Conflicts with Audition dates

Both sides of this debate are valid. Know your kid and be honest about how they will handle the stress of “merely” auditioning vs. auditioning AND performing for 4-5 solid months. If your kid is an anxious perfectionist, you/they may need to take a good look at what needs to happen to be happy, healthy and sane.

Of his own volition, my S opted out of most senior year performance opportunities in favor of focusing on skills training and audition prep/scheduling. He attended a PA HS and auditioning for fall show was mandatory - he made it clear to faculty that his audition preparation and two scheduled fall auditions would take precedence over his commitment to the show. Faculty was not pleased, but he was not cast. He understood that the stress of juggling everything would make him miserable and resentful - and a really lousy cast member. He only had two academic classes (one AP) and spent his “free” school-day time noodling on the piano, composing/arranging music and learning various digital/tech-related skills - HIS version of an ideal senior year. All “spare” evening/weekend time was spent in dance, voice and acting classes, and working out at the gym. He did the bare minimum to maintain the academic classes and during the height of the audition travels keeping up with the writing for AP English became a struggle and additional source of stress.

For a HS-aged student, my S had a pretty clear sense of self about how much BS he was willing to put up with. Even back then, he had little patience for wasted rehearsal time. He understood that being in the big fall production would put him over the edge when he felt he had more important fish to fry. His eye was on the future. But it’s easy to understand that not everyone’s eye is on the same “prize” at the same time.

Just as S had a clear sense of self in HS, now as a rising BFA college senior, we see that same “self” looking towards his next phase. What we suspected back then is coming to fruition. He has come to realize that being IN the shows is not as important to him as creating them - writing and directing. He has a voice and physical “type” that could probably aid in his “success” on stage. But what he knew/felt in HS - impatience with “standing around, waiting to be told what to do, where to stand” - has solidified into a fierce desire to have more control over the entire creative process. Although back then my H and I saw some of S’s resistance as a “doesn’t play well with others” streak (NOT good in the theater world), S’s inner self was wise enough to know that the whole shebang would have blown up if he had participated in more school productions. As a HS senior, his sights were set on getting into the best college option he could manage - he was ready to leave HS behind. He has no regrets over that decision.

At some point in the future, I suspect he will be going through this process again - for a writing or directing MFA. Ugh!

For those of you concerned that your kid might not get enough "book larnin’ ", not all education has to come from textbooks in a classroom in a school building. Yes, my S took it “easy” academically his senior year, but those times spent “noodling” on the piano turned into accompanying and composition skills that have proven highly beneficial in college. Those digital/tech skills have come in very handy for figuring out what needs to happen in mounting/directing your own production and creating your own advertising campaign and playbill. He currently attends a conservatory style program in a less-than-academically-rigorous university. Even with the demands of a typical BFA schedule - MAYbe own academic class per semester if it can fit - he has inadvertently designed his own honors thesis. Over the past two years he has researched and is nearly done writing a historically-based full musical - to get its first reading this fall. This work done totally in his “spare” time and over breaks, is the minimum gateway requirement for the masters programs he is considering. The pathways are many and diverse. Your kid’s path may not look anything like that of the next kid.

So exciting for your son, @mom4bwayboy. We’ll all be hitting you up for audition slots when he makes it big.

@mom4bwayboy that is VERY exciting! We will keep our eyes open for your S!

My D is an anxious perfectionist with no patience for wasted rehearsal time LOL. Hence, her decision to cut way back. To each his/her own. My other kids made their own decisions and they worked it out for themselves. If our kids are looking for us to guide them on the issue, my advice is the same as most on the thread - understand your student and their stress/work tolerance and the extreme stress and time commitment of auditioning well. Oftentimes (but certainly not always), we know them and their limitations better than they do at this point. I liken myself to the bumper guards in the bowling lane gutters.

I completely forgot that U.Minnesot/Guthrie BFA holds a callback weekend. Now my S has the lead in a play opening the 2nd weekend of march. (Of course, we don’t yet know that he will be called back.) Does anybody know of a kid accepted at Minn. who did a video callback? Seems like an impossibility.

@Atreuh Not an impossibility. My D was in the same boat as your S - she was in a show callback weekend. She submitted a video callback and was ultimately admitted (from the WL).