<p>Bisou and 5boys, my son and daughter did not use coaches, but were very fortunate to be able to work with their local theatre directors and teachers. They started over the summer, though. They chose monologues, read plays and worked on their essays. By the end of August, the monologues were well on their way and the essays were finished, just needed to be fine tuned for each school. I highly encourage you to start now with the monologues.</p>
<p>This whole thing of âMy kid didnât have an audition coachâthey just worked with their acting teacherâ is silly to me. In this case, the acting teacher WAS the audition coach. There is no âmysticismâ about acting coaches. Itâs just anyone you can work with to improve your audition. Like an acting teacher who would be willing to help you for free.</p>
<p>I think I am just saying you need to work with SOMEONE on your audition. If you donât have an acting teacher who is willing to help you for free, you are going to have to find someone else.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
1 Like
<p>No really. An acting coach is not the same thing as a college audition coach. And a high school drama teacher is not usually an acting coach. Mine sure isnât.</p>
<p>Not sure I agree with actor 12. My daughters acting/college audition coach was from MTCA and he was a huge help. My D has been acting for years with all different directors and auditioning all over but still found her acting coach for college really was spot on with the assistance he gave in suggesting monologues which really fit her well, going over them with her, giving her the confidence she needed to go into these top programs and pushing her to consider schools she hadnât thought of as she wasnât sure if they were too âout of her reachâ. A coach is a coach, whether it be an acting teacher or trained actor, if itâs someone giving you guidance.</p>
<p>KEVP, an acting teacher is not an acting coach. There is a difference.</p>
<p>A college audition coach may also be an acting coach or may refer you to an acting coach, voice teacher, dance workshop, or whatever else you need but their specialty is helping get you accepted into college. That also involves knowledge of the various programs and an eye for where your student falls in the competiveness of the process. They donât just help with monologue preparation, they assist with the entire process of college auditions which begins with a realistic list and probably includes some monologue coaching. College audition coaches pick outfits, shoes, and hairstyles. An acting coach may be very good at training actors to audition well but could easily be quite clueless about typing and targeting schools. Donât even get me started on the typical high school drama class.</p>
<p>Opinions - Is it beneficial to have more than one coach/teacher help on the monologues? My daughterâs theater teacher has offered to help her prepare as well as 2 others in the business. This seems like this could be confusing. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Ideally, coaching should be done by someone with extensive knowledge of the college audition process who has helped others be admitted to selective programs. College auditions are quite different from auditions for acting roles. You are not so much showing you can play a role; rather, you are demonstrating aspects of yourself.</p>
<p>Generally, such a coach charges a fairly stiff fee and you would only need the one coach.</p>
<p>If you are receiving audition advice from other people who do not meet the above criteria, it might not hurt to get more than one opinion.</p>
<p>If these are just nice people (but experienced in the business) who have said âHey, why doesnât your daughter do her audition for me, maybe I can give her some tipsâ I donât see how it can hurt. Your daughter will at least get some more experience giving her audition in front of someone, and seeing how different people react.</p>
<p>She might get conflicting advice. How will she handle that? She is going to need to ultimately decide for herself which advice to follow.</p>
<p>But I agree with NJTheatreMOM that you donât need to pay stiff coaching fees to more than one person. (and maybe not even one if you can find someone willing to do it for free)</p>
<p>KEVP</p>
<p>My sonâs acting coach helped a lot with monologue selection and preparation and polish, and mentioned some schools that he thought were among the top ones, but we did the rest of the research ourselves. Iâd say âWhat about such-and-such,â and get an opinion. That worked fine for us â it wasnât with someone whose primary job is helping families and students with the college audition and application process. There are a lot of different ways to do it. This happened to be a local theatre professional who had directed a couple of plays my son was in, and they worked well together.</p>
<p>One person is her theater teacher, the other is an acting coach (not college audition) and the other is a professional actress. All have offered to help her for freeâŠI just didnât know if she would find it confusing to have more than one refining her monologues. Thanks for the help :)</p>
<p>My son worked with a few folks, but they were people who really knew him and had worked extensively with him.</p>
<p>Thank you for this valuable advice - now I need to convince my d!</p>
<p>Other than the references to the musical theater coaching company I havenât seen advice on how to find a college audition coach. Any advice?</p>
<p>By the way MTCA is not for just musical theater applicants. I know kids who have used them who were going for musical theater, acting, as well as directing. If you have any specific questions about them you can pm me. Other then them I donât know of any. I am sure there are people on here who can recommend others.</p>
<p>I also highly recommend MTCA. Iâm going for straight acting, and my coach has been exponentially helpful! He has guided me through picking my material along with help narrowing my list down. All the acting staff (as well as the MT) have all trained at top schools in their category (CMU,Juilliard, Yale ect.), so I wouldnât shy away just because itâs called âMusical Theater College Auditionsâ.</p>
<p>I highly recommend Mary Anna Dennard, even for short-term coaching. What a pro!</p>
<p>My S only finalized his plans to apply to Acting programs right before Christmas. By January he had chosen two audition pieces based on monologue books his H.S. drama director gave him, and advice from a student who had attended his H.S. (now at Tisch). Over the holidays I read Mary Anna Dennardâs book, started spending time on CC, and proceeded to get a bit freaked out at our lack of knowledge and preparation for the whole auditions process. Out of desperation, I contacted Mary Anna, figuring that she might say it was too late for her to help my S. She was unbelievable! She responded right away, and within 24 hours, S and I had a Skype consult with her. She strongly urged him to nix his monologue choices, and worked with him to choose new ones that would showcase his acting strengths - all via Skype. She also suggested a couple of schools that he hadnât applied to, but which might be a good fit for him. After that, she and S had a few more Skype sessions to work on monologues. The result was that S went into his auditions with confidence and excitement. My only regret is that I didnât contact Mary Anna earlier. S could have used more work on his Shakespeare monologue before the Chapman audition, which he feels he bombed. And perhaps he would applied to more schools. </p>
<p>The results have been great - S has been accepted to Pace BFA Acting for Film, TV, Voiceover & Commercials, as well as Loyola Marymount BA Theater Arts (DVD audition). Weâre still waiting to hear from USC, Chapman and NYU. </p>
<p>This isnât contradicting others, because there are many excellent coaches, only adding to the discussion: I strongly recommend folks considering Lisbeth Bartlett. She does Skype and is based in Philadelphia.Her prices are very reasonable considering the quality and depth of instruction. She is a professional actress herself and has had very strong successes. She is very individual and works with whatever you want. </p>
<p>If you live in a town/city with strong theater, absolutely do check out local actors and directors. My daughter and several of her friends each found coaches within our theater community (professional regional repertory theater). The generosity of actors and their willingness to give back to the younger generation of artists is one of the special aspects of theater. As glass harmonica stated, feedback from a professional rather than a parent while refining monologue choices is very valuable. My daughterâs coach assisted her in choosing monologues - she did tons of research and a lot of reflection on the type of pieces she wanted to find - but in the end he suggested a bold choice one of her monologues that technically broke the rules (not verse) but was a good piece for her for other reasons. Each week during the audition process my daughter would meet with her coach and return home more confident and excited; the mentor relationship is beneficial even beyond the practical audition prep aspects.</p>