<p>notarebel, Constantine Maroulis did study at BoCo and was a part of the non-equity tour of Rent for a short time.</p>
<p>mtfan, your friend is mistaken. Constantine left the non-equity tour (some say he was asked to leave) last year. He was never a part of the Broadway cast.</p>
<p>alwaysamom - thanks. It is good to have people in here with their finger on the big apples pulse. :)</p>
<p>Has anyone out there (or has anyone's S or D) been to the International Thespian Conference at Lincoln, Nebraska? I am going this year with my school, not to perform, but to participate in everything (and see Ragtime, which I'm really excited about). Just wondering what the experience is like, what to expect, particularly about what I have heard about auditioning for colleges there. Is it just for scholarships, or actual admission, or what? Sort of confused lol. If anyone has any information to share it would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>aspiringactress1:</p>
<p>The auditions at the International Thespian Festival, held every June in Lincoln, Nebraska, are for "rising seniors", i.e. students who are about to enter their senior year in high school, who will presumably graduate in June of the following year, and who want to participate in theatre in college.</p>
<p>Typically, more than 30 colleges send representatives who watch the auditions, see the design/tech portfolio presentations, and attend festival shows. After each audition, colleges post call-back lists, and students called back may then visit with school representatives at the exhibit area in the lobby of the main theatre. Colleges are not permitted to talk to students during the shows, so these talks are generally fairly brief.</p>
<p>By Festival rule, Schools participating in the Festival auditions program are not permitted to make specific scholarship offers or discuss specific dollar amounts with the students during Festival week. If a school representative is found to have violated this policy, his or her school may, at the discretion of Thespian Festival LLC, be excluded from the following years Festival.</p>
<p>But schools may contact students after the Festival with offers of admission and/or scholarships.</p>
<p>In practice, however, it is usually the non-audition college programs which make those offers on the basis of the Festival audition. Schools which require an audition and interview for admission usually invite students to attend their auditions, typically in the late fall and early winter.</p>
<p>So why go through the Festival auditions? First of all, its good preparation, a first chance to test your work in public. Second, you may well get offers from BA schools which can represent safeties. Knowing that there are one or two programs you can attend, even if youre not admitted to any of the high-powered BFA programs, will likely have a good effect on your nerves as you approach the college auditions. Finally, youll find out pretty quickly which BFA programs are interested in you, and have the chance to meet with faculty (and sometimes students) from those schools. Of course, you can do that without even auditioning, and you should. Most of the schools which are part of the National Unified Auditions will have representatives at Thespians.</p>
<p>Ill let students and parents whove participated in the auditions tell you more about what it feels like from their end. </p>
<p>Good question, aspiring! Thanks for asking. And I know that you'll have a great time at Thespians. It's a terrific event.</p>
<p>To answer aspiringactress1's questions, I went to EdTA's website, and I want to recommend it to everyone. I hadn't been there in a while, and they've done a fine job. I was especially impressed with the resources on "College Prep". Their piece on the difference between BA and BFA programs (see "Choices") is as good as anything I've read, and their advice about preparing for college auditions is excellent. Here's the link:</p>
<p>Happy surfing!</p>
<p>Where can we see a list of colleges who have gone to these auditions in the past? Also is this something a student can do individually. I did download the festival info and it did seem like this was possible, but it also seems like this is something that is 99% focused on schools and programs who go as a group. I have requested some info that is there to order on the site, as it looks valuable, but I am interested in knowing whether this is a resource that can be recommended to an individual who is not affiliated with a group that is doing this activity.</p>
<p>I am pasting this here as I have already put it on another thread although Doctor John was kind enough to answer me there. Someone suggested it also belongs here. Thanks.</p>
<p>Doctor John,</p>
<p>You certainly seem to offer a plethora of information and I am sure everyone on this site thanks you for that! My daughter sings has an interest in classical voice and musical theatre. She has opted to apply to schools with a major in vocal performance rather than musical theatre. Any opinion on that?</p>
<p>Also, she had a second callback for the lead in a broadway show yesterday. If she does proceed, I am sure there will be no dissuading her as far as going to Broadway or on the national tour (she's a young 17 frankly, so that's scary). Am I correct in thinking the some of the conservatories might view this as negative later on if she defers her education? I sense some snobbery in the classical voice world via musical theatre.</p>
