Colleges for Musical Theater Major - Part 36

<p>Musicalthtrmom, I too am relieved to hear that your brother is safe and gratified to know that he will now be helping the relief effort. We spent many years in Asia and have been to most of the places hit by the tsunami (though not to Aceh, the hardest hit). Eight years ago, we spent the last Christmas break of our years in Hong Kong at a resort in Phuket -- our third visit there; it's an extremely popular getaway for expats in Asia. Were we living there still, there's a good chance we would again have been in Phuket. It's a real "there but for fortune" thought, and -- as many of you have pointed out -- a real slap upside the head to put things in perspective.</p>

<p>My D has six auditions coming up...wondering whether any of you will be at any of them. The first is unlikely -- it's her Ithaca audition, which she's doing here in the DC area on 1/15. Then she has UArts 2/5, Point Park 2/12, Hartt 2/18, Otterbein 2/26, and Webster 3/5. Whew!</p>

<p>And here's an unrelated question: Have any of you seen the new "Phantom" movie? What did you think? My D and I were definitely NOT won over by Emmy Rossum as Christine. She's clearly a very talented 18-year-old, but we both thought that neither her singing nor her acting were ready for the role. The movie's gotten mixed reviews, and so has she, but some critics have been rapturous about her. Go figure.</p>

<p>artsymom, I loved the movie, even as flawed as it was. We saw it as a family at a preview which was only half the fun. The other half was that Gerard Butler and Colm Wilkinson (my favorite Phantom) attended and we got to meet them afterwards. I actually enjoyed Emmy's performance. I think the problem which some have found is with the material she was given, not to mention the direction, or lack thereof. I've seen Emmy perform a few of her many performances with the Met and she's a very talented (and trained) singer. She performed with the Metropolitan Opera from the time she was 7 til age 12 or 13, filling the children's roles in over 20 operas, in six languages. Pretty impressive resume for a young actress. She's done lots of tv and film work in her young life. I don't think that Phantom was exactly the best venue for showing her talent, unfortunately.</p>

<p>I didn't see the movie, but I heard clips. For a soprano, she doesn't seem to be very strong in the upper register. She's pretty good, but I thought for a major motion picture they would have chosen someone stronger. There is talk that some of her songs were dubbed, but I don't know.</p>

<p>ross, the only actor whose songs were dubbed was Minnie Driver.</p>

<p>I know about Minnie; but there was a discussion forum where some people said Emmy didn't sound the same in all her songs and thought maybe SHE was dubbed for parts of it. I also found out that Chita Rivera didn't sing ALL of her songs in West Side; that just came out recently.</p>

<p>Artsymom,</p>

<p>I'm going to be at the Ithaca auditions on 1/15!</p>

<p>Rossj,</p>

<p>Chita Rivera was not in the "West Side Story" movie... that was Rita Moreno, but I believe you were right that she was dubbed, too.</p>

<p>Just a question for those of you who may have run into this dilemma in the past, know what to do, etc:</p>

<p>I have currently scheduled 3 of the 9 auditions I plan to attend for fall admission. I have turned in applications for UMich, CCM, Boston Conservatory, CMU, and Otterbein. I have schedule auditoins for UMich, CCM, and Otterbein, and have not heard anything from Boston. However, when trying schedule my CMU audition in Chicago at Unifieds, it says that all spots are reserved. What is one to do in this situation? Should I call the admissions office and ask if they can fit me in? My second semester schedule at school is pretty jam-packed; however, if <em>absolutely necessary</em>, I may be able to get out to Pittsburgh. I was hoping to finish most of my auditions in February as performance dates and rehearsals fill up most of February and all of March. Has anyone else run into similar problems? I am also now a little worried about scheduling my other auditions at Unifieds. I have my applications for Ithaca, Emerson, and UMiami complete but because of winter break the transcripts and such have not be mailed in. Most of this is rather poor planning on my part - I was extremely good about turning in the applications for my top choices, but not for the other schools I have chosen to audition for this year. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm a little lost! Thanks.</p>

<p>JLactor86 -
Have you sent in all of your paperwork and checks (admission and audition) to CMU? If not, it may be too late. Nonetheless, I would recommend you call the MT program coordinator, Barbara McKenzie-Wood, and see if it is possible to schedule you for unifieds. The CMU Office of Adm will not assist you with scheduling an audition. Good luck with this!
TX Mom</p>

<p>I know someone who was blocked out of a lot of his auditions a couple of years ago and he had to go to sites where they still had spots. Some schools say to just send a video tape in such a case, but I do not think it is to your advantage. The young man I know ended up going to LA for his auditions as those spots are rarely full. He did get a number of choices but ended up going to Northwestern for voice and then moving into their theatre dept.</p>

<p>JLactor86 -- We ran into this last year with CCM. If I remember right, my daughter got sick the weekend of her audition and had to cancel. I don't remember all the details, but something about we thought we had an audition re-scheduled, but turns out we didn't.</p>

<p>I talked to CCM a couple of times during the week before the Unified Auditions in Chicago. What they finally told us was to show up Monday morning in Chicago and they would see if they could fit us in. This, of course, drove my Engineering Husband up the wall. Drive four hours without an auditon time????? But I talked to both by Daughter's voice teacher and acting coach, and they both agreed that that was what she should do. The acting coach (an equity actress) mentioned that once she flew out to NYC for an auditon, even though she didn't have an audition time. I finally decided that, in the MT world, this must not sound as crazy as it does in the real world!</p>

<p>Peg</p>

<p>Actually, we got a call from someone at CCM that Monday morning, letting us know that there was an audition time available for her. But even if they hadn't called, she would have been there, ready to go!</p>

