<p>ElliottsMom-
Thanks! These are great! They can be used for everything from stationery to decorating a dorm room!!! :)</p>
<p>ElliottsMom,</p>
<p>Thank you for that link. I am not scrapbooking....just love the quotes. They speak volumes.</p>
<p>SUE aka 5pants</p>
<p>I too loved the quotes. Thanks!</p>
<p>Diana</p>
<p>Me too! Thanks for sharing!</p>
<p>Kathie</p>
<p>Were does the time go. Daughter has been at NCSA for 4 weeks now, one week remaining. This has been a very positive experience for her with the most common word I have heard being amazing It has pushed her beyond anything she has ever done and at times scared her. She was placed in the top drama group and said of her task master teacher, I love her and I cant take my eyes off of her but she scares me!</p>
<p>She has been given exercises where she has shined beyond anything we expected and struggled with some more than we expected. For those of you following previous posts she has made adequate friends and does not feel lonely. </p>
<p>The morning classes have been, voice, dance, circus and stage combat. She has not cared much for voice as she does not think that much of the teacher (although she signed up for private voice lessons in the evening to which she raves about). Her Dance class is not that great just cause she is very strong at that.</p>
<p>Now the good news; She loves Circus and now can juggle basically anything not bolted down. And, she loves stage combat. She has had that before but not to this level. They have been working with broad swords which she loves. Turns out her combat teacher was the fight choreographer for Narnia. </p>
<p>Several months before she headed off to NCSA we learned that in addition to an acting audition she would have a movement audition upon arrival. Not knowing what a movement audition was we asked around and found nobody who could enlighten us. </p>
<p>In addition to that D was going to travel farther than she ever has on her own, be in a climate different than she ever has (humid heat) then face jet lag returning with only two days from end of NCSA to beginning of new two week summer program with testing of lots of lines prior to them allowing check in. </p>
<p>We decided that significantly stepping up Ds physical conditioning and nutrition was the best way to go in preparation for that schedule. We stumbled on Pilates and an excellent former actor who teaches it in our community. I cannot say enough about how well that physical conditioning ties in with acting. </p>
<p>The other thing I want to comment on is the role of Ballet in our D. She resisted it at first with some preconceived notions I think. She loved jazz dance but I think ballet to her was a bunch of 5 year olds strutting around aimlessly. At this juncture she has had 5 years of straight ballet and 2 years on Pointe. </p>
<p>The point is that that gave her a basis for physical focus and body control. Everything now comes back to ballet control. Be it blocking, stage combat, palates or otherwise. In her circus class they did an exercise where each student had a paper plate in each hand with a marble on each plate. They where to move them around their body in Matrix fashion. Long after the other kids had dropped their marbles she was still going. Afterwards kids asked her, how did you do that? She credits it to the body control that ballet gave her</p>
<p>For the NCSA entrance movement audition the students were assigned to groups of 10 and given time slots. D went early to see the group prior to her go. How did they do, I asked? Really well, there was one girl who was really good and everyone was watching her". How did you do? really well, I was that girl in our group, the one everyone was watching</p>
<p>That is how classic ballet training has helped her to pursue her acting desires.</p>
<p>WallyWorld,</p>
<p>It was so nice to read the news on how your d is doing at NCSA. My d has a very good friend also attending the program and she is also having a wonderful time! Her initials are SB from right here in NC if your d comes across her. She is a sweetheart! The NCSA summer program is an amazing program! Your d is so fortunate to be a part of it! My d has taken quite a few workshops there but has never attended the summer program. Glad things are going so well for her!</p>
<p>I wrote</p>
<p>
[quote]
She has not cared much for voice as she does not think that much of the teacher
[/quote]
Daughter corrected me on that statement. She does not care for her voice class but it has nothing to do with the teacher. She just prefers straight drama and would rather be doing anything related like combat for example. </p>
<p>The correction regarding the teacher is not surprising as what has been surprising is how professional and committed everyone has been. Even the support services such as the admissions office, health center and so on. They had a presentation by I think she said the department chair or some such both about himself and the school. I believe she said that he was the first American to produce a play at the Globe. She was impressed.</p>
<p>Just really got back to reading here, as I have been away for over a month. Thought I would give an update on the OCU Summer Musical Theater program (Mods if this is not the right place for this, you may delete it).
