Auditions - the good, the bad, and the ugly!

College Majors Musical Theater Major
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<p>OK, we all know that hindsight is 20/20, so let's try to help the next group of kids (and parents!) coming through. Try to keep descriptions short if possible.</p>

<p>Point Park Univ. (BA MT) - Nov. 9 - thank goodness we took cc's advice and started with a school further down the list. D really needed this first audition to work out the nerves. </p>

<p>Baldwin Wallace (BM MT) - Nov. 15 - Much more relaxed this time around. Unfortunately she was sick, probably from PPU audition just 5 days previous. </p>

<p>Otterbein Univ. (BFA Acting) - Dec. 7 - D glad to have a few weeks to regroup and get over cold. Drove 4 hours through a major ice storm but so glad we did.</p>

<p>Gettysburg College (BA VP/Scholarship audition) - January 18 - Drove 4 hours through horrible weather conditions - It was good to have a month to get ready for this one becuase she had to do 2 art songs along with a complete MT song as opposed to the standard MT 32 bar cuts.</p>

<p>American University (BA MT) - February 15 - Ended up not being able to make the audition because of a blizzard. Catching a theme here? Was very thankful that: (1) American allowed us to send a video audition, and (2) D already had the necessary videos because of prescreens. </p>

<p>CMU (BFA Acting 1st choice/ MT 2nd choice) - February 22 - D decided to play the CMU lottery since it's only 45 minutes from our house. Combination of "been there done that" and figuring her chances are miniscule made D much more relaxed.</p>

<p>Pace Univ. (BFA MT, BFA Acting, BA Acting) - March 1 & 2 - After much debate, D decided to cancel her auditions. She is more than a little burned out and a year of auditions helped her realize she's not ready for NYC yet.</p>

<p>Nonaudition schools: Oberlin (sent video supplement), Ohio Wesleyan (sent video for scholarship consideration), Pitt</p>

<p>WOULD DO DIFFERENT: try to make the audition season as short as possible and do Unifieds. We had originally decided to just do on campus auditions because we were worried if D got sick during Unifieds (which she usually does in February) she'd be in trouble. A good mix of Unifieds and on campus probably would have worked better.</p>

<p>WOULD DO AGAIN: D's odd mix of colleges and programs really helped her figure out what type of program she wants to spend the next 4 years pursuing. Also, keep a pdf of D/S resume and a digital copy of their headshot in your or their email. We had to make use of this at one audition.</p>

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<p>Interesting to read how different everyone’s stories are. For my son (who auditioned in 2012-13), condensing the audition season would’ve been a big mistake; his best auditions in terms of both experience and outcome were the outliers (two in early December, one in late February). The January-early Feb.-5-weeks-in-a-row cycle (which included Unifieds) was a nightmare and resulted in no acceptances. He was more relaxed and more “himself” at the first two and final one, all of which were on campus, by the way, and he acknowledged that he was burned out by the cluster effect of the intense audition season. Yet another example of the old adage “your mileage may vary”! :)</p>