<p>A reminder for all auditioning at PSU this Saturday (2/26)...I will be speaking to the parents and answering questions along with two current juniors in the program. My daughter, Casey, will be signing everyone in...make sure you let us know who you are....looking forward to meeting some of you CC folks this weekend!
Susan...are you going to Sweet Charity Fri night? I will be there after the show (yes, Casey is in it...she plays "Vicky"). I'll look for you and your D!</p>
<p>How wonderful you shaved a year's tuition off! How many AP classes did your d take? And which studio was she in?</p>
<p>Hi! My d has a good friend at PSU; initials AW. He's a freshman. Do you know him? (Or does she?)</p>
<p>I'll ask her if she knows him, but my guess would be def yes, each class only has 10 - 15 students and her class (sophs) are mentors to the freshman class. She has 2 mentees and one is a boy whose first name begins with A!</p>
<p>BdwayMom....Yep, we have tix to Friday night's performance of Sweet Charity. I sent you an email but we look forward to finally connecting. It will be great, as well, to meet someone in this program as my D does not have any friends in this particular program as in the others to which she has applied. Tell Casey to break a leg. Can't wait...
Susan</p>
<p>Rossji
I spoke with my D and A is one of her mentee's! Small world, but then the theater community is one small world altogether where you almost always will find someone that you have in common. I'm sure most of us here on CC have at least 1 person that our children have performed with or know that another has as well. Best to all of you finishing up auditions and many, many congrats to all who are starting to get those acceptance letters rolling in. This is just the start.....</p>
<p>susan-
my daughter, Rachel, an soph MT, will also be helping with the PSU auditions on Saturday. Sounds as though you already have a connection through bdwaymom, but as we are locals to State College, feel free to e mail me with any additional questions you might have. We'll be at the closing night performance of Charity so I probably won't get a chance to meet you, but I hope you and your D have a good experience at Penn State.</p>
<p>Monkey, Thank you so much. We will be on the lookout for Rachel at the audition date. Is she in Sweet Charity as well? We will see that on Friday night. I am sorry I won't meet you but most important is for my D to get a chance to talk to kids in this program because it is one of the only programs she is auditioning for where she does not have any friends and it always helps to talk to those who are DOING it! Of course, getting into the programs is a different story. I just hope it does not snow as I am driving a rental car from State College to CMU. I am starting to feel like a travel agent lately. ;)</p>
<p>Cato
Did your child audition on the 21st? Would love to hear about the audtion.</p>
<p>susan,
I will be sure to tell Rachel to look for the girl from Vermont! Casey will be able to connect them as well. Rachel is in the ensemble of Sweet Charity - look for the tall, leggy girl in a platinum blonde wig (!). The costumes are wild in this show. I think it captures the fun and passion of a Fosse musical. I wish you safe travels with NO SNOW. The weather forecast just calls for a few snow showers right now. There is a special place in heaven for theatre parents, don't you think?</p>
<p>Monkey, thanks so much. I told my daughter who is here right now (we are on school vacation) and it is really great to be able to meet some kids as she does not know any in the program. My niece is a freshman at Penn State but not in theater and we will be seeing her as well. Casey and her mom know my D's name so they can tell Rachel and she will see the forms or whatever at the sign in. I am sure it will work out. </p>
<p>I know what you mean about theater parents but ya know, it is not all that different than all the other parent "hats" I feel I have worn over the years with all their activities. Though I must say the college auditions are a big thing as it is not the same as regular college visits that you can spread out over time but they are all in a very condensed period of time. Right now, we are pretty much going to these every other weekend but on the opposite weekends I have been traveling to my other D (college freshman) ski races out of state so I have been traveling, traveling, traveling. I have to miss her Eastern Championships this weekend but my hubby will travel to those. I just have to not mix up which kid I say "break a leg" to, ya know?
