2011 Thespian Festival

<p>Hey everyone! Does anyone know anything about the colleges and their theatre and/or musical theatre programs that are going to be at the festival in Nebraska?</p>

<p>This would be the list: Colleges</a> and scholarships | Educational Theatre Association</p>

<p>I'm familiar with a few, such as Evansville, AMDA, and SCAD, but I don't know much about the rest. Any thoughts on them?</p>

<p>I will be attending the festival with our department chair and a faculty member of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. The MT forum on CC has a lot of information on the BFA program, but if you have any questions feel free to PM me or stop by the booth.</p>

<p>The great thing about the festival is you don’t NEED to know about every school. Making a list beforehand of programs you are interested in is good, but after you audition and are called back, make sure to try and visit as many as you can, even if you didn’t originally know about them. You may find some great, new schools that are really interested in YOU personally. </p>

<p>Have fun and break legs!</p>

<p>My daughter is at the 2011 Thespian Festival right now with her high school class.
She called this morning and said she had auditioned and gotten a lot of call backs from colleges.</p>

<p>I have several questions: What do these callbacks mean?</p>

<p>And what is this festival all about, and why is there not much discussion of it on the forum? Thanks.</p>

<p>I can help somewhat with the “what the callbacks mean” question. It will vary a lot by school. At some schools it is like an initial screen telling you the school liked what they saw in your audition and they would like for you to come to their on campus audition. Or that they want to visit with you and tell you more about their program and see if it seems to be a good fit. It could result in an offer to attend for some schools, although I believe that is a very small number of schools that do that. It just depends. I would encourage your D to go to as many of the callbacks as she can. It is a great way to find out more in depth information about the schools and decide which ones she might want to pursue further. She might find a school or 2 that she would not have really known about before that would actually be a really good fit for her. It’s a great time to ask questions. Hope she is enjoying the festival!</p>

<p>Just a disclaimer that my D did not attend ITF when she was in high school because her school didn’t have a theatre program so this was not available to her. She did attend Southeastern Theatre conference which has a similar audition/callback system and I am basing my information on her experience at SETC along with what she has told me about working her college’s booth at the Thespian Festival this week.</p>

<p>austinmtmom,
Thanks!
And yes, my daughter is enjoying the festival.</p>

<p>If it still works like it did last year, schools aren’t allowed to make specific offers until some time (maybe it was a week?) after the Festival. As I recall, D got two firm acceptances, half a dozen scholarships that were contingent on academic admission plus several on-campus callbacks. Some were phone calls and others came in the mail after the Festival. I remember that a couple schools were a bit pushy. I’m guessing this varies every year depending on which schools attend. At least last year, Reps from some schools missed particular sessions so not every school saw everyone. She also found that many of the folks who saw her there (both students and faculty) would recognize her when she encountered them later in the year, which is nice for kids on the audition circuit.</p>

<p>Hope you have/had fun, and that you get/got some nice thunderstorms this year!</p>