<p>Cato--Where did you hear that ASU has an MT in the theatre department? I have never heard that, nor do I see any evidence of it from their website. ASU's theatre program is a BA program that sounds good if you're interested in children's theatre or maybe technical.</p>
<p>And isn't it Florida that has MT in both departments?</p>
<p>I can't stand it anymore, the time has come for me to post. Hello and many thanks to all you knowledgeble ones for the tons of info provided during the last year. It especially helped me pass away the hours during all the hurricanes which we had here on the west coast of Florida. </p>
<p>Our baby horror story....
For the past year my D (singer and MT lifetime performer) has been convinced that she wanted to go to school 4 MT. So we researched (w/ur help) all the schools w/MT prog. She applied to 7 not including many northern schools because she did not want to be in the "frozen tundra" . Our first audition was at OCU (where she has been acad. accepted w/$) on 10/20. Thursday am, she arrived from a week long mission school choir trip to Trinidad sick with the flu. On Friday eve, she had to sing for the school fundraiser banquet, since the song was pop and she had a mic she was able to get through ok. On Sat at 6am, we flew out to OK, went straight to OCU where she checked in feeling pretty perky, but not enough to do the dance audition, so we went to the hotel where she took a nap. When she woke up her temp had shot up and she could barely talk w/out coughing. Thankfully, her monologue went ok, but her voice audition was so bad that they asked her to send a video as they did not want her to injure her voice. All of the people at OCU and those of OK were amazingly amiable and helpful. Even so , it was difficult to see my tough cookie D come out of the room with tears in her eyes. By Monday she felt much better and we had a chance to tour and meet with the Head of the MT dept, as well as sit in on a master voice class. We also saw Hansel and Gretl on Sat. All in all the program was impressive. We flew out to NYC and spent a few days and Thanksgiving with my other D, S and H. We saw Wicked and Rent and returned home. </p>
<p>The NYC family trip definitely helped her get over her disappointment over the bad audition. But what really helped was the news she received when we got back home. She was selected as a finalist and an hon. ment in the NFAA ARTS-only not in MT. Hmm.... We were thrilled anyway. </p>
<p>A couple of days ago, she told me that the NFAA award has made her reconsider where her strengths lie and that she wishes to change her major to VP and not MT. She still wants to follow up with OCU, FSU and UM, schools with strong Voice and/orJazz Dept, but has dropped Elon, Shen U and CUA.</p>
<p>What I would like to know is, since she is very strong in voice and recording are there any other schools with excellent reps out there that also have a VP in Studio Music/Jazz other than Berklee? </p>
<p>Could anyone also please give feed back on these schools for VP /Jazz: </p>
<p>--New School University in NYC they they have a Jazz and Contemporary<br>
Music(she has decided she likes NY)<br>
--University of the Arts (close to her B)</p>
<p>Thanks for hanging in on this lengthy post.</p>
<p>Welcome Easyaslifema....and mucho congrats to your D on her NFAA achievements. Wow, what a great outcome. Good luck to her in this process.</p>
<p>Miami
Cato, my D has considered Miami and we have done a little research. The School of Music offer a Bachelor Of Music in Musical Theatre and a BA in Music with a minor or double major in theatre. The Theatre Department offers a BFA in Musical Theatre. Their description indicates that the music training is not as extensive as the B.M. degree with music theory and piano training included only in the first year. </p>
<p>We have had more trouble getting a handle on these programs than on others we are looking at. The theatre department is auditioning at the Chicago Unified (I believe) but perhaps not for MT. The Music Department will not be in Chicago. My D will audition with the music department in Houston, but they only audition vocal students for MT. They accept a video tape of the monologue. The dance isn't auditioned. I'm not sure this give them a good view of the candidate, but we can't make another trip.</p>
<p>Both programs can be found on their web site, including the full curriculum. There were some earlier posts regarding visits and audition problems at Miami. One in particular told a lengthy story about a disappointing audition with the theatre department, including no tour, no meetings, no accompaniest, and locked theatre facilities. It may well have been a one-time glitch. Who knows?</p>
<p>Two of my D's friends have visited or applied there and said the campus was lovely and the people friendly. We received a very professional packet from the music department including a CD of several performances. I'm not really Pollyanna, but I've had enough of the high school problems between the theatre teacher, the choir teacher, and the dance teacher - - I wish at the college level we wouldn't have to be affected by those battles again. But that's another story, right . . .</p>
<p>Amidst the stress of auditions, I thought I'd post this link to an article about the Gypsy Awards show that took place this week in the city. A friend was one of the judges so D got to attend and had a wonderful time. It's nice to know that as well as theatre being our children's passion, and a provider of so much great entertainment, it is also a community which, along with its fans, provides great financial support to worthy causes. Enjoy!</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your Ds OCU audition....I know it seems disappointing, but OCU faculty are the best to work with and they'll work with her if she wants to re-audition.</p>
<p>RE: VP or MT.....My D is an OCU sophomore (Actually, Gretel in the Sat. performance...so you saw her!)....MT major. She is considering a change to VP. Her rationale is that even with a VP degree she will audition and be considered for ingenue/soprano roles in MT and with her dance background and continued dance education at OCU's fabulous dance program, she can audition for chorus dance parts as well. But, in order to continue in opera, she feels she needs to expand her vocal education to include diction in foreign languages and more theory. She also rationalizes that opera is something you 'come into' at a later age than MT so she thinks she can do MT in the early years but that opera will sustain her in her later years. Her vocal coach and studio teacher seem to agree....I was disappointed at first, because MT is all we've ever been involved in, but it is her choice and I can't argue with her points. </p>
<p>Good Luck to your daughter.....it is such an exciting (but stressful) time! I can't wait to go thru the process again next year with D#2!</p>
