<p>I don’t know about the issue with songs, but I do know that the monologue search is an incredibly important part of the audition preparation process and is arguably the most difficult.</p>
<p>From what I have observed, it is not until they are actually students in a college program that kids really begin to have an understanding of the depth of the dramatic canon and begin to learn the sophisticated search techniques that can give them access to the best and most appropriate material.</p>
<p>All very interesting!</p>
<p>Personally I think that expecting a 16 or 17 year old kid to wallow through an almost impenetrable amount of literature that they probably have never even heard of (particularly in the “contemporary” category) is unrealistic. My D did not have an official college audition coach, but she had a mentor who has 40 years of experience in theatre as well as Forensics, including having many peers who teach in theatre conservatories, and D had several other directors who had been in or had contact with college programs. Still, finding the right monologues was absolutely the hardest part of our process, and it took valuable time away from actually preparing them. </p>
<p>What was the most frustrating about it was that 1) the strictures are so confining, particularly the length of the monologue (so many plays just don’t have monologues that can be extracted), and the type of play (no musicals, no television or movie scripts, etc.); and 2) the plays have to be accessible in their complete form. We understood why these rules exist, but I do think the schools could ease up and make the search a bit easier. For example, we found lots of monologues in books, only to then find out that the plays are not published, not accessible at all. This particular issue broke my D’s heart many times, and she still pines over a few monologues that she couldn’t make fit the rules.</p>
<p>Now that she is in college, she is doing monologues from so many other sources and genres, and has much better access to plays in general, and it seems all of those harsh rules have been dropped. The profs will let them work on or even audition with a much broader spectrum of material once they’re in the program.</p>
<p>I wish for the college auditions that all of the schools would just have kids choose from a standard list - a long one, with lots of options, but without this elusive idea that a “better” monologue could be found if they just worked harder or wanted it more. Quirky? Standard? Familiar? Groundbreaking? These were really hard hurdles for us to deal with. Fortunately a couple of schools and websites have posted what they do and don’t want to see. I think there should be more of that - not to reduce the number of pieces, but to provide some structure and reliability in the search.</p>
<p>I’m feeling very lucky that NJTheatreMOM introduced me to her son’s monologue coach, whom my daughter now works with. I agree that the monologue search is very important, and without her mentor and the help I’ve seen on CC, we would have had no idea what auditors were looking for in a monologue. </p>
<p>My daughter has a slightly-older sister who auditioned for classical music conservatories where the convention is to play from a standard repertoire. The last think you want to do is use an audition piece that is rarely performed. Familiar is good; an obscure piece would be a disaster. But with only a classical music background, I would have never realized how different the expectations are for theater conservatory auditions.</p>
<p>My daughter’s monologue coach has a library of more than 2000 plays; my daughter has read several dozen from this library and added to her own library at her coach’s suggestion. My daughter is very focused and ambitious in her reading, but there is no way she would have been able to cover so much ground without a highly experienced mentor.</p>
<p>It’s very possible that for kids who have little theatre experience that a monologue search may be a daunting task, I don’t know. It may also be that those kids are exactly the kids who need to learn how to search for appropriate audition material. 
In any case, part of my feeling on this is likely due to the very recent nature of this type of ‘coaching’. It wasn’t that long ago that the norm was for kids, all kids, to find their own audition material. To go to the library, to the theatre bookstores, to discuss with their drama teachers, to read plays through high school, to see enough theatre to have a good knowledge of playwrights. In my opinion, it was a better model than the one that seems to be the norm today of high-paid coaches who do much of the leg work. </p>
<p>Kids who are studying theatre, much like those who study MT, should be developing their own book of audition material, and many have done so throughout their high school years. It’s a shame that so many no longer do this. The last time I was in NYC, I met with an old friend who is regularly an auditor for her college’s auditions and she commented on how different so many of the kids auditioning seem now. She used the term ‘packaged’ and we had a really interesting discussion about how many schools are having to include more time spent on students developing these research skills now than in years past. The other big difference that seems to be prevalent is that current kids have seen far less live theatre and how many were unable to discuss a recent play that they’d seen. The changing dynamic is interesting to me.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom, are you saying that it is not a good idea for a young theater student to work with a coach/teacher because they come across as being packaged, or that in your long experience you dislike the shifting trend towards using a teacher? </p>
<p>My daughter does not have a high school drama teacher. I wish she were able to attend a high school with theater amenities, but that was not available for her. </p>
<p>She has an acting resume, had read hundreds of plays, and had done many auditions (but not college auditions, which I have a sense are different) on her own before we found her a coach. She feels that the coach has helped a lot; in addition, it is supportive for her to have an adult mentor who understands theater (unlike her parents, who are clueless.) In our family, there are several traditions in which mentorship for young artists is the norm, it seemed like a logical ideal to have my daughter work for a while with private theater teacher, even though it is a financial sacrifice. I would not want to send a self-taught pianist, for example, to a conservatory audition. But maybe it is different in theater. As a naive observer, my assumption is that there are techniques to be passed down from mentors to students.</p>
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<p>glassharmonica, it’s the shifting trend that I find a shame. I would never discourage a student from working with a coach or teacher if that is what they feel they should do. I just think that so many of these coaches have come out of the woodwork in recent years and have fed the frenzy, and the angst of kids who are auditioning, so that these kids think that they are at too much of a disadvantage if they don’t have a coach. The frenzy certainly has proven profitable for the coaching industry and it’s in their best interests to have it continue. 
