<p>Hey everyone, so I'm trying to find some affordable people to run my audition sets with, but I just don't have the money to travel up to NYC for classes or anything because of auditions. I'm looking for some one-on-one sessions, preferably for under $100. My number one choice right now is Michigan, so I really need all the help I can get. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Oh, and I’m also in the North Carolina area, and I can drive like maybe one state away?</p>
<p>tarheeltenor, do you mean $100 total, or $100/session? Also, there are many coaches who work via Skype so you don’t have to be confined to physical place. Have you looked at MTCA?</p>
<p>MCA and MTCA do skype coaching.
Others will also probably do it via skype.
Do NOT Cheap out, this is not what you want to save money on.</p>
<p>Would your theater teacher work with you?</p>
<p>most HS theater teachers don’t know how to prepare students for college auditions</p>
<p>Why not? They know the student better than anyone else, they have built a report and a sense of trust. They know the student’s strengths and weaknesses as an actor. I would think they would be a great asset to the process.</p>
<p>Most HS teachers don’t know how to prepare students for college auditions because most high school drama teachers have no experience or expertise with respect to the college audition process. Obviously, if you go to a performing arts high school where half the school is auditioning for colleges every year you are in a different situation. At our very large public high school, the Drama teacher is an English teacher who directs the one dramatic and one musical a year. It is actually kind of generous to call her a drama teacher because the school doesn’t actually offer drama classes nor do I think she’d qualify to be able to teach drama. I suspect our situation was not that different than many others. </p>
<p>Thanks to some recommendations from CC parents, my daughter used a women about an hour from our house whose qualifications included many years as a working theater actress, experience teaching at a BFA program, and many years of working with students getting them ready for college auditions. The gulf between what my daughter’s high school “drama” teacher could have done to help her versus who she actually went to was enormous. </p>
<p>I should add that lots of people have been successful with a combination of summer programs or local theater people or particularly good high school teachers so I don’t mean to suggest it can’t be done. But mom2gals is absolutely right IMO that most high school teachers don’t know how to prepare students for college auditions.</p>
<p>Our HS drama club advisor is a good director, but he is no where near the caliber of my D’s acting teacher. Her acting teacher and coach is an adjunct professor at U Arts, is certified in Chekhov and Williamson techniques and is familiar with other techniques as well. She has been teaching acting for over 20 years. My D has been with her for three and a half years so she knows her very well. At the high school, they are just this year doing a serious drama and I think the drama club advisor is just now realizing my D’s full capabilities! He too is an English teacher and drama club advisor.
Before this advisor my D had one who was a wretched director and acting teacher…she actually told them to “make sure you are moving around enough. Do some kind of gesture every three lines.” Yeah, that’s natural and how we all speak! A gesture every three sentences. haha. My D was horrified.
Looking for a coach via Skype seems like a good idea.</p>
<p>My daughters high school drama teacher is obsessed with blocking, changing his mind and reblocking. Once when asked why she wasn’t writing down her blocking and she answered sweetly saying she has worked with him long enough to know that it would be changing next week. Seemed pointless.</p>
<p>Really, not to slam HS acting but the truth is most of it is not actually acting at all. It’s not much more than saying your lines clearly. And sometimes that’s a challenge. Of course, there are exceptions but I do believe most is probably pretty accurate.</p>
<p>tarheel, don’t feel pressured into spending money you don’t have or will need to use elsewhere in the audition process. Your budget is what it is, and that is okay. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find someone to work with you on your monologues. I’m saying be an informed and diligent consumer in this process. Make sure you are informed, able to take direction and think on your feet, and most of all, know your monologues and be true.</p>
<p>As for high school directors, my son didn’t go to a performing arts high school, but in the last five years alone, seven or eight kids from his high school drama program have gone on to some very good drama or MT programs. The director and musical director might not be in tune with the college audition process from an “inside hints and tricks of the trade” perspective, but they sure seem to run a program that prepares kids for a college drama or MT program. Obviously some of those kids had outside training, but the only one who had an audition coach was an english major by sophomore year. The greatest lesson they all learned was respect for the process and respect for the people in charge of the process, even when they don’t agree with things. I’m not saying his experience is the norm, but it’s not rare either.</p>
