Having only just found CC and this forum for MT, it has been amazing to see so much support and care shown for all those (students, parents, mentors, teachers) who are on board this collective adventure. I’m really grateful to everyone that has shared insights, offered congratulations and words of encouragement, not just for my S and our family but for everyone. This is a very long post but I hope one that might help others out there. If you don’t want to read the whole thing…it has a happy ending.
So here goes…
Programs Applied to: AMDA, BoCo, Carnegie Mellon, CCM, Emerson, Michigan, Point Park, Marymount Manhattan, Northwestern, Pace, NYU-Tisch, Brown, UVA, W&M, VCU
Prescreens: BoCo, Carnegie Mellon, CCM, Emerson, Michigan, Point Park, Marymount Manhattan, Pace
Passed: all (Emerson - redirected to Theater and Performance BFA)
Did not pass: n/a
Auditions: NY Unifieds + NYC / Michigan (on campus)
Accepted to: AMDA, BoCo, CCM, Emerson, Point Park, NYU-Tisch, UVA, W&M
Withdrew: VCU
Rejected from: Carnegie Mellon, Michigan, Pace, Northwestern, Brown
Wait-listed at: Marymount Manhattan
Coach: Voice teacher since 11th grade
Summer Programs: None
Background:
S has been a musical kid from a very early age. As a toddler he was always singing a little tune, often to himself while he played, read books, anything really. He was busy creating his own sound track. He was a precocious kid (probably a similar story for many of our MT children) and loved hamming it up for friends and family.
He began singing in the children’s choir of our church when he was still in KG. The rule was you had to be able to read and as soon as he could do that, he was there. My wife and I vividly remember the music director pulling us aside after one of the weekly practices. He told us… “you need to keep him singing…get him a voice teacher, he’s got real talent.” We thought… that’s nice but this kids like 6 years old.
Singing continued in school and church but right after S’s 1st grade year our family embarked on a nomadic adventure when I joined the Foreign Service. Suddenly were were moving thousands of miles away for a two year assignment. 2/3 grade. Then back to the U.S. for training (4th grade), then overseas again for another two years (grades 5&6) and then back for two (7th/8th) but separated for one of those years by a hardship tour for me. Finally… high school has been spent overseas.
Throughout all the moves and all the different international schools or more familiar schools at home in VA, reading, singing and sports were his constants. School choirs and plays + a bit of community theater were the main outlets. You never had to ask the kid if he wanted to participate, he just did. District honor choirs, all state choirs, international school music festivals and at one point playing four sports in a year, straight A student. And much to his family’s chagrin, succeeding with seemingly little effort. In the last years he taught himself to play guitar and piano. I’ve been trying to learn how to play guitar for 15 years!
But at the heart of it all was a passion for performing for others, making an audience feel something, giving them joy or hope or moving them in some way. In several of his essays he wrote about the moment he knew he wanted to pursue MT… he and I were sitting on our couch in 2016 watching the Tony Awards. As LMM was giving his incredible “love is love is love is love…” speech S turned to me and said, “Dad, that’s what I want to do.” He wasn’t even 14 yet.
The Great Musical Theater Applications Adventure:
Flash forward to summer of 2019. Epic road trip to visit almost 10 different schools because S was heading back overseas for his senior year. How did he decide which schools? Well… he came across Playbill U’s 2018-2019 ranking of alumni on Broadway and despite me pleading with him to understand that there were tons of great programs out there he refused to budge… even when confronted with the fact that LMM went to Wesleyan.
He heads back overseas with his mom and younger sister. I start my new job in DC… not wanting to move him during his final year meant we would be apart again but it was the right thing to do.
Pre-screens? What are those? We really had very little idea of what we were doing and in the midst of his final year of the IB program, playing Tony in his school’s production of WSS and everything else, we get to Nov. 30 / Dec. 1 and are frantically pulling together all his pre-screen material working on two different continents six hours apart.
Next… hearing that many schools were interested but, unfortunately all their audition slots were full. What? We had made plans to attend NY unifieds and figured that would be the most efficient. It ended up being that way but only after tons and tons of juggling, pleading emails, etc. He almost ended up dropping his audition to CCM b/c he couldn’t get an audition with Pace.
Jan. 15, 2020. He flies in to JFK, I come up from DC. Six days in NYC and, for me, the terror began. The staggering level of talent and the sheer number of kids auditioning has me saying (to myself), maybe he should have applied to more schools. This is where not understanding the process started to cause me to wish I had known about CC much sooner. I had already struggled with the tiny class sizes in MT and the enormous applicant pools, but now we were not only hearing, but also seeing the odds. And I was getting scared.
S basically had the time of his life. An even keel punctuated with a few choice moments of freaking out like “Why didn’t I quit sports in 9th grade to focus on dancing?” “Umm, because you love sports and would have refused?” He did 7 auditions in 6 days (NYU, BoCo, Emerson, CCM, PPU, Pace and CMU). That seemed like a huge amount until I talked with other parents. And finding out that people were applying to 12, 15, 20 programs, again had me really worried.
But looking back, I took two things away from the experience. People in the MT world, even when stressed, can be really kind. And, more importantly, my S had found his people. Lots of small international schools and 8 years of being somewhat disconnected from “home” meant that he’d never really been around a lot of kids with the same passion, the same dedication, the same outlook on life. To see him smiling, laughing and connecting. My goodness what a gift. To any of you who were there… or your kids… thank you.
NY Unifieds are over and I put S back on a plane to Europe. We were both sad but knew that in less than a month we would see each other again. He was lucky to get past the Michigan prescreen and we flew him back over for the on campus audition Feb 21. He arrives on the 17th and as he’s unwinding from a long day of travel when he gets an email from CCM. It was a YES. He was in shock, me too. Seeing a dream become a reality is a beautiful thing.
Michigan was a great experience and a painfully quick no. Then a yes from PPU, a no from CMU, yes from Emerson, no from Pace, Northwestern, Brown. We waited a while more for decisions to come in from BoCo and NYU-Tisch, both yes. Also his in-state school options UVA and W&M (BA Theater) both yes.
Then comes the difficult part… the discussion on finances. Everyone is on some part of this spectrum and we needed some support, like most. S has always been mature beyond his years and he said… “look, I don’t know if I will get a job in MT when I graduate and I don’t want end up with huge debt” CCM was generous with their support and quick to connect current students with admitted students. At the end of the day, after a really long journey, the decision was made.
Final Decision: CCM