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<p>I think that some of them provide a valuable service to kids, and families, who truly need it. Others I’m more skeptical of, and with good reasons. I think I’ve told this story here before but a few years ago, a couple of my Ds and I were off visiting a few friends who were in a national tour. After the show one night, we were having drinks with our friends and a few of their castmates at the bar in the hotel where we were all staying. One of the castmates happened to mention that the next day he had an appointment to Skype with a student who had hired a well-known coaching service. He had been hired by this service to ‘coach’ students and his Broadway and touring credits were likely being touted. The problem was that this young man was sitting there that night saying that he had absolutely no idea how to coach high school kids for college auditions. He had received no training from the service and had never done this before. The family who were paying the big bucks obviously didn’t know this and were, in my opinion, the victims of misrepresentation. It’s entirely possible that he may have eventually been of some help to his student but it would have largely been as a result of his own efforts and not because of any great training or support that he received.</p>
<p>alwaysamom, that certainly is a scary story. To demonstrate my ignorance, I have never even heard of well-known Skype coaching services! I guess one of the problems with drama coaching is that anyone can hang out a shingle, and it is the burden of the consumer to do the legwork in checking out references and credentials. I’d like to believe that there is technique to be learned in acting (this is what I am told), as there is in other arts, even if there are some blurry lines as to who is qualified as a teacher. (One could also argue that there are many unqualified or ineffective teachers in arts disciplines, actively teaching in colleges and conservatories, but that’s another topic.) I totally hear you, with regard to feeding the panic of parents. I see this in other areas of college prep as well. </p>
<p>My family does not have your extensive and impressive qualifications, so we cannot do for our kids what you can. I trust that my daughter’s coach (well-vetted) is offering her mentorship that will serve her not only in specific college audition monologue preparations but also for her acting life in general. In addition to her monologue coach, my daughter has also studied acting at a few external programs, such as Stagedoor and CMU’s precollege program, so that adds to our sense that she is receiving input from adult professionals who can help her in ways we can’t.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom, I’d say that the ideal would be for kids to know, years and years ahead of time, that they want to attend an auditioned theatre program. It would make sense that such a kid would have picked up a fair amount of training and knowledge along the way…maybe enough so that she or he would not need a coach.</p>
<p>However, some kids make the decision as late as sophomore or junior year in high school. Some come from high schools that don’t have any kind of a drama program at all, so their training and experience has been rather catch-as-catch-can. Some families cannot afford to attend a great number of plays over the years…or perhaps they live somewhere that doesn’t have a wide range of theatrical offerings within their budget for tickets and/or travel.</p>
<p>(I must admit that I do consider it rather shocking that a kid would not be able to discuss a recent play they’d seen!)</p>
<p>I wonder if the change you refer to reflects the fact more kids than ever before are now applying to these types of programs, including some kids who might be considered less privileged in one way or another. </p>
<p>In any case, the situation is presently such a competitive one that soozievt herself, who I consider to be quite knowledgeable, has urged students to consider coaching as a way of leveling the playing field.</p>
<p>The idea of schools having to devote time to remedying deficiencies in research skills is an interesting one. I’ll have to ask my son whether his school of theatre does this.</p>
<p>In addition, I am curious about the term “packaged.” In MT, the students need to show expertise in diverse skills, so I can sort of conceive of somebody seeming packaged (i.e. a package made up of similar components)…I guess.</p>
<p>I have to wonder in what way an Acting audition would seem packaged. Maybe you mean over-coached, which would certainly be a no-no, and something that I imagine auditors would see right through. Apart from that, students differ from one another so much, and monologues differ from each other so much – I wonder where the uniformity would lie?</p>
<p>Postscript: While I was writing this, you and glassharmonica were writing posts I did not see. I can understand your concern about poorly qualified coaches taking advantage of people.</p>
<p>In addition, it has been my impression that Skype coaching services are mostly used by MT students. If I did not read the MT forum from time to time, I probably would not have heard of them either.</p>
<p>I can see all sides of this story - and I certainly don’t want more “packaged” kids.</p>
<p>Our HS had no drama teacher, either, and D wouldn’t have let the theatre director there coach her for a million dollars. Fortunately she had some other mentors, but no one who claimed to increase college acceptance rates, just nice smart people.</p>
<p>We live in a part of the country with some wonderful regional theatre, and my D was lucky enough to have chosen to see plays when traveling, too. She is a voracious reader about theatre, and has seen many filmed plays as well.</p>
<p>BUT finding 1-2-minute monologues, comedic AND serious, given by age-appropriate characters who suited her particular type, from plays from appropriate time periods, in appropriate genres (i.e. not musicals, teleplays or movie scripts), which she had seen or read in their entirety, was an extremely difficult task.</p>
<p>D’s favorite actors are often older women and men of various ages - at the age of 16/17 she just didn’t have a large repertoire of young women’s speeches at her fingertips. Oh - and you’re not supposed to use roles that you have played, either. Not to mention that HSs and youth theatres of course cast kids in all kinds of parts that are “inappropriate” for college auditions, anyway.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to sound snotty, but really the rules of this game are incredibly difficult. And I’m just talking about choosing monologues. The coaching is a wholly different subject.</p>
<p>D did not audition for MT - but she did study voice, and I will say that her repertoire of MT songs was not subject to anywhere near the restrictions that acting monologues are. She’s sung soprano, alto, pre-1960, post-1960, ingenue songs, character songs, belts, ballads and operetta. Picking songs with her voice teacher was a breeze compared to finding monologues.</p>
<p>I still vote for a standard monologue repertoire, akin to instrumental music audition pieces.</p>