It’s time! These boards have been extremely helpful to date, and I can’t wait to embark on this journey with each of you! I will start us off!
I have a D who is pursuing a degree in MT. She is equal singer and actor, followed by dance. She began voice lessons when she was in the 4th grade and quickly found her way to performing after that. She is the dreaded “cute blonde” - we know she will have to work extra hard to stand out in that regard. She attends a PA high school and is currently working on her list. She is casting a wide net - even thinking of Royal Conservatorie of Scotland as a possibility. She is attending RADA in London this summer to get a taste of what it is like to study overseas.
I am really looking forward to getting to know everyone! I just ordered my desk calendar on Amazon to put up in our study as I saw one of the first schools we are looking at posted their 2018/19 details.
Here we go!!!
How exciting. I have been stalking these boards for several years and it felt like it would never be our time…
My name is Kristie. I have a son who just finished his Junior year and a daughter who just finished her Sophomore year.
My son goes to a public high school with a very strong and well known Performing Arts Dept. He was in his first show in 3rd grade and has been in 20+ productions since then. He has done mostly school based productions but a few community theatre roles as well.
We live in Southern Indiana. His high school has an active Thespian Troupe and attends the International Thespian Festival every summer. He had the honor his freshman year to perform on the MainStage during festival in a production of 42nd Street and will step on to the MainStage again in June at festival in his schools production of Disney’s Newsies!
He will be participating in College Auditions at the International Thespian Festival next month. My understanding is that in some cases it is a true “audition”, other schools use it more as a prescreen experience. Hoping it will be great practice and help prepare for auditions that are to come.
He has been in private voice lessons and dance since age 9. I would classify him as an equally strong actor/singer and a more than mover but not quite dancer (if that makes sense). He can pick up choreography, is a great tapper but struggles with technique and coordination (working on that).
For the last year he has worked with his voice teacher on establishing his repertoire for auditions and has just started some additional training/monolgue coaching currently.
We have had the luxury of musical theatre/acting courses in school as well.
We have been on several college visits over the last year. It is really an overwhelming process to start, but will be here before we know it!
I am a non musically inclined, probably over involved, neurotic mom. My job is the organization factor. Dad is an English teacher and will provide comic relief as necessary. He will likely be the one to accompany on auditions because dear son and I are enough alike that we don’t do well in high stress situations together.
I can’t wait to get to know everyone better and learn more about your journey. Best of luck to your talented children!
Finally! It’s been so great to watch all of the students who have gone on to do what they love and I’m excited to get started on this crazy ride!
My D goes to a public high school with a decent theatre program - not a PA school by any means. She is a singer first, then an actor, then a dancer. As far as schools go, she is interested in staying closer to home, so we will be doing more regional auditions with a couple of lottery schools thrown in for good measure.
I’ve got our big calendar out and am already filling in audition dates for the fall. My preference is that she get as many auditions out of the way before Christmas as she possibly can. We will see if that is possible. Ha! I’m going to be the chauffeur, the secretary and the cheerleader for her this audition season. Her first real audition-like event will be the Dallas Summer Musicals Audition Prep weekend in August so we are shooting to have everything prepared by that date.
Best of luck to everyone!
@mom2MTgal Smart to get some auditions done in the fall. My only advice would be to make sure her package is really ready for early auditions. If you can fit a mock audition into the very early fall, it will help solidify her choices! Best of luck to you and to all embarking on this journey.
Can’t believe it is finally our turn! My D goes to a small public school in Vermont. She started her performing career at t the age of 2 in Vermont’s own traveling youth circus - Circus Smirkus. She performed with them every summer up until she was 14 and then decided that she wanted to take those skill sets and bring them into the theater world. She is a singer/actress first and then dancer. She is also one of those “cute, tall, blond” actresses that will need to stand out and show her wonderful personality in addition to the required audition pieces. Even though we are not near a large city and don’t have the “high-end” experiences other kids will have. She has taken advantage of so many wonderful opportunities just within our New England community and have made some wonderful connections through Weston Playhouse, Northern Stage, Main Street Arts, Springfield Community Players and NEYT. From master classes, to private lessons (vocal/monologue), to being cast in local community theater productions as well as being involved in her drama and band programs at school, my D is trying to her best to make herself a well-rounded applicant. This semester she even wrote, directed and casted herself in her own one-act play that she produced for her Dramatic Performance class. She is 6th in a very competitive academic class with a 3.8 GPA, so we are hoping that that will help us out financially.
Her summer plans will be in Boston this summer. She was accepted into Emerson College’s 5 week pre-summer MT program for college credit this July/August and will be prepared to bring in her proposed audition material for the fall for them to keep tweeking and/or deciding other material might be more suitable for her. Our goal is to start submitting applications and pre-screen audition materials starting Sept 1st.