<p>Everyone else's input is sincerely appreciated. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Dr. John- Thanks for the link! That website is great! The "choices" page (where it gives the list of questions to ask when visiting colleges) is definitely something that everyone should get to see. Some of the questions it lists I would never have thought to ask, but probably could reveal some vital information about a program!! One question- do you know how the list of schools was compiled? I don't think it was based on just B.F.A.s and conservatories because schools like Duke I know are B.A.s- but its missing some of the (I thought) better known B.A. programs like Northwestern and Yale. Any idea?</p>
<p>I'm not sure how ETA compiled the list, DizzyDani88. But I know that it's incomplete. The current Directory of Theatre Training Programs (<a href="http://dorsettheatrefestival.com/html/training_book.html%5B/url%5D">http://dorsettheatrefestival.com/html/training_book.html</a>) lists 475+, and ETA's list only has 258 entries. I'll see what I can find out.</p>
<p>I'll also see if I can get a list of schools that participated last year, jamimom, and whether an individual student can attend. I suspect not.</p>
<p>Wow! Congrats to your d on her 2nd callback! Can you tell us the name of the show, or is that privileged info? She must be SO EXCITED!</p>
<p>doctorjohn, thanks for posting the link to the EDTA site. Very informative and now has been bookmarked and emailed to my D.</p>
<p>Wow doctorjohn, thank you so much for the quick and detailed reply. The link is awesome too, I'm really excited about attending the conference now! Sounds like it should be a really amazing week with great opportunities. It will be tough if I do get in to Interlochen (fingers crossed!) because I will have to leave a day early. Do you know if the auditions happen early in the week, or later? Does Otterbein usually attend the conference? Thank you so much for all your willingness to share your wealth of information doctorjohn, it benefits us all so much.</p>
<p>You're welcome, aspiringactress1. The auditions are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. The technical auditions are on Friday. You shouldn't have a problem, especially if you can audition earlier. I don't know how they're scheduled. But your Thespian advisor should have access to sources who can provide the answer. And, yes, Otterbein will be there. Good luck with the Interlochen audition!</p>
<p>Hey all--
I was hoping that someone could give me advice on a situation that I'm sure many of you have run into with your kids.</p>
<p>My school usually does two shows- a play and a musical. This year, my school director (who I'm very close with and who has treated me very well over the years) decided to do two musicals, one small-scale, the show Lucky Stiff, with a very small cast and a selective audition, one large-scale, Oklahoma, where everyone who auditioned would get in (i.e. it would be a LOT of crowd control type rehearsing with kids who had no previous experience). I decided that this year I only wanted to do one of the school musicals, because of the workload of junior year, and also because there was an opportunity to do another show at a regional theater near me that I'd had a great experience with two years ago and met some of my closest friends at. I emailed my director (who is VERY sensitive about loyalty issues and such) early in the year to tell her that my mom and I had discussed it and had decided that since junior year was going to be so much work, I had better do only one of my high school musicals, and I asked her which one she thought I should do. She told me that while she'd love to have me in both shows, she thought that the small-musical (Lucky Stiff) would be the better choice. This suited my schedule well- Lucky Stiff was a short rehearsal period, wasn't close to SATs, and didn't conflict with Seussical. Lucky Stiff went very well and was probably the best experience I've had to date in a school musical. However, there was a lot of hype about me not doing Oklahoma (which just recently started rehearsing) and she even once said to me "your mother hasn't relented yet, has she?" when she saw me in the hall at school. It was clear that she wasn't happy that I couldn't do both. </p>
<p>Seussical is going up in a week (which is another story in and of itself as we've missed 12 hours of rehearsing due to the storm AND its midterm week at school) and she found out I was in it. One of my friends who's in Oklahoma told me that she's really really angry that I hadn't told her about it. I think she thinks I was trying to decieve her, and that I chose Seussical over her musical.</p>
<p>I'm very torn about what to do. This director is very supportive of me and I really don't want anything to put a strain on our relationship. While I know that she now says I should have told her about Seussical off the bat, the fact is that she may have been angrier and assumed that the reason that I could only do one musical at school was because I was doing another one elsewhere (mind you, this really wasn't the reason- I could have done all three- I just knew what the workload would be like for junior year and thought it would be better to end all my activities by January). I'm planning to email her, probably apologize for not telling her right away and say I in no way meant to decieve her, and say something that points to the fact that Seussical only rehearsed once a week and was over by January, which really wasn't as much of a time committment as the school musicals and was the reason I did it. </p>
<p>I really just want advice on how to handle this. I'm sure many of your kids have run into directors who are big on loyalty. Do you think this sort of email, an apology and an excuse, is the best way to deal with it? What exactly did I do wrong? And how can I avoid this type of situation next time? Thanks for any advice you can impart. You all are such amazing resources, and I'm really glad to have found such a generous and knowledgable group of people.
