Hello, everybody! This is my very first College Confidential post, and I am very excited to join the Musical Theater Major discussion forum! I plan on auditioning for the Paper Mill Playhouse Summer Musical Theater Conservatory. Has anyone auditioned for the program in the past? How does the audition work? Who are the judges, and what are they looking for? Thank you! 
The following information is direct from the Paper Mill Playhouse FAQ section:
The auditors are 5-8 people they are members of Paper Mill staff and teachers who work in the summer musical theatre programs. There are 3 areas of scoring: Vocal, Personality/Presentation and Dance. Each judge will score these areas between a 1 and 5 with 1 being the lowest score and 5 the highest. We then tally all these scores and average them. The auditioners with the highest average scores in all three areas are admitted into the program.
I didn’t notice this bit of information on the website; thank you, Twelfthman! :-bd
Has anyone actually auditioned for the program?
Following
I have a family member who has attended PMP’s program for the past several summers, @followyourdream . If you have any questions that you want to ask here, I can ask them and get back to you.
Thanks for your reply, lovetoact. If you could ask your family member the questions I put in my original post, that would be excellent! This is my first time auditioning for the program, so I would like to get a feel for what I can expect.
@followyourdream I see your original post questions, but @Twelfthman basically already answered them by directing you to the info on their website and copying/pasting from the FAQ page. Are there more specific questions–like are you asking who (by name) are the judges? And since there’s already a response here about what they’re looking for, as far as Voice, Personality/Presentation, and Dance (the auditioners who are strongest in all three of these areas would be those picked for the program), what else specifically can I help you to find answers for?
Well, the FAQ section provides very general answers to my questions, so some of the specific questions I have are:
Within the categories of Voice, Personality/Presentation, and Dance, what specific things lead to a high score? Song choice, vocal range, acting, etc.
What types of dance routines have been conducted in the past?
Are the judges on the Paper Mill Playhouse theater school faculty?
Okay @followyourdream here’s what I found out-- for the younger kids at Papermill, personality in the song is very important (similar to younger professional performers–the ones with big personalities are the ones who often get the jobs) and for the older teens, they want the best possible voices, but there are certainly ‘ensemble’ voices/performers in the program, so every single teen doesn’t have to be the absolute-best-voice-you’ve-ever-heard. Like other auditions, if two kids have similar caliber voices and one interprets/performs it better, that one will get a higher score.
The dance is like a typical dance call. They teach a short ballet/jazz combo for the teens to perform.
My source says that yes, the judges are the summer faculty (which it also says in the FAQ).
Break a leg!
Thank you, lovetoact; this is very helpful!
I would add that song interpretation is very important and they spend a lot of the summer focusing on that. Big voices are definately a plus but you need to ACT the song. Also the dance combo is taught once then you turn to the judges and perform it. There are the Artistic Staff behind the table and also the staff from the education department. You will have fun relax and be yourself.
Thank you for your response, mamaboyz! I actually already auditioned for the program before you posted your response, but I did make sure to keep the focus on telling the story of my song. Good luck to everyone else auditioning!