I too am the mom that will be organizing, encouraging, cheering, driving, and hoping that the faculty at these schools, sees what we see in our D and takes the chance on her! I look forward to sharing and learning with you all and perhaps our paths will cross at an audition or two in the fall/winter!
@artskids - I am hoping the Dallas Summer Musicals Audition Prep weekend will be a great mock audition - plus it makes her have everything together earlier. I’m hearing there will be the option to record pre-screens at the DSM weekend, so that will be super helpful.
MTVTMom: Welcome to the CC MT community! I recognize who you are from your post as we are FB friends (through a FB / Circus Smirkus mutual friend). I can’t wait to follow your D’s journey. And I gotta say…go VT MT kids! (from one rural VT public school mom of a MT kid to another) 
@soozievt Thank you for the shout out! I am so excited for my D, but so nervous and overwhelmed at awaits her in the next months that lie ahead! I know it is possible, but seeing other kids opportunities and experiences compared what she has been trying to accomplish to gain as much experience as she can, it makes me a bit weary about what is to come! As a very supportive parent of every challenge and obstacle she has come up against so far; I do need to harness my feelings though and let her positive spirit and outgoing personality lead her down this path she is so passionate about. I am ready for this journey and hope that this CC MT community will be a guide and support system as we all go through this journey together.
@MTVTmom I hear ya. Just to be encouraging, I know several kids who have come out of rural VT and gotten into BFA in MT programs and have successful professional careers. And yes, this forum can be both a wealth of support and information.
I have been trying to pretend it’s not our turn yet; S19 still has one more week of school so it feels like I can pretend at least that much longer!
S goes to a public school with a nice theater program. He’s participated in the musical since 8th grade and thespians since sophomore year. And that’s about it as far as performing goes. He is a strong athlete and was playing soccer year round until this fall. He is also a varsity wrestler and both of those sports took up so much free time that community theatre was never an option. He shocked us last winter when he said that he was considering applying for MT programs - not that we didn’t know how much he loves to sing and perform, it’s just that he’d only talked about various types of engineering degrees until that point.
He is a singer first, he’s taken voice lessons since middle school. He added dance last summer (first recital is next weekend, yikes!) and has been doing acting lessons since the fall. He was accepted to Artsbridge and S.T.A.T.E. and we decided to let him do both; we feel like since he started preparing for this so much later than it seems like most kids do, the more training he can get this summer, the better.
He’s still planning on two tracks of applications (although engineering is no longer on the table, now it’s poli sci) so my spreadsheet is out of control. I am really looking forward to getting to know this year’s group of parents and supporting each other through this journey.
Yay! Glad you got this going! My S is finishing up Jr. Year and is gearing up for pre-screens, all with some loving support (i.e. Nagging) from me! :))
We are casting a wide net, right now about 18 schools, including some safeties, (started with 50!) but hope to be able to narrow it some with earlier fall auditions. We’ve also done a couple of school visits which really helped him get a feel for things. Schools/areas he thought he would love, he didn’t, and vice versa, so visiting for us was a great start. (Obviously, we can’t visit all, but I was surprised at how much getting a feel for a place would change the list!)
When we started with the giant list, I printed off the curricula for all the schools and had him blindly review and rank a couple of times. That process definitely helped narrow it down, and gave him the opportunity to focus in on what he was looking for.
I am excited and anxious for this roller coaster ride, and I look forward to getting to know you, and hopefully meeting you on the journey!
@lithpool I agree with the visits! I know there is a school of thought out there that says because we have to cast a wide net and have to go for auditions, save your money for the auditions and skip the tours. The tours have been EXTREMELY helpful for us. My D wanted to not only see the school, but see it when students were in attendance so she could get the vibe. A school that was a top 2 choice (and consistently ranked top 10 in the country) based on word of mouth and what was online dropped off her list entirely after a visit. Not because she didn’t love the faculty and conservatory, because she did. But she hated the campus. She said at the end of the day, she knows there are going to be times where life gets extremely stressful in her program. She wants to be able to come out of the building she is in, find a bench, and relax/look around her to de-stress. If she isn’t in love with her surroundings, then that component is gone.
For some kids, things like the environment won’t matter. It’s just a matter of the training. We’ve realized that the environment matters a great deal to my daughter, and while this degree track is extremely competitive and everyone wants to be accepted - your student should have a say and accept a school as well.
