<p>Is it normal that the master's students audition along with the BA students for the theater productions at a college?</p>
<p>Many schools do not even have MFA programs, so no. However, this is an important questions to ask at each school on your list that does have both undergraduate and graduate students. The policy will very much vary from school to school.</p>
<p>We made it a point to check every school we researched to see if it had grad students. It wasn’t something that made my D reject a school outright, but she did a lot of checking about casting and other policies that would affect her as an undergrad if it did. She did decide against one school she was accepted to partly because those policies were very unclear at the time. But sometimes it can be a terrific thing. One school she was considering was considering offering a tremendous new Master’s program in Directing that might have given her all kinds of really exciting opportunities as an undergrad - except the program fell through before it got started, sadly.</p>
<p>I think we will be removing UCI from our list for this reason. It was our safety school and I think it’s not a good idea</p>
<p>Also remember that the grad students are going to be older than the undergrads. In theatre, people often take a long break between undergrad and grad school, so grad students are sometimes much older. The grad students will therefore be under consideration for different roles. They will be auditioning for the “older” characters, while the undergrads will be auditioning for the “younger” characters.</p>
<p>That is what happens and UCI but it’s not quite accurate to say the undergrads are competing for roles with the MFA’s. There’s the whole age thing and most UG’s eventually figure out what they have a realistic shot at and what is basically a practice audition.</p>