Coaches are definitely not required. But for those with little knowledgable support in their communities, they can definitely be a great help and save you lots of time and money in the process. We did not have resources or people familiar with the college audition process at home. So a coach was beneficial for us. I think the word “coached” makes you think they come off as unnatural or over rehearsed. In reality what we saw was our coach’s students were simply prepared and confident. But their natural talents still shined through. The costs were similar to hourly rates for voice teachers in our area.
If you opt for coaching, MTCA is one good choice. But there are also many other coaches who are also priced very reasonably who provide similar support and advice in addition to helping choose and prep monologues and songs. We used Mary Anna Dennard and could not have been more pleased. We worked with her mainly via Skype. She provides a wide variety of services. Here are just a few:
Monologues: Mary Anna typically gets to know you and your child before suggesting potential monologue selections. She went through quite a few with D before they decided on the ones they felt worked best. She had D read quite a few. They read entire plays, not just the monologues. They did script analysis and really talked about the pieces so the pieces were felt, not just acted.
Songs: Like MTCA, she has a selection of vocal coaches you can use to help with song selection, technique and audition prep. D still works with her vocal coach whenever she is in NYC. During her audition season, she worked with him mainly via Skype. She got so many compliments on her song selections, and he provided all the cuts to her music as well as recorded digital tracks of the piano accompaniment for each cut plus full length versions of each song for her. It was nice to not have to worry about getting that all done correctly!
Schools: Once she got to know D, Moo also worked with us to help come up with a great list of achools - some we were familiar with and some we weren’t.
Moonifieds: The opportunity for early auditions at Moonifieds was a big plus. Held in Dallas in November, it really allowed us to try out audition material, do a bunch of in person prescreens, get a few early acceptances to take the pressure off, and generally see how auditions worked.
Peers: The camaraderie each of her students felt with each other was fantastic. They talked almost daily via a private Facebook group. D knew someone at virtually every audition she attended. And they would talk about what auditions were like, notify each other when they heard results. Celebrated each other’s successes. Commiserated with rejections. And most are still friends today, 2 years later. That peer support was an added benefit we didn’t realize we would receive.
Unifieds: Mary Anna was also in attendance at Unifieds and was a great sounding board and meeting place for the kids before, during and after their auditions. She made sure they knew where their auditions were, how walk-ins worked and all those questions that come at Unifieds.
Prescreens: I believe she can also assist with prescreen videos if you wish although we did ours on our own.
Other: Mary Anna gave guidance on what to wear, how to conduct yourself during an audition and during an interview, and many other small details of the audition process … What to bring into the room, what not to bring, what to do while you are waiting, etc…
Success: You can look at her website by googling college audition coach. There should be a list of schools in the I Got In section which shows where her current students were accepted and where they will be attending. it is pretty impressive.
Cost: We were definitely in the $2000 range in working with Moo, not the $10,000 range. $10,000 sounds quite high to me. In addition she does provide some scholarships each year. if you aren’t sure about investing in coaching, I highly recommend you get Mary Anna’s book, I Got In. It’s a great resource to get you through auditions whether you use a coach or not.
In addition to Mary Anna and MTCA, you may also want to look into Dave Clemmons. I’ve heard very good things about him as well. And Im sure there are other good coaches out there as well. Just make sure you know what you want from a coach, interview several and then pick the one that best suits you, your child, your budget, etc…
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