<p>I think there is only one way you can really know whether a certain individual would be a valuable coach for somebody preparing for college auditions. If they have coached (or taught) a number of people who have gotten accepted into good programs, then the proof is in the pudding.</p>
<p>Exactly NJTM, there are some fabulous HS theatre directors in non performing arts schools who an be very helpful in the process of selecting material and auditioning for colleges. Be careful in making that decision to use them to guide you.</p>
<p>They may be great at taking a script like Les Mis or Secret Garden or Hamlet or As You Like It casting it and turning it into a production that sells the house. However, are they good at guiding your S or D in chosing the correct script and piece of a play that has the kind of dialogue in it and the type of characters from which he/she can piece together an effective monologue which shows your S or D’s acting assets? </p>
<p>This is a completely different skill set. From talking to many parents whose kids have and haven’t made it through this daunting audition process, it appears that the effective Hs drama teacher as college audition mentor has been a rare bird. If this works for your S or D then go for it of course.</p>
<p>I think my point has less to do with outside coach vs. teacher/director and more to do with overall readiness and preparation. The audition coaching phenomenon has overshadowed something that is far more important than all of these supposed secrets the coaches have (and I maintain that there is nothing a coach can tell you that you can’t find out through due diligence, and nobody here has ever proven anything different to me). And that is the process, the work ethic, the true appreciation for the works and the RESPECT for those who are directing and educating. Because of those lessons, my son was able to research and choose worthy and appropriate audition materials, be well prepared to perform in the auditions, take direction, have an adult conversation with the people running the auditions, etc. Those are also the assets that made him a desirable candidate for programs in his auditions. That is what my son got out of the high school program, as did his peers from the same high school over the past five years who have gone on to CMU, Point Park, Michigan, DePaul Syracuse, and a few more. Those lessons outweigh anything a coach can give you. Audition coaching is all well and good, but in a sense it is like planning for the wedding day when you need to be prepared for the marriage that will follow. I know the kids in our high school program were prepared for the marriage because they learned the discipline, work ethic and passion for the art from their high school program. That’s not to say kids who have used a coach aren’t prepared for the marriage, but it is something that is overlooked here often.</p>
<p>Okay, my turn.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan if the coaching thing. At all. I hate that it’s becoming a necessary step in an already ridiculously complicated and costly process. And it is a crash course that gets many kids through it and lands them in an appropriate program, Kinda like an SAT course. It may bring up your scores but it doesn’t make you any smarter. Of course, stats are the goal at that point, so…you win.</p>
<p>HS schools are very type-cast. They have to be. Or many would be awful. And most kids in most high schools are not interested in careers as actors. My daughter was in one where the lead had never been on stage in her life and was dragged to the audition by a friend. She was a senior. She was very pretty. She got the part. And, by actor standards it was embarrassing. However, by parent standards who were really only watching their own kids anyway and she had on a lovely dress it was fine. </p>
<p>High school drama teachers are not acting teachers and even if they were there are too many kids and too little time for actual training. That’s most not all. And performing arts schools are excluded. My kid’s school calls itself a PA somehow but that would be a stretch. I’m talking about the real ones.</p>
<p>Unless they are getting significant outside training they probably should. Not community theater. Training. Believe or not a lot of these applicants don’t even know what that means. And then they apply to top schools. And then they cry. And they are talented just woefully uninformed.</p>
<p>Good luck
Vent over.</p>
<p>actingmt, the reality of the process is this: Out of all the applicants, a small percentage of them really have what it takes to be considered for admission to these programs. I agree, being uninformed about the process is an unforgivable sin, and shame on anyone who doesn’t get informed. But, we saw plenty of kids with plenty of “outside training” who never had a realistic chance to be admitted into these programs, because they just plain weren’t good enough, or they didn’t have the other necessary things to go along with the talent, like the ability to think on their feet, take direction, etc. Taking lots of outside classes does not always equal talent. They too “cry” when they don’t get in, and there is a good deal of disbelief that goes along with it. Of the small percentage who end up on most schools’ “short lists,” there are many kids with no outside training. The schools want kids who fit their program and want to be taught. They want a high level of talent.</p>
<p>Everyone on this thread is right.</p>