<p>Newmtmom - Watching you knit with that beautiful material/trim got me interested in trying to crochet again! I couldn't find the type of medium you were using (I went to a local craft store) but found some other really neat yarn-y kind of stuff. My D was, like "What's that?" I told her I was making her a scarf for when she left me to go off to college, so that she'd have something to remember me by! She was very touched. Thanks for inspiring me.</p>
<p>djoiner,
Your daughter was wonderful as Gretel. We really enjoyed her performance.</p>
<p>easyaslifema,
When Dr. Herendeen talked with one of the boys I took to OCU, he mentioned that if he wanted to be considered for VP as well as MT, he should contact Mary Mowry and let her know that. Even though she might not have been thrilled with her musical part of her audition, she could mention that if she decided to send a tape later. Auditions really are hard on the kids and the stress just makes them get more colds. I hope you are past the sickness.</p>
<p>Soozieviet,</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>djoiner,
We too very much enhjoyed your daughter's performance as Gretel at OCU. In fact, it was the opera performance that really made my D fall in love with the school. We had previously seen the same opera done by NCSA and thought it was horrendous ( and most of the performers were grad students) so we were not initally looking forward to seeing it at OCU. Anyway, it was a wonderful performance and your D is certainly very talented!</p>
<p>Djoiner,</p>
<p>Your D was won erful! Actually my D felt that she had the best voice in the show. Also everyone we have talked with from voice teacher to choir pretty much states the same pro's for VP as well. Another pt my D made was after readin the bios of the last few shows we have seen she noted that a lot of the people on Broaway had VP degrees and the success of MT people crossing over to mainstream was not as successful as the other way around (Frenchi, J. MaIntyre,Lachey etc)</p>
<p>easyaslifema, welcome! It's nice to see so many new 'faces' recently here! On the topic of VP degrees, although there are certainly some Broadway actors which have them, I think what you'll find is that the majority of Broadway actors (and I hate to admit this but it's something we all wish we didn't know!) didn't attend college. The popstars that you'll see in Broadway shows, like those you mentioned, are really an anomoly and shouldn't influence your D in her decision on which path to take with her studies. What you'll find is that many, if not most, young Broadway artists are also musicians who are working on their own music at every opportunity. The two shows you mentioned seeing while in the city are a good example of that, Rent and Wicked. I don't think any of those current cast members have a VP degree. A few have theatre BFA's and there are assorted other majors but the majority of those kids are working on nights when their shows are dark at city clubs singing their own music, and also putting out their own cds. The interesting thing is that Frenchie and Drew both trained in MT in college! :)</p>
<p>Thanks to all who have complimented my D's performance in Hansel & Gretel....I know I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought she was fantabulous, but, I'm her mother and I'm very biased!</p>
<p>Here's what I have been able to piece together about U. Miami's two different MT degrees. The theatre dept. offers a BFA and the School of music offers a BM. I suspect, but don't know, that there is a lot of coordination between the two departments as there is at my D's school, Florida State. FSU also offers both BM and BFA degrees in MT. Most of the coursework seems to be identical for the two degrees. I wondered when reading the curricula if certain courses that have different numbers are actually the same. For instance: freshmen theatre students take THA196 and 197, Singing for the Stage; freshmen music students take MVP196 and 197, Singing for the Stage. The sophomore level Singing for the Stage courses are numbered THA296 and 297 or MVP296 and 297. Senior theatre students take THA415 and 416, Auditioning, while senior music students take MVP 415 and 416. </p>
<p>The other differences between the two degrees are as follows: music students take one more semester each of piano, music theory, and music theory lab than theatre students. Music students take 4 semesters, theatre students take 3. Though, I did note that theatre students do a semester of solfege that music students do not take. Theatre students take an additional two semesters of movement, two semesters of acting, and take a course in makeup and a course in play direction. Music students take a semester of choral conducting. Theatre students take two semesters of theatre history while music students take two semesters of music history. The only other difference I saw in the curricula was that music students take 4 semesters of a class called voice forum for 0 credit. </p>
<p>If anyone wants the link to the required curricula, ask. Or, you can find it by typing in bulletin in the search function at the U.M. website and going to the appropriate department links.</p>
<p>To those of you who answered my question about Miami and ASU, thank you very much. I'll follow up tomorrow by calling Miami, but am in a much more knowledgeable position to be discussing it with them.</p>
<p>I may have been wrong about ASU, as someone pointed out. </p>
<p>One last question. Does anyone know anything about the program at Tulsa?</p>
<p>I spend a portion of each day reading news online from various and assorted sources worldwide. This morning I saw this article about so-called family values and theatre. It made me very angry, and just as sad. What is happening in this country?</p>
<p>Fortunately this seems to be limited to Alabama, where Mr. Allen is a state representative, not a congressman. The scary part is the the mention of this guy's meetings with Bush. </p>
<p>Yes, the meeting and advising of the president was the concern I had, too. Unfortunately, though, this type of thinking is not limited to Alabama.</p>
<p>I just wanted to make sure the discussion didn't disappear for too long from the front page so I put in this post. I had told some students today in class to look for this thread.</p>
<p>I know this is crunch time for everyone to get their applications in before the January deadline. I am sure you are all very, very busy.</p>
<p>Looking for information and experiences with the CAP21 pre-college summer program (the one requiring audition and no housing). D is currently a high school junior and attended CMU pre-college in MT last summer. Any information will be appreciated.</p>
<p>More importantly, all of our families best wishes and prayers are with the auditioners and their parents at this time of year and we are very thankful for all of you that take your time to participate on this thread. You are a blessing for those of us facing the road ahead. Thank you and Happy Holidays!</p>