<p>My S just wrapped up his last audition this weekend. Just wondering if any other parents have mixed feelings like I do. On the one hand I'm relieved that the pre-audition anxiety is over (mostly for me -- he was cool as a cucumber), I'm a little sad that the father/son road show has come to an end. Instead of waiting for the audition call it's now waiting for the mail to arrive and without the little adventures of finding the perfect little restaurant or coffee shop to unwind -- oh well...</p>
<p>Hey! I’m not a parent, but I too just finished my audition run (yesterday at SUNY Purchase). I’m feeling the ambivalent emotions as well. On the one hand I’m done, which is a huge relief. On the other hand, I’m now stuck waiting for mail/calls for over a month and I can’t stop thinking that I didn’t quite do my best on many of these auditions. Who knows. And now that auditions are over, I don’t really have an excuse for being constantly tired and nervous!</p>
<p>WMD – as you’re about to find out, this is the hardest part of the whole process: waiting. I felt the same way when my daughter went through it four years ago. Good luck!</p>
<p>When my daughter finished auditioning about this time 3 years ago, we too had some ambivalence, more me than my daughter. She was glad the stress of auditioning while keeping up with schoolwork was over. I missed the father/daughter time of traveling with her to all the auditions and the fun we had exploring new places. The waiting became the hardest part. My wife and daughter found a great cheap 5 day package to London that cost less for the 2 of them than the costs of all her auditions and traveling and left me home to watch the mailbox. While they were going to shows in London and seeing the sights to alleviate their anxiety over the next steps, I was sweating the bullets over the daily mail. Hardly fair!</p>
<p>exciting time.
The days are already dragging.
Long wait for dramatic young people and their parents.</p>
<p>April can’t come quick enough.</p>
<p>In a way, it is like the latter stages of a pregnancy. Something momentous is going to happen, on or about a certain date, that will utterly change everybody’s lives…but the precise outcome is unknown.</p>
<p>At this time last year, my son had already experienced one denial, from a school that lets applicants know early…and for a while, he was worried about whether he would be accepted into any auditioned acting program at all. </p>
<p>His first “fat envelope” (the first of three, thank god) was like a benediction. I still remember typing the news, with trembling fingers, on the big list of Acting/MT acceptances over on the MT forum. </p>
<p>But if all my son’s envelopes had been thin, we had already informed ourselves about the benefits of a gap year…thanks to the wisdom of CC. 
Anybody who’s chewing their fingernails to the elbow waiting to hear from schools might find it helpful and calming to spend some time perusing gap year threads.</p>
<p>This too will pass, the snow will melt, and one day we’ll be saying, like the poet, “où sont les neiges d’antan?”</p>
<p>Best of luck to everybody!</p>
<p>It’s like the let down when a play you are in ends, the post production blues. Only cure is to embark on the next adventure.</p>
<p>NJTM – I’m not sure where the snows of yesteryear are but the snows of this year are still in DC as we saw firsthand this weekend when visiting…</p>
<p>hotNcold – I think it’s a little more than that… It’s the feeling that you’ve done all you can as a parent to support your child’s dream and now it’s out of your hands… Helplessly hoping…wordlessly watching (with thanks to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)</p>
<p>Onstage – thanks</p>
<p>I have to admit that I am completely and utterly relieved that my part in the audition process is over. There are two more, and he will take himself to both of them. I think it is obviously important for parents of kids going through this process to be supportive—it seems this is like no other application process in higher education. Sometimes I wonder, though… I have seen parents at auditions acting like their son or daughter’s dresser, handing the bottles of water over, whipping out the comb to freshen the hairstyle, even holding a towel like a bib under a kid’s chin while she ate lunch so that no food crumbs would soil her dress. This wasn’t the norm by any stretch, but we witnessed enough of this kind of behavior that I wonder if all this “behind the scenes” work by the parents is really beneficial to the kids in the end. No, I am not against parents helping their kids, and am NOT (repeat: not!) accusing anyone on this thread or forum of being a “stage” parent in the pejorative sense of that term—but the extent of the symbiotic relationship of kid/star : parent/handmaid was a real eye opener for me.</p>
<p>I only had one audition, and while I was bummed that the process started and ended so quickly, I must admit that it’s been a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I also learned four pieces specifically for my audition, and those four pieces are really strong backbones for my repertoire. Even if I don’t get into that school (and I probably won’t, though it would be great if I did), it was an incredible learning process for me. I’d never done anything like it before, but it’s nice knowing that there are things I can do. I never would have guessed that I can read/skim through 12 plays in 2 hours looking for the perfect monologue, but discovered that I can! I ended up making both of my monologues out of dialogue, a skill with which I had no experience before. I learned so much during this process that even if I don’t get into that school, I’ll still have gained a very solid base for any future auditions.</p>
<p>Also, my mother didn’t attend my only audition. She opted to sleep in instead. Don’t think that she’s not supportive, she’s beyond supportive. She’s great. But I think it was better for me not to have her there, because while I’m usually very open as an actor, I’m much more self-conscious around my parents in broad daylight. I don’t know what it is, but I think both of our time was better spent the way we did it. I’m not by any means saying that this is the right solution for everyone, but I think it worked out well for me.</p>
<p>WMD: tomorrow I go back to school for the first time in a week and a half. You have no clue how aggravated my teachers are. We students didn’t mind, though. :)</p>
<p>skipsmom – glad I didn’t witness any of the “stage” parent behavior you cite. I think a parent’s role is to try to find ways to be supportive and identify ways to reduce the stress involved. In our case, it involved getting to the audition sites with time to spare, knowing all the audition requirements (monologue types, time limits, paperwork required, etc.) well ahead of time, making each trip a mini travel adventure – finding neat stores, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. to kill time before and after auditions, exploring different parts of the cities we visited, etc. We don’t have pinkberry where we live so it’s always a treat to seek out a little frozen yogurt when we travel… As middle-aged parents (who may not be doing what we envisioned when we were teenagers) we hope that our kids can hang onto their dreams as long as possible… But I’ll remember fondly the neat little experiences we collected along the way…</p>
<p>Skipsmom: I have finished my auditions, and I miss the thrill of it. My parents were not with me, because I prefer it that way. I completely agree with your observations of some parents. At Juilliard, one mother even yelled at her daughter in dissappointment after she did not receive a call back. I felt so bad for the poor girl.</p>
<p>We are down to one more…and it can’t come soon enough. It has been exciting and fun, yet the entire process from application to audition has me exhausted. Not having been through the college application process before - my son is our oldest - I hope that the waiting game isn’t as bad as you have all stated. He has auditioned for ten schools and has recieved one rejection letter. The other schools are in a holding pattern at this time.