OCU was a real learning experince, both culterally and in terms of musical theater training. First off, the dance training was wonderful. I am not a dancer in the least, and even though I was in the beginner group, the teacher did not make us feel like we any less talented than the other groups. She was very encouraging and I felt I learned alot.
We had three classes in the morning, Acting,Dance and Musical theory. The acting training, I thought, could have been better. It was the Meisner (sp?) technique, and thought the teacher was obviously very versed in what he was teaching,and the games at the begining, were very effectiv ein learning the basics, I felt he could have gone a little more in depth, but thats jsut my personal opinion. Musical theory, I felt was the least educational of the three classes. The teacher completly missed class a few times, because he slept in, and did not seem to care, and he went so fast that I felt completly lost. I think for the students who really knew and were imressed in musical theroy it was a worth while class, but because they did not level for musical theory, everyone was lumped together . Piano was only given the two saturdays and we learned one scale so it was really a waste of time. I think piano is an essential part of singing and they could have made more of an effort than they did to teach it.<br>
Bye Bye Birdie. In the end BBB was a fun show, but most thought it a poor choice. It was very overwhelming with a cast of 60 . It was split up so that each person had the final number (Got alot of Livin') to be a part of, Ed Sullivan and one other number . It could have been a very good ensemble show, but with such a large cast it jsut did not seem to mesh.
In conclusion, the program was an eye opening experince , but in my opinion, does needa bit of improvment. For the right kind of kid it is a great program, you can learn alot, I learned alot, . It really helped me to know waht I want in a musical theater program, what I don't want , and I would recommened precollege programs to everyone really debating this path, as it really opens your eyes to the reality of this feild. If anyone has anymore questions, or anything you can pm me. I tryed to be as honest as I could , while focusing most on the academic side of the program, as I feel socially, it is to subjective to go by one persons opinion. Also, if anyone has anything to add from past years, mabye Mtmommy or Ericsmom, I think it would help those seriously looking into this program for next year.
As a last note, for next summer, they are thinking of splitting the programs into two diffrent sessions.</p>
<p>My d attended the OCU summer program and loved it. She especially enjoyed the master classes and learned alot from her instructors. She thought the production of Bye-Bye Birdie was alot of fun. She loved the director of the show and thought that he was far and above the best director that she has ever worked with. She came home with a very positive feeling about OCU and plans to audition there this fall.
I liked the program because it was very well supervised!
Susan</p>
<p>Defying and NOLAmom, this may seem like a strange question, but how was the OCU precollege program in terms of diversity, geographically and culturally and racially? Were most of the participants from the west/southwest/midwest and so on? Boys-to-girls-ratio? Was the program mostly white, or were there also black, Asian and Hispanic kids?
Just curious about those aspects in both the precollege and regular program.</p>
<p>Out of the 60 or so kids that attened OCU camp about 13 were boys. Most from OK and surrounding states. 2 from NY, 1 form CA, 1 from MN, 1 from WI, 1 from MA. I saved the playbill which listed where everyone came from.</p>
<p>Thanks, Zappos. Was there much diversity as far as ethnicity and race? Also, does anyone know how that all breaks down as far as the regular college program?
