SETC

College Majors Musical Theater Major
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My S is currently a college sophomore. When he attended SETC as a HS junior, a few of the schools DID offer great feedback, one waived a prescreen (I don’t believe that school attends any longer) and a few offered admission to their programs with a “starter” scholarship (possibly more money if he went through the application process). The other cool thing about attending as a junior is that 10 (I think) auditionees went into the room at once and they could watch each other’s auditions to get a sense of how they compared to others in their cohort. The professional auditions are run similarly.

@exitstageleft - even if a college student can’t stay for the whole convention, the price of admission is still a bargain when you consider how many producers you get to audition for at one time and then compare that to the time and money it would take to go to individual auditions for each one. I believe there are generally something like 80 producers in attendance - many more than at other professional unifieds. My S was only being considered for summer work, but that still left something like 25-30 entities he could be considered for. He was extremely fortunate to receive more callbacks than he could get back to over the course of the convention and was really only able to attend the keynote speakers and the two workshops he had signed up for ahead of time and paid additional fees for. Every penny was well worth it. It’s a shame that some college students can only attend for auditions, but if that’s the case, they should still leave plenty of time to get to their callbacks. My S and friends from his college had to leave earlier than expected to get back to an early Sunday rehearsal that the director would not release them from. But even driving in the middle of the night so they could get to their callbacks and still make the morning rehearsal was worth it to stay at the convention as long as possible.

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Thanks @mom4bwayboy I figured it will def still be worth going. My D needs audition experience such as this. As I am to understand it they call them in those groups of 10 or whatever & they just take turns giving their selection to the accompanist right? Then they post callbacks later that day?

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If I remember right, you do get a chance to warm up and run through your song during your group’s allotted window. Then yes, called up in groups of 10 and give your music/instructions to accompanist when it’s your turn. Callbacks are posted at scheduled intervals - maybe before lunch for morning group and 3:00ish(??) for later group (don’t quote me on that). Most of the HS callbacks were done at the program’s booth in the exhibit hall - some gave very individualized notes on the audition. As others have said, some “callbacks” were basically sales pitches for their programs. There are also some summer workshop/intensives there. My S did have a dance callback for one of those - I think I recall it was fairly late in the evening.

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@mom4bwayboy, thanks so much for that information.

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Also is there a need to bring anything else to the audition other then your music? What about headshot or resume or is that not necessary?

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The headshot and resume are uploaded during the registration process and they print them out and copy them in black and white for those in the room. Make sure the picture uploaded pic looks good in black and white.