Hi!!! Do we add the shows, training etc our children do the summer between 8th grade and 9th to the resume ? They technically are freshman once they finish 8th grade…
We listed any leads from middle school - left the rest off. Didn’t put years on the resume - just show-role-director/theater… biggest roles first, smaller roles toward the bottom.
I think it depends on what experience the student has and their skill level across disciplines. I have several thoughts about this. If a student has a lot of shows on their resume but their performance skills are lacking, I worry that they are more interested in being on stage than improving their skills. If a student has an excellent audition and is clearly skilled but has only a few roles on their resume, I am always very interested in learning more about them and will take time to ask them questions. Some students try to cram every role they have ever performed into their resume and the result can be very messy. Often the roles do not tell us anything about how the student sees themselves in this business, but rather that they are willing to take any role they are offered. Not necessarily bad, but it is information that informs our decision. Students will often list choral accomplishments and community service. While the admissions department wants to know that information, most of us ignore that information. If you are auditioning for a school that has a really strong choral program that the musical theatre performers participate in, that may be useful info. But for most BFA programs, choir is not part of the picture. HOWEVER, if you come from a school with a small theatre program and you were not able to perform a lot of roles, then choral experience does tell us that you were involved with the performance opportunities that were available to you. A lot to think about. The key is to be strategic in what you put on the resume and make sure it tells a story about your skills and how you got to where you are now.
~VT
My S’s resume loosely followed VoiceTeacher’s advice w/o us knowing what we were doing at the time. His only lead role in a school production was as “the miser” in The Miser in eighth grade (some would say that’s an odd role for a 14-year-old). He included that role because it was his only school lead and it was a “serious” play (seriously funny anyway). Even though he only applied to MT BFA programs, he was most interested in those that had a strong acting component and listing that role showed he could memorize/deliver a lead’s lines and was interested in doing plays (not just musicals). He also put a pretty big focus on the extensive training he did outside of school. He had a few supporting roles in HS musicals, but put most of his efforts into building skills in dance classes, voice lessons, and an acting studio which did not emphasize mounting full productions. His list of training, intensives and master classes was “heftier” than his list of roles.
For good or ill, he also included two amazing performance opportunities he had as a boy soprano singing solos in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children with a professional philharmonic orchestra. Those two pieces were the only “professional” performances he ever participated in and even though he was only in 6th grade at the time, we felt it showed that he could perform in a “high stakes” environment and also that a highly regarded conductor liked his voice and trusted him to sing very difficult music in tune and in a professional manner. Not sure if that was the right thing to include on his resume, but we felt it helped fill out the “story” of who he was and the work he had done. He’s in, so maybe it helped.
Thank you all for your suggestions and advice !