<p>Hi everyone. I wanted to ask some questions about what kind of coaching I should be receiving now. I am a sophomore in high school, and have been taking voice lessons for a little under a year now. I plan to continue with the voice lessons throughout high school (and beyond). I was wondering if it would be more beneficial to try and find an acting coach, or to take a dance class (if I had to choose). I am a male, but I do very much enjoy the dancing that I've done in the musicals I've been in. Also, how does one go about finding a good acting coach. I've heard of MTCA, but I don't live near any of the coaches, and I would prefer not to have to skype for lessons. Thanks</p>
<p>you may want to check the thread call College Audition Coaches from 3-19 there is a lot of information there</p>
<p>If you have to choose, I would recommend taking any dance classes you can fit in. It seems that males who can dance are not as common and it might be the thing that gives you that edge up when it comes to auditions. In general, it seems that most MT programs realize that high school seniors typically don’t have a lot of formal acting training, and so don’t judge as harshly in that area. I would say that as you get closer to audition time, you might at that point look into getting an acting coach who could help you pick out and work on appropriate monologue material. As you are a sophomore now, I would concentrate on dance for the time being.</p>
<p>I’d agree with that. </p>
<p>MTCA and other coaching services of that type are geared towards helping in the audition process and it would be really good to start talking to them well before the summer before the senior year - don’t wait until August when auditions are around the corner! - but they have to have something to work with so I think taking some dance right now is definitely your best bet. The audition coaches aren’t so much about teaching basic skills as they are polishing up what you have and presenting it in the best light to your schools, as well as getting a good school list together and other helpful things.</p>
<p>You could go ahead and start the consulting process so that you know what coach you want to use and then they can tell you when to mark your calendar to call you back - they also could tell you what you need to be doing and working on in the meanwhile. I don’t think it would hurt a thing to have consulted with someone this early in the game. You will be well prepared! Good for you! BTW keep those grades and standardized test scores up…very important for scholarships if you want to be able to afford those wonderful schools that are going to accept you. ;)</p>
<p>Acting or dance training? I’d go with dance (specifically ballet) hands down! And work to find a challenging ballet class that starts from the beginning but makes you work HARD.</p>
<p>Good luck!!</p>
<p>Thank you for your comments. Just one more thought. Last year I was in a production of Anything Goes and the director made the whole cast (including me) tap dance for one of the numbers. After one of the shows he came up to me and told me that I was really good and should consider taking a tap class. Would taking tap be an option instead of ballet, or is ballet definetely the way to go?</p>
<p>Tap is a great skill to have, but if you can only do one, and are specifically looking toward college auditions, ballet is the way to go.</p>
<p>Yoshi2… my son auditioned for 8 schools… he tapped at one. Ballet is the way to go… and maybe jazz if you can fit it in.</p>
<p>Ballet, ballet, ballet, ballet, ballet and if you have any extra time, take ballet! ;)</p>
<p>The reason we’re all stressing ballet is that ballet teaches the fundamentals needed for all MT dance forms.</p>
<p>Absolutely. Ballet is (literally) the unquestioned basis of all dance. I mean, if you ever run across any dance teacher who says differently - well, you won’t. </p>
<p>Tap is so much fun and it’s my daughter’s specialty, in fact, but she dropped tap this year (everyone was shocked) to have more time to work on vocals. But she kept ballet and jazz of course. Most of the schools we looked at with a dance requirement wanted ballet and jazz. They like to know if you can do tap but the posts here so far which indicated tap is not frequently done at auditions very much mirror our experience too.</p>