Danielle</p>
<p>I'd say that you should go speak to her in person (I find emails seem too "easy") and explain the situation and tell her exactly what you just wrote here. It was a misunderstanding and you weren't trying to deceive her; when you spoke to her at the beginning of the year you said it was best to do one school musical (not one project through the whole year). What you choose to do outside of school is your business so you were not obligated to tell her - although in retrospect maybe you should have. Regardless, you devoted time to one of the school musicals and you wanted to do something outside of school as well. I don't think you did anything wrong. Just talk to her - no emails.</p>
<p>Danielle, jamimom:</p>
<p>I wrote to a colleague at ETA, and she wrote back this morning:</p>
<p>"The editorial staff creates the directory listing of schools with theatre programs by mailing questionnaires/update requests to schools in their database. The database is one that the editorial staff has compiled over the years and includes past directory participants, advertisers, and anyone who asks to be part of the database, as well as any program they stumble upon and can get a current address to which to mail. Basically, any theatre program from which the editorial staff can get a listing is included in the directory issue.</p>
<p>"Regarding the Festival auditions program question, an individual student may attend Festival, but s/he must have an adult attending with her/him as a chaperone. To participate in any of the auditions, a student must be part of a troupe. Access to the auditions program is one of the benefits of membership. So yes, a student's only option, if they don't have a troupe, would be to start a troupe."</p>
<p>I wish there were a happier answer to the audition question. As for the database, I recommended the Directory of Theatre Training Programs to my colleague, and she's passing the suggestion to the editorial department.</p>
<p>DizzyDani88,</p>
<p>In addition to speaking with her, why not drop 2 free tickets to Seussical in her faculty mailbox?</p>
<p>Although you cannot undo what is already done, she MUST have some understanding what's it like to balance in school and out of school committments with all the stresses of Junior year. If she doesn't already understand this, then she is not a very compassionate teacher. </p>
<p>Do you plan to use her as one of your teacher recs for next year? If so, you might also want to include that fact in your little note with the tickets. Good luck!</p>
<p>Doctorjohn, thank you for such an exact answer. In reading the website, it appeared that with letters of rec, an individual student could have auditioned, but it was not clear. I just wanted to make sure I knew what this program covered in case it is something to recommend to others in theatre.</p>
<p>DizzyDani88: I know how "fragile" some HS directors can be. The best advice I have for you is to always keep lines of communication open. She'll feel much better that you are keeping her in the loop. Sometimes these precious people in our lives don't like sharing. I agree with the face to face conversation.</p>
<p>DizzyDani88 - I like all the comments made above. I have a few things to add, none of which are comforting. My son, a high school junior, attends a private school that does plays but not musicals. He decided a couple of years ago to stop auditioning for school plays and instead only does shows in several theatres in our city. He has been blessed with many good opportunities. He wouldn't be able to use the current drama teacher at school for a reference, as he has not worked with him. Thank goodness the principal and his English teacher are very supportive and willing to write rec's. Also, he is active in the school choir and the art program. Sometimes I think you have to choose between school and non-school plays.</p>
<p>In another situation, the performing arts public high school in our city is fairly strict with their drama students and want them to participate at school as the top priority. Several parents I know had to fight a few years back to get the school to permit any plays outside of school. The compromise reached has been the policy for several years. They allow the students to do one (and only one) play outside of school during a school year. This is one reason my son has not chosen to go to this school.</p>
<p>Good luck - and go see the teacher as soon as possible.</p>