@Noreplays2018 I believe that most auditors are able to identify talent, no matter how developed. The audition seems to me to be much more fair than the stuff that can be easily manipulated like testing, essay help, grade inflation, etc. I think one explanation for PA admission success is that Students whose talents are noted early by parents or others may attend PA schools and so it may appear there is an advantage, but I’d suggest PA schools just happen to have a higher concentration of talent because of who they attract. My son is in a small public school in a small town so I think I am offering an objective view. I hope!
Honestly do not think PA HS matters. My S could have gone to best one in our area but chose a private high school not known for theatre. He also didn’t really use a coach in the true sense. We did have a coach help him select monologues and songs (MT) and did a couple FaceTime talks to understand material. But the acting in the monologues were all him so too the songs. The main acting help he had was from a director he worked with in all state theatre. He did that for a couple of hours one evening. We also sent him to a MasterClass.
At that class, the CMU acting teacher told the kids that she prefers raw talent. She clearly can see coached. Her whole job is to see the “real.” I specifically asked her if it mattered my son had no formal training. Nope.
Socioeconomic differences are a huge barrier for some. But the PA angle is not one that I think matters.
@FrankieHeckish I’m one of those parents who spent countless hours in the kitchen working on his monologues. this is maybe 2 hours per day and plenty on weekends when audition time was getting close.
@actingdreams - our public HS doesn’t even have a drama teacher - there is no class for drama! I don’t begrudge the kids who have this opportunity (due to hard work and talent to enter HS) at all. My point is merely that kids that don’t have this background (and their parents who are reading this for future years) need to be better prepared for the process. Though it’s brutal for everyone.
Does anyone know if there is a BFA-Acting discussion from prior years with the data on how many students these programs accept and what their goal yield is? I have seen this for MT, but not ever Acting (though I’m not great at searching).
@actingdreams - how did you work on S’s monologues? Do you mean you critiqued him?
@MomofJ5 yes. critiqued him. I’ve never been in the acting world but I guess you would say that I “used” to be an artist. I’m a classicly trained Musician who played as a sub for a symphony my senior year in HS. I love plays but I am no actor nor did I know what a monologue was but I worked with him to get into his HS. I just looked at it as a paying patron would look at it. Does it sound believable? would he/she literally stand there with no expression?.. yes… I worked with him. Another Tidbit. At the Juilliard audition, the kids were “surprised” with an entire page of Shakespeare that they had to know the next day but was given to them in the evening after auditioning for 6 hrs straight. They had to know all of the parts…male and female. I stayed up with him until 2:45 am and woke up and went over with him at 6 am before he went back just like all of the other parents who were there did. we are part of this too. We all have invested in our kids to get this far. and as @VASkydog said. I don’t believe it’s just about him going to a PA School. these people know raw talent. your kid has gotten this far, I’m sure everyone on here has a kid with raw talent but my S. School does not train them to audition out in the world. They get a foundation. 2 of them are headed to Harvard. 2 of them are headed to Cornell on full rides. they don’t always stay with this
About schools that take kids with a lot of training versus little or no training:
Sutton Foster auditioned for CMU and was accepted. But a couple of months into her freshman year, she booked a national tour, her career took off, and she never went back. So clearly, at the time of her CMU audition, she was already SO trained and professional that she didn’t even need CMU!
On the other end of the spectrum, my son is auditioning for BFA programs at the same time as my daughter. Unlike my daughter , my son got into acting late, and does not have much training or experience. We did get coaching for him for his monologues, but not a national college coach - a local acting teacher. He had a rough audition season with a long string of rejections, but now he was just accepted to the Brooklyn College BFA acting program. So even a kid with not much training or experience can get into a BFA acting program and get great training.
Similarly, a few years ago on CC, a poster called EmmyBet said that her daughter was passionate about theatre, but didn’t have much training or experience. She got into Adelphi, which is a great BFA acting program, and it sends students to London to study Shakespeare in junior year, and she loved it.
