?

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@TheaterHiringCo‌, can I tell you that I laughed out loud at #4? Pajama pants!!! REALLY!!! My, my, my.
Not sure why the SU kids weren’t there, but my daughter will surely be there next year if the scheduling works out. I believe it will be in our state if not our city!

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@jeffandann‌ , I’m no expert but I think there’s a happy medium. Singing to me is like telling a story. If you’re talking to someone, you usually don’t just sit/stand there not moving at all. And most of us aren’t overly theatrical with our face/body (although that’s a different story with theatre kids!). There are movements that our bodies do naturally that enhance the story because it comes from a place of “feeling” and not “acting”.

I remember Will Smith talking about how he leaned from his son when working with him on The Pursuit Of Happyness. Can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like the being in the moment method- if Jaden felt like scratching during his line, that’s what he did.

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@TheaterHiringCo - Thank you. I love this! I just saw a question on Audition Update re: wearing LaDucas to the singing call, general consensus was it was acceptable. My S will be happy to read #4, he’s appalled at what people dance in. Granted I’m not convinced he HAS to have a full LuLuLemon outfit and LaDucas like he IS but I’m not sure why actors wouldn’t want to look neat and pulled together for the dance call.

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@voiceteacher & @theaterhiringco …

Strange question that probably doesn’t matter one iota …

Do you care what color a book/binder is?

D’s is black. I would assume the norm is black. But we were at one college audition where her black binder was definitely the minority. It just was super strange to me to see all of these kids with white/color binders.

(Obviously, I have too much time on my hands.)

19

The color of the binder is not important. :slight_smile:

I agree with voiceteacher and others comment on audition material. I will add “screlting” (a hybrid of screaming and belting) to the list of things to avoid. Many young singers have a tendency to push and over sing, particularly in an audition situation when nerves and adrenaline kick in. Look for a song you can sing and act well, and that shares something about you as a person and a performer.

20

Maybe it’s a choir thing then.

Black has always been drilled into both of my D’s heads.