Wow, only 13 boys out of 60 campers! I wonder if that is pretty much the story at other precollege programs, too. Does anyone know?</p>
<p>My d is going to UCLA Aug 6th for this program. Anyone else out there going?</p>
<p>NotMammaRose,</p>
<p>The small sample size not withstanding, I thought OCU was as diverse as any other MT camp my child has attended including those on the east coast.</p>
<p>With all this OCU discussion going on, last year's program was discussed about a year ago on a summer program thread that you could search for. That is the best place to go for last year's info. rather than repeating it here. </p>
<p>We have just returned from the ending show at Broadway Theatre Project. We were totally blown away by the talented people in that program and the excellent quality of the show. The ending show is a variety show and everyone is in a few numbers. Young people who go to BTP range from age 16 up to mid-20s. Many of them already have college MT or dance training. The teachers at BTP seem to be excellent, and the classes are held every day for 3 weeks with little free time, so it is a fairly intense program. Contrary to prior information that was posted somewhere on these threads (that said it was very focused on dance training), it seemed to focus equally on all 3 areas of acting, singing, and dance.</p>
<p>Parent pointer if you go in the future, we wished we had stayed downtown near the performing arts facility where the show is held rather than out by the USF campus. Some of the veteran parents seemed to know this already.</p>
<p>We just returned from S's performance at the close of the 5-week portion of the Cherubs theatre program at Northwestern (the musical theatre extension for those participants selected to stay has now begun and he remains for two more weeks). This report is about the impressive quality of the plays we saw while we were there. Since we didn't see all 10 of them, I can't give a firsthand account, but the quality of the two we saw makes me think the program's commitment to a rigorous schedule of multiple daily clasess, combined with equally demanding evening rehearsals for these productions, produced results. There were 160 kids in the 5-week Acting program; each was cast in one of ten plays which were performed twice during the final week. The two-week musical theatre program that has just commenced required an audition tape (in April), admitted 30 students and ends with performances on 8/11. I'll report our observations after we pick him up. I can report that gender, geographic and ethnic diversity were well represented at Northwestern, at least in the 5-week, 160-person program. Faculty were a mix of working professionals, university teachers, and college-level rising seniors (about half of whom were "Cherub" alumni of four years ago). The college students serving as faculty associates represent many of the programs discussed on CC. I can probably answer questions or seek "real" information, should people need more than what I've posted!</p>
<p>kedstuff, thanks so much for the report. My D is a rising high school junior and we are just beginning to think about colleges (as well as summer programs for that important summer between junior year and college auditions) and Northwestern is one of those schools that I know little about, other than that it has a sterling rep. I have heard Cherubs mentioned here, and thought it was a straight acting program only. But from your post, it sounds as if there is a musical theater component. Or am I mistaken, and is the two week MT thing something separate? You noted that the MT component required an audition: did the acting component?</p>
<p>My son is a rising junior and we are looking to try that UCLA course next summer. I would love to hear your impressions.</p>
<p>I'll let you know.</p>
<p>NotMamaRose--The "cherubs" program does have a great reputation and, from what we've seen, it is warranted. (You may want to look at the thread under summer programs and also under the Northwestern heading in the schools section because a young man posted his experiences from last summer when we asked questions earlier this spring.) I can certainly answer your specific question about the acting vs. MT options. All students go to the first 5 weeks and have an intensive series of core classes and electives, and are cast in one play that is performed in the final week (so they have about four weeks of rehearsals). These are "straight" plays. If students opt to audition by tape/DVD for the musical theatre extension, they are evaluated at the point of initial application for invitation to the 2-week program that starts when the 5-week program ends. This program is the only one that requires an audition and it is much smaller than the 5-week program. MT is not available without the prior 5-week program which makes sense because the faculty who continue with these students have been working with them all along and build on their progress over the 5 weeks into the remaining two weeks -- this time focusing on musical theatre development. I'll know more when S concludes his MT program but it's my sense that these students are all very serious about pursuing MT. While many of the 5-week program students were talented and had good prior training, some didn't. That's typical of non-audition programs (similar to CMU's). This smaller, audition-based program takes those willing to put in the additional 2 weeks, selects on talent and focuses on musical theatre. I'll let you know how it compares with the first 5 weeks, which he thought were well spent. (Just so you have some point of reference, he attends a performing arts HS so he's comparing this experience to similar high intensity classes during his "regular" school year.) Hope this helps.</p>