<p>Of course, this was possible for us because we are only four hours from Chicago and could drive there.</p>

<p>I'm going to be at the Palmer House on Tuesday for my Sryacuse audition. for anyone whos auditioned there in the past, how would i go about changing inbetween the dance and the signing/monologue? Do they let you go and change? Also will anyone be at Penn State for the Jan 22nd audition?</p>

<p>Actor465, are you also in the DC area? Or are you traveling from elsewhere to do the Ithaca audition in Tysons?</p>

<p>Alwaysamom & others, re. Emmy Rossum -- no doubt she's very talented. The first time I ever heard her (or heard of her, for that matter) was in the movie "Songcatcher." I think she was 14. It was about as far from "Phantom" as possible -- small-scale, low-key, nothing remotely bombastic. She was utterly impressive and captivating. For me, that didn't happen in Phantom, especially as her acting seemed to consist of two expressions (my D's descriptions of them: the I'm-lost-here one and the orgasmic one). We really liked Gerard Butler, though! And I certainly don't want to seem snippy about Emmy Rossum. I look forward to seeing and hearing her in something better suited. But with so few MT movies, I really was interested in getting opinions from this group.</p>

<p>From all I've heard, she did at least do all her own singing...unlike many movie actresses in the past...e.g., Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Natalie Wood in West Side Story. I think Marni Nixon dubbed both of them.</p>

<p>artsymom,</p>

<p>I live in Columbia and so it's about a 40ish minute drive. It's my first audition, too, and I'm very anxious!</p>

<p>Yeah, sorry - I knew it was Rita Moreno; too much champagne on New Year's still affecting my brain! We even own the movie and my daughter's played Maria twice. Well, Chita and Rita DO rhyme.. ha ha</p>

<p>Is anyone here who lives in Illinois going to the Illinois Theatre Fest this year?</p>

<p>She also dubbed Deborah Kerr's singing in "The King and I" and was one of the featured nuns in "The Sound of Music." Did anyone hear her this past fall on "Prairie Home Companion"? It was a rerun of a 2002 show and she sounded AMAZING at the age of 70-something. She sang a parody number called "I Could Have Dubbed Myself" and was just about good enough to dub for anybody today. Here's a link if anyone wants to listen:</p>

<p><a href="http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/20020601/index.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/20020601/index.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Frazzled--</p>

<p>Thanks for that great link. I think that just shows why it is so important for performers today to get that classical training, so that we can all have a career as long-lasting as Marni Nixon's. I hope that I can sing half that well when I'm her age!</p>

<p>Shauna</p>

<p>Hi - I don't think you'll be thrilled with what I'm going to tell you, but maybe I misunderstood. Everyone thinks with ED to NYU, if you're accepted, you HAVE to take what studio they give you. Not so. My d was accepted ED to CAP21. After her audition, she was given a short interview and was asked if she'd consider another studio, other than CAP21. She said no, and they told us that they would NOT consider her for another studio if she was accepted. So if your son had wanted to do that, he could have backed out if he didn't get CAP21. But I think you said his absolute first choice was CM, so if that's the case, he did the right thing.
I'm pretty new on this forum, so I don't know - is he a senior in HS this year, or was this in the past? If so, where is he going and how does he like it? Just curious! Also, regarding audition fees, I think hell will freeze over before I get the 5 or 6 hundred I spent on them! But I suppose it's a drop in the bucket when I'll be shelling out 34K per year! :)</p>

<p>The problem was and is that my son wants to have his cake and eat it too. He only would have taken a CAP21 ED spot, but he would have considered another studio but not make the ED commitment for it. In other words, if he got CAP21, he would have been happy to take the ED commitiment, but he did not want to get rejected because he only wanted CAP21--he wanted the RD options of other studios. It does not work that way, and you are right, his true first choice was elsewhere, but he would have been happy with a sure CAP21 ED, and traded it for a chance for CMU later, but he did not want to trade another studio ED for CMU but then did not want to rule out NYU altogether if he did not get into CMU and with the numbers for this program the way they are that is a most probable scenario. In other words if a bunch of other things did not pan out, he would then be willing to consider another studio at NYU. All a moot point now but when all of his friends were getting their NYU acceptances he did have his panic time. I don't think I am going to see any of the money spent on the auditions and never expected to. I did not want to travel to outlying areas in the middle of winter so we did all we could in the fall, so the audition fees were used, the travel money spent. I like to send the postcards you can get at the postoffice to withdraw applications to colleges, and then follow up with an e-mail. The tricky part is addressing them to the right place--for some schools it is probably advisable to send to admissions AND the music/theatre department. Am going to have son work on these this week.</p>

<p>Discount Tickets for NYC shows </p>

<p>I want to make sure that all of you MT (and plain T) lovers know about the TDF.org website. This is the theater development fund, which runs the TIX booths at Times Square. </p>

<p>If you are a member of TDF.org, you get access to very cheap tickets to a variety of shows, including some Broadway musicals. </p>

<p>The "catch" is you usually can not make plans way in advance and you won't know where your seats are until you get your tickets. But I have had great luck with this. For example, my daughter and I saw Man of LaMancha a couple of years ago for $32 each. The seats claimed to be $100, which of course would have aggravated us to pay since they were in the back -- but at $32 they were a bargain. Recently there were some tickets to Little Women, which is in previews, and to Fiddler, among others. </p>

<p>To qualify for these offerings, one has to be either:
1. a high school student (so you can put the membership in your kid's name)
2. a union member
3. retired
4. a theater professional
5. a government employee
6. a teacher</p>

<p>So if you live in the NYC area or are planning a visit, this is worth c hecking out.</p>