<p>My D is a year young and will not be 17 until late Auggust just before she begins her senior year (she has just completed 9th grade). This rules her out entirely for CCM's summer programs(and many of the others as well) which REALLY has her bugged . The rules state that you HAVE to be 16 before the program begins as you must live on campus- and the summer between 11th and 12th grade will really be fillled up with campus visits and last minute preparation. Does anyone know of any other options besides French Woods or Stage Door Manor? While those programs are wonderful too, they are WAY out out my price range and the scholarships they offered her are during the last two weeks of our school year or during that difficult part of the very late summer when things are beginning at school.
Ideas please? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>My Darling D- whom I just got off the NYC for her CAP21 summer program TODAY- is a rising senior. We chose not to do a lot of campus visits so that she could go to CAP for 6 weeks. We did a few in the spring and she feels that she will be able to narrow her choices down so we can audition and do visits in the fall. I think it depends very strongly on your child. </p>
<p>We felt as if we could only afford one summer program for MT and she was willing to wait to do CAP. </p>
<p>Not everyone who gets into MT does a summer program - many of her very talented friends who are current MT majors- did not go!</p>
<p>Good luck!
MikksMom</p>
<p>INTERLOCHEN!!!!!!</p>
<p>i am like your daughter in that i am also a late birthday. i had no specific interest in doing a dorm program the summer before i turned sixteen, but that summer (and the summer before i turned 15), i went to Interlochen Arts Camp in northern michigan. It's an audition-based program, but GREAT!!! </p>
<p><a href="http://www.interlochen.org%5B/url%5D">www.interlochen.org</a></p>
<p>feel free to PM with questions about it!!</p>
<p>Lulu'sMom, I would also recommend that you try to get a copy of the spring issue of a magazine called Dramatics. I think it is put out by the International Thespian Society. That issue lists a ton of summer programs, and many are not as pricey as Interlochen or Stage Door Manor, etc. Off the top of my head, I can't name many, but more than a few are based at various colleges and universities and some offer financial aid. It's worth checking out in advance for next summer.
This summer, my D is attending the summer theater camp offered by the American Shakespeare Center in Virginia, and they offer financial aid. It's NOT musical theater, but it is great acting training. Google "Shenandoah Shakespeare" and you should be able to get some info, if your D is interested. Once mine is back, I will let the group know more details about how it went.</p>
<p>I second Interlochen...you can get a full scholarship of needed, something like 70% of the kids were on scholarship...it's really really intense and amazing, I loved it.</p>
<p>There are many ways for performers to spend a summer. Even though the top MT schools have wonderful programs, there are other options. My 15 y.o. DD is staying home this summer, working with a top-notch acting coach 3 days a week, working for her voice teacher, and taking dance lessons. We have essentially put together an individual musical theatre program for her at a much reduced price.</p>
<p>We know of some kids who come to NY for a month and take private acting coaching, Broadway Dance Center lessons and singing lessons, while catching some Bdway shows.</p>
<p>Perry Mansfield is a wonderful performing arts program. It is the oldest performing arts camp in the country. They bring top notch professionals for masters classes and the faculty is outstanding. It is a not for profit program and not nearly as pricey as the FW or SDM. </p>
<p>My daughter who attends a performing arts school went last year and loved her classes. Feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>Oklahoma City University offers two kinds of musical theater programs. Unfortunately, they have a) started or b) are filled. We offer a high school program (3 week program) for 9th through rising 12th graders. Also, there is a junior high (2 week program) program for 6th through 9th graders. Both programs include classroom training (acting, dance) plus on-stage performance experience (high school: "Bye, Bye Birdie" and junior high "Godspell, Jr.")</p>
<p>Admissions to the high school program requires an audition recording. For this year, the junior high did not. The price of both programs is much cheaper than other university-based, pre-college programs. </p>
<p>The summer dates are usually announced in January.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the great ideas and I would appreciate hearing more when your kids return home. My D will be PMing for some info too. Right now, she is pretty pleased, as the youngest out of 78 kids, she landed the part of "Lambchops" in "Fame" in the summer production she was particpating in. Although she blew everyone away in the auditions (especially the vocal) it is a very "typy" show and she, at 5'6" and 14 was either too tall to fit with the "opposite" player or too young! Her voice lessons start up again in two weeks- I just wish that it was possible to find a really good MT dance class around here; there are a lot of them that offer the "tricks" without much technique(the girls look OK in high school, but when they go to coolege auditions, they are really outclassed) and we certainly don't want to go the "recital-based" dance school route , which seems to encompass most of them here.Her "regular" instructor is down at French Woods for the summer and it looks like he will be taking a permanant job out of state, so we need to look.We have an exellent ballet studio which feeds the best national companies, but they don't offer anything for my D at her stage....</p>
<p>Lulu'sMomma,
We didn't have any MT dance classes at our studio but I don't think that mattered at all. Students going into MT in college should ideally have training in ballet, jazz and tap (if you can only do one, do ballet but jazz would really help too). The BFA auditions usually involve ballet or jazz or both. So, if your dance studios are "recital based" and offer these disciplines, that is what most are doing, I think, who train in dance prior to college. Perhaps some studios offer MT styles but many, including ours, do not. My D's jazz repertory dance troupe usually did a MT styled number, sometimes, Fosse, etc. For 13 years she trained in ballet/pointe, jazz, tap, lyrical/modern, and hip hop. None of her classes were geared to MT and most at her studio were not going into MT (some have pursued BFA or BA in dance though). But the technique is what is important and that is gained in classes in these disciplines. Even in my D's BFA program, her classes are called: ballet, jazz, and tap, all three of which she takes each semester. The jazz class does do some dances that are MT styled. Also, if your D is in musicals and has roles that involve dance, she is using her technique and applying it to musical theater production numbers. In that regard, my D has also done lots of MT dance because so many shows she has done involve that style (ie., Pippin, 42nd Street, West Side Story, Oklahoma, etc). So those dance studios where you are offer the TECHNIQUE she needs to be ready for a college program in MT. Enjoy FAME...fun show!</p>
<p>Hi Lulu'smom-
My daughter has some of the same casting problems. She is also 14 and 5'6" (maybe more by now) so suffers from being unable to be in child parts but too young for some adult parts. She is also AA which sometimes works to her advantage (ie., she is going Ragtime) but also to her disadvantage. Although she did manage to e cast as an adult male in Fiddler.
As for dancing, D is a officially doing a pre-pro ballet dance program, so she spends tons of time in ballet class (14+ hours a week). She only does 1 hour of tap and 1 of a jazzish-MTish dance class. I would say take the ballet at a school that is technique versus competition focuses. Doesn't the compant school hold adult classes? As a tall 14 she maybe able to take these and progress that way. Of course I have no way of knowing what is readily available to you, but the feedback my D has received when she auditions is that it is technique they look at. If the basic technique is there, they can teach the specific steps.
And finally, since this is long anyway - we may see you next year at a pre-college as we are looking at OCU's summer program. MY D did two years at Interlochen as a intermediate grades 6 and 7) and is ambivalent about going back as a high schooler. (This year she would have had to be in the Int. program again and did not want to do that) It is unlikely she will go back as we can't afford the cost of it for ambivalent! However, she came back MUCH stronger vocally and in acting after both of her summers.</p>