Hi @MTVTmom I was going to PM you but you are too new a member so I am writing a public post. I am sitting at NECCA reading your post and I am pretty sure I know who you are! My younger daughter was at Circus Smirkus callbacks this fall. My older daughter is a just finished her freshman year in MT at the University of Michigan. I learned so much going through this process and if I can help in any way let me know! Happy to meet at the Brattleboro coop and have tea!
@MTVTmom, i’m also a former NEYT mom, s is now a working actor in chicago. Best of luck to youand your D.
@mindatwork - Your son’s story reminds me of @tmygirl 's son - he’s now a rising senior MT at TCU! He decided spring of Junior year to pursue MT… prior to that was a multi sport athlete.
Still a bit in denial that my D is a senior, but ready or not, here we go!
D has been acting in both school and community theatre productions since she was 7. She’s been extremely active in choir since the 6th grade and in a community youth performance outreach group since the 8th grade. She’s a singer first and the dreaded tall, blonde, blue-eyed soprano.
She has spent the last 6 months or so researching schools and compiling her list. Because of her love of music she’s focusing primarily on BM’s and BFA’s that are strong in music. We too played the blind curriculum game which served to just reinforce much of what she already thought. She would prefer a school where she is permitted to also audition for operas. After visiting a few schools over Spring Break just so she could get an idea of what she liked/didn’t like, she fell in love with her safety. Therefore, she is likely going to trim down her school list some more.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the money to hire a true audition coach, predominantly because we need to save money for applications, travel to auditions, visiting any acceptances, and tuition itself. D is working with local coaches on her song and monologue package. Like @mom2MTgal ’s D, she is registered to attend the DSM Audition workshop with mock auditions in August.
Her Dad and I are here primarily as a support system, cheerleaders, and travel agents. Aside from final cost and affordability discussions, we are letting her make the decisions since it is her future. But we are definitely an ear when she wants to discuss her concerns and ideas.
I will say I am a bit nervous about the process. We have friends that have gone before us and provided excellent advice and suggestions and I have gotten a wealth of information here. So we are as prepared as can be expected. But my D has developed an anxiety disorder in the last two years and I fear that it might adversely affect her auditions. She seems determined though so onward and upward!
I look forward to going through the process with everyone else! It’s nice to know we aren’t alone! Break a leg to all!
@singoutlouise thank you for reaching out! Unfortunately my “tea time” is going to have to wait until the fall, we are about to embark up North to start rehearsals for the summer show this week and will not be back around until the end of August. I certainly would love to have any advice you have and perhaps if I can get enough posts we can message one another to share worries/concerns…congrats to your D on University of Michigan!
@MTVTmom I think I am just excited to see another local mom doing this! My daughter was the only one in her class following this path, in our western Mass/southern Vermont area - so we basically did it on our own. You sound like you have a great grasp of what to do and the importance of being ready early. Also if you have been reading these boards, there is so much information posted - I am sure you are ahead of the game. I don’t think I discovered CC until we were going crazy waiting for audition results.
But If you have questions about Unifieds or schools or anything I can be of help with - let me know. Otherwise have a great time with your girl! We’ll be at several Smirkus shows this summer and I’ll try and stop by and introduce myself. Best of luck to you and your daughter (:
Here we go again!
We’re from Western MA as well, and this is my second time around with an MT major. My daughter will hopefully reap the benefits of her brother already having gone through this last year. It was an amazing, fun, sometimes overwhelming process and he is now very happy in the BFA MT dance program at CCPA.
On to the next!
I was a lurker on CC last year, but have decided to embrace the whole process this time. I hope to get to know you all, be helpful with what little knowledge I learned the first time around, and enjoy having the support of others going through this.
My daughter is graduating next week (!) and is taking a gap year. She loves to dance, and has a knack for choreography, so we will be looking for BFA programs with a heavy dance emphasis, or the ability to minor in dance. She’s been in various community theater shows since age 6. Because we live in the middle of nowhere, we don’t have the benefit of training programs or lots of high powered classes, but she has voice lessons, dance classes, and some teachers who will coach her in acting. It’s the best we have in the area, and hopefully it’s enough!
We have a spread sheet started with all the possibilities and will be working on pre-screen videos over the summer.
My favorite part of this whole process is the time I get to spend with my kid in the car driving all over the country to auditions. It’s a really special time.
Good luck to everybody and enjoy the journey!
@MTRound2 Good luck to you as well! How cool that you are from Western Mass too! We’re from a town with more cows than people and I just watched an interview with Taylor Louderman (Mean Girls and Michigan alum) where she talked about being from a town with more cattle than people - so it can be done - no matter where you are from! Wishing you the best experience. And you are right - enjoy every minute of traveling with your kiddo and the hanging out, the dinners, the auditions and late nights. BAL to everyone taking this journey.