<p>Muhlenberg offers three musicals during the summer; this year they're doing Kiss Me Kate, Tommy, and a children's show A Year With Frog and Toad. D found out last week that she was cast in Kiss Me Kate; it has a three-week run with Mondays being the only dark day, and two shows on Saturdays. Not only does it pay a small stipend, they get room and board free. This will be her first real test of what it's like to put up a show in three weeks, then run it for three weeks.</p>
<p>Berskshire Theatre Festival is a prestigious summer company in a beautiful part of the country. If she is a student she has most likely been cast in the apprentice/ intern company? If she chooses to do the program she will have the opportunity to work with professional directors and actors from NYC. This is a training based program with lots of classes taught by professionals in the company. The apprentices also participate in behind the scenes work, perform in productions, and are given the opportunity to understudy AEA actors on the mainstage.</p>
<p>As Kat said, Berkshire is a well-respected company. Their program for young actors is an apprentice/intern program, similar to that at Williamstown. This is a program which you will have to pay for, not one for which you will earn a salary (at least the apprenticeship program). That is not to say that it won't be an enriching experience for the participating students. In my opinion, programs like those at Berkshire and Williamstown are more valuable for the young actor than the typical summer stock situation. We have a friend who will be at Berkshire this summer. He's a longtime professional actor/playwright from NY and divides his time fairly equally between MT and straight plays. If I remember correctly, from what he's told me, Berkshire does very few musicals. I'm sure you could google them and get their season schedule for this summer, but if it's only MT your D is looking for, this may not be the best place.</p>
<p>Thank you for the info. She wants straight theatre this summer. It is the apprentice program. I just wanted to learn more about it. I feel bitter sweet because she will be gone all summer and I will miss her sooooooooooo much. She is a sohpmore at Tisch Drama and loves acting and singing. I do get to see her every 6 weeks but this summmer will be different. I feel like crying</p>
<p>actressmom -
Why not plan your summer vacation or a weekend here and there to visit your D and see her shows (if possible, of course)?
CONGRATS to your D it'll be a gr8 experience for her!
I know how you feel, whenever we have to say goodbye I get very emotional.</p>
<p>I'm just happy I have something to do this summer lol!! Theater wise of COURSE!!</p>
<p>I've been reading these threads and I am still confused. Let"s assume you pay the fee and do summerstock and now you end up with some equity points Does that now mean because you have eight equity points that you can no longer do community theatre plays and must always from now on be an equity actor?</p>
<p>No; only if you accumulate the 50 points required for equity can you no longer perform in a nonequity production(unless you have special permission from AEA).</p>
<p>RossJi is correct....having earned Equity points does not make you an Equity actor. You have to accrue 50 points to become Equity and thus there are no restrictions until you become Equity in terms of production work.</p>
<p>Rossj and Soozie - thanks for that confirmation. Appreciate it</p>
<p>It is my understanding that one you accrue 50 Equity points you either have to then committ to "taking your card" and becoming an Equity member or lose the points. The initiation fee, payable over 24 months, is currently $1100 and annual dues are $59 every six months. Equity takes out a certain portion depending on your contract of your pay every check you receive once you sign up for Equity. You have to get permission to then appear in any non-Equity production (outside of educational theater at your own school if you are still in school).</p>
<p>unless the rule has changed, once you have 50 points you do not have to become equity right away. You can wait a certain amount of time without loosing the points. However, you may not work at an AEA theatre again without joining AEA and being signed to an AEA contract.</p>
<p>Please excuse my total ignorance on how this all works. I'm hoping there really is no such thing as a "stupid question". I think I have read on here and perhaps on summer stock company websites (?) that after being accepted for auditions you are given a list of theatre attendees that you can then contact directly. What is the purpose of that and is it advisable? If there is a company on the list that you really dream of working for is it to contact them and give them a headsup you'll be auditioning on a certain day and looking forward to meeting them or what?</p>
<p>HoosierMom, my own D is not that interested in summer stock but I have just one experience with it as she did Straw Hats once, the summer after freshman year in college. The Straw Hats lists all the theaters and the contact information for them that attend. I can't imagine contacting them before auditioning. I think the contact information is handy once you have auditioned and may have had callbacks and the like. </p>
<p>My D had one very odd experience at Straw Hats in this vein (she ultimately was cast by a different theater after being seen at Straw Hats than the one I am referring to in this post). But at one of her callbacks, the theater offered her the role of Cinderella in Into the Woods and also to work on their other shows that season, right on the spot and gave her the contact information to accept the offer or not. Shortly thereafter, she tried to contact this director at this theater to ask a few questions before making the decision. She tried email and phone numerous times and never had any returned. It was very odd.</p>
<p>Susan you bring up a concern I had in looking over the list of past attendees at one of the sites. It was a film company. It could be totally legitimate but ageless stories of casting couches and those bogus ads that appear in big city newspapers started whirling in my head. I was hoping that places like Strawhat, NETC, etc pre-screen these people as to their legitimacy? Has anyone else had any strange experiences with theatre companies at these summer stock events?</p>
<p>I believe that the theater companies that participate in Straw Hats are all legitimate. The one I mentioned has been around a LONG time. I don't know why no calls or emails were returned or if there was any change in personnel or just what. The theater was known and not bogus or fly by night by any means. It has been around for 50 years and has a 40 week season and uses professional actors. I don't think my D's experience was "bad" but just was confusing. It is not like she called and emailed and the theater never existed. We have no clue why nobody returned the voice mails or emails. The theater still exists and so it is not like it wasn't legit. On an unrelated note to this exact topic, my D and her friends got a chuckle about her being cast as Cinderella in ITW as it was against her type, though she was flattered at the time. </p>
<p>Not everything is so straightforward. For instance, here is the situation with the theater that DID hire her for the summer. She was seen by them at StrawHats. She had a callback for them but their callback did not involve any type of "audition" like the other callbacks. Then, she did not hear from them at all. Then, about a month later, by sheer coincidence, the Artistic Director of that theater (a small Equity theater that is not simply summer stock), was observing my D's acting class one day at CAP21 because she happened to be friendly with that acting teacher and she herself teaches acting at a high school level theater prep program. The artistic director then recognized my D from the Straw Hats callback and I guess she liked what she saw that day in class and my D got a call shortly afterward asking her to come for a callback at the theater itself. She did go to that callback and was hired for the summer.</p>
<p>I checked the Equity site and need to update/correct my info about points:</p>
<p>Once you have your 50 points, you have 5 years in which you can continue to work non-equity (but NOT in an AEA theater) and keep your points. After that, they expire. Other than educational theater, if you are still in school, you cannot get permission to work under a non-equity contract once you join the Union.</p>
<p>In our experience, the majority of summerstock theatres that go to NETC, Strawhats, SETC, etc. are non-equity theatres. My son has an EMC card (equity candidacy, where points are earned as discussed above), but his past 2 summers of great summerstock work have been in non-equity theatres.</p>
<p>There is actually a pretty good representation of Equity theaters at Strawhats, at least. My D and many of her friends have accumulated Equity points this way.</p>
<p>Can someone talk a little about how the whole audition at Strawhats works? I know that MT performers get 90 seconds to do a monologue and sing, and later, callback lists go up. Say a student is called back at one or several places. How long does it typically take for a theater to contact the kid again and make an offer? Do most summer theater casts their productions in late March-early April? (I apologize in advance if this is a silly question.)</p>