So a talented, passionate kid without much training or experience can definitely get into a great BFA program! It’s just less likely that they’ll get into the most prestigious, competitive, elite programs. Although of course it’s still possible!
@MomofJ5 I completely understand. If no one has been transparent this year on CC, I know that I’ve tried my best. even saying things that most wouldn’t say. I have to just hope that it works out for the best and to really give what really happened. I just needed to correct you on one tidbit. My son has never had a legup on anything (no teacher or people connections), and I think I’ve stated this yesterday, he has had to work twice as hard to get as far as he has.
I think that reading good books, seeing plays and movies, reading magazines, watching the news, engaging in real world issues, connecting with people outside your normal social strata, pushing yourself academically, volunteering to help other people, working, competing at sports, listening to music, connecting with your family and other people you love – all this stuff can be preparation for acting, too.
@Jkellynh17 hear hear!
I wish I could put a huge LOVE symbol next to @Jkellynh17’s post. So true!!
@ginaf1102 yes me too! @Jkellynh17 thank you for your post. It’s all important
@Jkellynh17 - I could not agree more, and so does my D! She has written about this, yours may have too!
@actingdreams - so sorry! I never meant to suggest you weren’t transparent. You have been wonderful! Really the comment about wanting to warn next year’s folks is more about how little I knew coming in. I thought the PA HS parents/kids knew more because of the extra training, but your point about going through the auditions to get into high school is a good one. I also didn’t mean the leg up comment to be an advantage he didn’t earn. He sounds like a really hard working kid with enormous talent (and with a great mom to help coach him!)
I think someone could write a play/musical about the process - and since there are so many more girls trying out, it should be a girl centered plot!
@diamondparent My D is a current BFA Acting at PPU and she loves it! Loves Pittsburgh too! It’s a very artsy city - lots of theatres and museums and very easy to get around in.
@actingdreams - Wow. As I was reading your post about PA schools, I thought for a moment, “Did I write this?”
My S turned down a highly selective and respected PA to go to an all boys private schools where the drama department is far more focused on building community than artistically quality. A well-rounded HS education was important to him, and his dad and I. He has, however, taken theatre classes for years at a community based theatre program for children and youth. We got a coach for him, primarily to help with monologue selection.
My S is fortunate to have acceptances from a handful of great schools: TXST, DePaul, Ithaca, UArts, Rider. And, we are waiting on the final few to hear from. Another reason we invested in a coach is our S has always performed much better on stage and he has in the classroom. He’s an anomaly - just read Hamlet for pleasure (not assigned), but can never make higher than a B in English.
So, to add in my two cents about the whole PA conversation. I think whether or not you attended at PA is the major factor. But, unfortunately, like so many things in life it’s socioeconomic. Our S is an only child. If he’d had a couple of siblings, there is no way he could have had the theatre classes, coaching, and master classes along the way.
Regarding th PA high school students having an advantage in the audition process. I would say they don’t because one top tier program would never take over half it’s student body from one performing arts high school. It just wouldn’t be beneficial. So I would venture to say it would be more competitive for them just by Sheer numbers. I think it’s hard to play the numbers game. There are just too many factors in play. There are also only so many hours in the day when these kids are in high school. Every family approaches the process differently. Sometimes you just have to pick and choose what you’re going to focus on and pray it works out. Between hours required for dance classes, voice and acting classes, doing shows inside and out of schools, and classwork in school sometimes you just run out of time. Each student finds there way.
@actorparent1, @actingdreams, and any other PA HS families out there:
To clarify, I definitely did NOT mean to suggest that anyone’s kids had an UNFAIR advantage. Just that the reality of the Rutgers callback story was very eye-opening to me, and that having this kind of statistical info on outcomes could offer enormous help to self-guided families going forward.
PS Apologies for derailing the topic of this thread!
I think I will (or anyone else should feel free to) start a new thread later dedicated to lessons learned.
Hugs to everyone!