Susan</p>
<p>Ha Ha Susan,
You cracked me up. I actually laughed out loud at the computer. I see myself in your shoes in a few years. My current senior will be a junior in college (and hopefully involved in shows) when my freshman is visiting and auditioning. (I'm guessing she'll do acting or MT as well) It's been crazy enough with one at home, usually my husband stays and gets the younger non-driver to dance classes on Saturdays while I'm with the older one auditioning. Even though things are crazy right now, I keep reminding myself that soon they will be gone and I'll be wishing for these days....at least that's what I keep telling myself!</p>
<p>Hello everyone. I am a little overdue on my promise to report on the L.A. Unifieds, but I too have been busy with my older D at her college celebrating her 21st birthday. Boy do I feel old! Anyway, I want you all to know for next year that we attempted to do the impossible by auditioning at 7 schools on Feb. 13 & 14 in L.A. and even a drop-in with Dr. John. He fit us in as his last audition of the day and he gave her one of the best acting lessons she has every had. Thank you Dr. John, and it was truly a pleasure meeting you and I felt she got a great deal out of her time with you. </p>
<p>I have to say, that while we were extremely skeptical about attempting to do 5 auditions on Sunday and 2 on Monday it was doable and we were successful with our timing. I think the reason it was doable was that basically she only had one dance audition on each day, except for a couple of improvs that schools requested she do just to show them she how she moved. This way she basically was only doing monologues and songs. Was the planning to get it right difficult? Absolutely. I had to juggle many of the times with the schools ahead of time just to not have some overlap. We started at 8:30 and finished at 6:00. We got a room at the hotel where the auditions were held so when she had a break she could rest and clean up a little. I think without this she would have been too tired for the next day. Needless to say, she fell asleep at 8:00 that night. It was nice to just order room service and go to sleep without having to drive an hour each way home and back again the next day. The only problem I see with unifieds is while a lot of the schools don't have dance auditions and if this is where you feel you shine, you might be at a disadvantage. </p>
<p>The next morning we only had 2 auditions. The one in the morning was in our hotel (Sheraton Gateway) and the one in the afternoon was down the street at another hotel (LAX Hilton). Since these hotels are near the airport and provide airport parking, it was expensive to park. I was surprised to see quite a few schools at the 2nd hotel also but most of these schools were for straight drama. CMU, which is where we were auditioning, took up quite a bit of space and had a lot of auditioners. They had 2 big groups on Sunday and 2 on Monday. First they gave a little talk to the parents and then divided up the group into straight drama and MT's. Then they divided up the MT's into groups who would dance first and those who did monologues and songs. </p>
<p>My D was so excited to see friends from all over at these auditions. She even saw kids from her summer program at CMU. It is truly a small MT world! All of the kids (including mine) were very excited to be there. I think that this was truly the highlight of this whole process and she had a lot of fun with it as did I. All I could do was hang around and be supportive, but I must say it was truly a bonding experience. On the way home we could not stop talking about our 2 days and recapping everything that had gone on. I was thrilled that we stayed healthy throughout this process so that she felt she could give it her all. </p>
<p>By the way, definitely bring a CD/tape player with you. Some kids did not and needed to borrow ours. Put some lead time on your tape or CD because you are the one to press play and then you need to run back to your spot to start singing. Also, while some schools want 16 bar ballads and 32 bar up-tempos, some say give me about a minute for each song, etc. we ended up going with 1 version for each song which was about 40 bars for the uptempo and definitely less than 1 minute for the ballad (not sure how many bars). Going from room to room and changing where you start the song can get really confusing I would think. We were prepared for exactly what they wanted, but she decided to keep things simple so as not to get confused and start singing in the wrong place. They can cut you off if they want.</p>
<p>If any of you have any questions about individual schools, feel free to e-mail me.</p>
<p>monkey and bdwaymom--can your D's look out for my D too? We're staying at the Inn on campus as one of you suggested, and then D is going to sit in on classes on Friday and we're going to Sweet Charity that night. Soozievt will recognize my D and me since we've been at a number of the same auditions, but I look forward to meeting you, too. We're looking forward to Sweet Charity!</p>
<p>Good luck to all at the PSU audition! My sophmore D is also in "Sweet Charity" and we will be there for closing night.</p>
<p>Hi Bwymom! We spoke earlier about our d's not getting leads in the HS plays. Funny, that your d is the mentor for my d's friend! AW is a great kid. He was in 2 shows with my d, A Chorus Line and West Side Story. Tell your d to tell him Brittany from CT says Hi! :) Is he in Sweet Charity? I was supposed to go down there in Dec. with his parents to see him in A New Brain, but he was having trouble with his vocal cords (inflammation, or something!) so he wasn't going to perform in it.</p>
<p>Ahh! There has been some talk about PSU, and so I finally have gotten the chance to post instead of relaying messages to my mom (Bdwaymom). Newmtmom- I will definately look out for your daughter. I am signing people in first thing in the morning, and Cary Libkin usually introduces me, but if you want, you can send me a private message with her name and I will be sure to look for her in class and at the audition! Rossji-what a small world! AW is one of my freshman mentee's! He's great...unfortunately, he did have problems with his vocal chords during first semester and had to take it easy, so he wasn't able to perform in A New Brain. I believe his voice is doing much better now! I'm sure he's building a lot of stamina, too, from doing a show every night!
Anyone else coming to PSU this weekend--please mention you are from CC when you come to sign in! I'm very excited to meet everyone...I'll be there throughout the day watching auditions/talking to everyone. And if you get a chance--come see "Sweet Charity"!</p>
<p>P.S. Susan--I told Rachel about your D, she will be looking out for her as well!</p>
<p>anyone know much about Univ Of Miami's MT program??</p>
<p>PSU Dad,
Now I'm intrigued.....whose soph MT dad are you? We're also going to be at closing night for Sweet Charity. Will you be going to the breakfast at the Nittany Lion Inn planned for parents and kids by the sophmores? Rachel just told me about it last night. </p>
<p>newmtmom,
I wil certainly tell Rachel to look out for your D at auditions. If she's with Susan's D I'm sure Rachel will be able to figure it out. Good wishes for the audition - snow arriving today but shouldn't pose a travel problem for Friday I don't think. Which class is your D visiting?</p>
<p>Monkey...see you at brunch on Sunday...we'll be there, too!</p>
<p>Newmtmom....we are also staying at the Inn and checking in tomorrow afternoon. I will E mail you and give you our name if you'd like to meet up. </p>
<p>PSUdad....yay! A soph PSU dad is posting now, too. We are also seeing the show Sat night. See you there!</p>
<p>Michele</p>