Although I am pooped, my son seems to grow more confident with each audition. </p>
<p>I know that my son and I will have many more adventures…but I will miss the parents that I have met along the way. They were wonderful! All of them were kind and supportive - we all could bounce ideas off each other, and we looked for each other at the next audition. The odds are that our kids will not land at the same school, so we probably won’t cross paths again. To those parents out there, thank you for making this a time in our lives that we will never forget.</p>
<p>AustinMTmom - I look forward to finally meeting you next weekend!</p>
<p>WellMeaningDad – Wow, what a week to be in D.C.!!</p>
<p>HotNCold – The letdown when a play is over = “post dramatic stress disorder.” :)</p>
<p>wisdomsomehow – It was interesting to hear about what you learned from your college audition preparation. </p>
<p>General comment: At its best, I think the audition process can lead to a level of mutual admiration between parent(s) and child that might not have existed before. We get a chance to witness our kids’ passion and dedication and focus in a way we might not see every day, and they get a chance to experience our practical supportiveness in a very direct and concentrated form.</p>
<p>2dogs1cat, this is our last child going through the college application process. We have one business major and one engineer… both programs dependent upon the standard application and VERY straightforward compared to this journey :)</p>
<p>2dogs1cat - We are looking forward to meeting you and your S too!! This Saturday will be my D’s last college audition as well. </p>
<p>WellMeaningDad - It has been an adventure for us as well. It snowed at every on campus audition and we spent lots of time in the car and on planes. But as exhausted as I am I loved every minute of it. I am glad I was able to go along for the ride ;)</p>
<p>We also met so many wonderful parents/kids along the way. I wish there was a way to know where all of them end up. And of course there were a few stage parents along the way but you wonder how those kids will function when mom/dad isn’t there with them at college. </p>
<p>I do hate the waiting. But fortunately for us D has a show opening this week and auditions for summer options to prepare for/attend so hopefully we will continue to keep busy.</p>
<p>Best of luck to all!!!</p>
<p>D finished her 9th audition in 8 days yesterday! Most were last weekend at LA Unifieds, but we had to make two more trips to LA this past week for auditions. She actually has one left, but not until the end of March. </p>
<p>As other parents have said I am a bit sad as I really have enjoyed spending this special time with D. We have so many funny memories from all the U-turns I ended up making whenever we were driving to a new place to cheese and cracker picnics on hotel room beds the night before Unifieds. I will always treasure these memories with the 18 year old D.</p>
<p>We also met many wonderful parents along the way and reconneted with a friend and her mom that D had started doing theatre with when she was 8 years old. I was most impressed by how nice most of the parents were and did not end up seeing any terrible “stage parent” behavior.</p>
<p>D is happy that it is over for now as this has been an incredibly busy month for her. Now we just wait, hope and pray that someone, somewhere will want her in their program!</p>
<p>My D finished the last of 12 auditions Saturday. We are both relieved. She let herself be “exhausted” and slept the entire ride home. She has two weeks before her school musical opens, so she’s got something to keep her very busy at least through the next 3 weeks. She can focus on other things so the wait won’t be too bad for her. It’s a different story for me! We’ve all invested so much in this process. When it’s over, it’s hard to just set it aside. We very much enjoyed the time spent together both with each other and the other parents and auditionees we met along the way. All the best to all the kids. And peaceful waiting to the parents!</p>
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<p>So true! It was a long time before I could even bring myself to throw away the folders we had so carefully assembled for the schools where my son was denied!!</p>
<p>My S pretty much finished the last of his auditions on Sunday (he missed one in NYC last weekend because we couldn’t travel on account of the snow, but it’s uncertain at this point whether he will make it up). My sentiments are pretty much the same as others on this thread. We traveled to NYC for auditions several times recently and at times it began to feel as though NYC was our 2nd home. We also met some very lovely people at the auditions. We were even at a restaurant in NYC some distance from the prior audition site and my S realized that the mother and D at the table next to us had just been at the same audition - we ended up having a very pleasant conversation. My S looked forward to each audition - what would the audition be like? would he discern any reaction from the auditors? To him, it seemed that each audition was very different. His last audition was especially poignant for me - it was at my undergraduate alma mater and I enjoyed walking around the campus while he auditioned - I had not been on it in years. It seemed that things had come full circle with my accompanying to a place that I had attended. And, yes, the waiting has begun. Best wishes to each student and their very patient parent(s). I wish I could calculate the number of hours I have waited for my S at auditions, etc. over the years - it seems like it must be in the thousands and yet I will always have fond memories of those times.</p>