<p>My daughter just had what seemed like a great audition for Yale drama, has an excellent resume and experience and still no call back- she's already on the train to NY and moving on but I'd like to give her some good advice besides "their loss" (which it is...)for her next round of auditions this upcoming weekend. She'll be doing the Old Globe auditions and the URTA auditions. What in the world are they after? Yes, I know this will be viewed as biased but she really does look terrific, sounds great, has a great mind and interpretive skills ,,,and audiences have loved her work in regional theatre, so its not just mama saying this! She wants to move on to a mfa training program. Any advice on how to get past the front door would be helpful. I should mention she got a call back at Tisch, so not all is gloomy but some solid advice would be good:) Thanks in advance:)</p>
<p>Each school will be looking for something different depending on the casting needs and the aesthetic of the program. All she can do is put herself out there at her best. Graduate schools are looking to cast a company of actors… more women will audition, but often more men will be accepted because most plays (particularly the classics) have more roles in them for men than women. These auditions are like most professional auditions. Just like auditioning for a show, you might not always be “right.” Maybe in another year she would be, or maybe she is just what that particular school is looking for in an actor. </p>
<p>For whatever reason at Yale this time around she was not what they were looking for. This does not mean she isn’t skilled (obviously, since she is working as an actor), just not what that particular school is looking for at this time. At schools like Yale, Julliard, and NYU many people audition multiple times before being accepted. </p>
<p>At the end of this audition cycle she can look at her acceptances and decide whether any of these schools are schools which accept her are schools she would really like to attend. If not, she can revamp the list, continue working and training for another year, and audition again for the next cycle if she chooses. </p>
<p>That is wonderful about her callback at Tisch! I think she should take that as an indication that she is competitive for graduate school admissions, forget about Yale for now, and look forward to her upcoming auditions, including the Tisch callback!</p>
<p>One bit of advice about URTA… even if she does not get passed on from the pre-screening she should attend the 1-minute open call audition. She should make sure she has a 1-minute monologue ready for this purpose. If she does pass the pre-screen and is passed through to the auditions for the schools she may end up with quite a few callbacks and be bouncing around all day. Pack granola bars, trail mix, water, etc… :)</p>
<p>Wow! Thank you so much for the great advice- we told her some of this but it helps so much to hear it from a professional. The Urta auditions are new to us so your words of advice are gold! Our goal right now is to keep her focused on auditioning as much as possible as many places as is reasonable given she is understudying one role, going into rehearsals for another and directing 2 more shows at her current theatre- it certainly isn’t easy to try to take the next step when you are already going a mile a minute just to get as much experience as you can. Many thanks again!!!</p>
<p>To piggyback on KatMT, a mentor of my son is a theater teacher at a local university. When my S did not get a callback for his first audition this year, he told him that a lot of schools have a good idea what their productions will be for the next three years and so they are evaluating kids based on their casting needs over the next several years. He said this is particularly true for schools that don’t have playwriting programs (for which they cast minor shows) or schools that put on a couple “edgy” shows (since “edgy” changes all the time).</p>
<p>Thanks- again it is good to hear this from someone who actually knows as we have heard similar but you never really know. It seems that there is so much to learn about all of the schools and their programs and it is definitely not a one size fits all commodity.</p>
<p>This forum is great- so glad I found it and thanks for taking the time to reply!</p>
<p>My daughter went through the process three years ago and it is surely difficult. It may be worth your daughter’s while to do a search of other schools that may be in town to audition during the timeframe of the URTA. My daughter found some schools via Backstage audition notices. She was called back by two of these schools. Ultimately, she received a very generous scholarship to the program she is currently attending. It helped that she kept an open dialogue with her auditioner about her desire to attend their program and why. I hope this helps and the best of luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>Thanks- good advice and nice to hear from someone who has been through this. Can you tell me, and sorry for the dumb question;) but what excatly do you mean by keeping in touch- did she e-mail her auditioner? And how do you know who is auditioning you? Is this something she would do for every audition?Thanks!</p>
<p>Not a dumb question at all. She seemed to have had a great audition. He gave his email and indicated that she could email with any questions. So she sent various emails. At first the correspondence was on her part letting him know that she was extremely interested in their program. Then she felt comfortable asking when they would be making their decision. She had one other acceptance under her belt. At the time the school was in the middle of cut backs and it wasn’t clear if there was going to be money for assistantships so she wrote back indicating that she was still interested in the program.</p>
<p>I am not sure how it works for other MFA programs, but in this case, I think it was a real benefit to her that she made the contact. The auditioner became a real advocate for her and ultimately became her advisor.</p>
<p>She was accepted and right before she started the money for the assistantship was available. That was so lucky in the end.</p>