Everything you said is spot on. I love to hear how your D is progressing. I am glad to know that she is getting some great advice and training to help her get on her way to her destination!!! And I love that as a parent, you are supporting her so much and that includes helping her understand and make good choices for training and future opportunities.
I tell parents that their perception of their student often comes from high school or community theatre where there is no ability to cast playable ages often. Your student may be cast as âanything.â You may have a 16-year-old playing a 50-year-old and that is ok. You cast from your pool of talent. You have students who become the âstarâ of their programs and favored because of relationships with directors or willingness to work hard or some âinvisibleâ criteria that doesnât always connect that personâs fit for a role to the role itself. The fantastic (and also unsettling) thing about college and beyond is that it all changes after high school. You get a blank slate and you get to choose a school to work with instead of being stuck somewhere that may not be the best fit for you artistically or allow you to have opportunities. (I hear this a lot, sadly. I have two kids this year that have not actually had anything more than an ensemble role in high school productions yet have already gotten BFA artistic acceptances to some amazing programs â BEFORE Christmas!). More importantly, you get to know who you are as a performer.
I hope to keep my daughter cognizant that a.) itâs very hard to get into Tisch MT, especially if signing is your weak link, so she needs to buckle down; and b.) even if she can get into Tisch, is it really the best fit for her, or is she just dazzled at the notion of living in Manhattan?
Sheâs a smart kid. Sheâll figure it out eventually. I just want her to come to grips with both of these things sooner vs. later.
But as some of you said, she probably needs to hear it from someone besides her parents, who, like Jon Snow, obviously know nothing.
To me, character actors are always my favorites and the ones who usually âsteal the showâ. Think Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally - they MADE âWill & Graceâ (in my opinion) but weâre technically not the leads. Plus, you donât age out of character roles. You canât be 45 and playing a young ingenueâŠ.
My Dâs one and only lead in HS was a comedic/character role her senior year. She was disappointed at first, but then ended up having the time of her life.
hello! as someone actively going through this process, i figured i would try to give the best advice that i can. My situation is fairly similar to your daughterâs - NYU Steinhardt MT was my dream school since I was in middle school (I go to a high school thatâs a half an hour outside of NYC, so iâve had more of a small-fish big-pond experience). I did everything I could to get in - I attended Steinhardtâs summer program, and I worked privately with the teachers I met through the program to help me prepare for my audition. At my audition, my adjudicator told me verbatim that my audition was âperfect.â I ended up getting rejected from the program.
I donât mean to tell this story to be pessimistic, because honestly, getting rejected from NYU has been both a blessing and a curse. While I regret having put âall of my eggs in my basketâ for NYU, I have really started to fall in love with all the programs I have auditions scheduled for. And to be honest, doing research on other schools has led me to realize that NYUâs program was not as good of a fit as I initially thought.
I think the best advice I can give to you is to try to encourage your daughter to look at as many programs as she possibly can. Speaking from experience as a now senior in high school, if someone tried to discourage me from my NYU dream two years ago, I know that I wouldnât have budged. But I do think that if I did research on other programs besides NYU prior to my rejection, it would have saved me from a lot of heartbreak.
As cliche as it is, itâs true: your daughter is going to end up at the right place for her, whether itâs Tisch or not (fingers crossed for Tisch though!!!). This process is a long and grueling one, but it always does work out the way itâs supposed to. Wishing your daughter the best of luck!!
@msh1217 - Thanks for the âboots on the groundâ observations.
Believe me, I am trying to get her to at least look at other programs besides Tisch. Iâve tried to gently explain that, as was your experience, she could do everything ârightâ and still not get in.
I donât want to discourage her from aiming high, but as you said, I am trying to âpre-heatâ the possibility of rejection so that sheâs not completely heartbroken if she doesnât get accepted.
Hopefully, as she wraps up her sophomore year and becomes a rising junior, things will start to get real, and sheâll start thinking more practically vs. âblue skyâ-ing.
At my daughter performing arts high school they spoke of âtypeâ a lot and being typed casted. Kids knew their type right away but were encouraged to go beyond. But something they would say is âDo you want to make art in musical theater or do you just want to be the leadâ They actually discouraged kids going straight to New York. But they had students going to some of the better programs in the United States also. As with any college search she really needs to look at all types of programs. We knew kids at some" dream" programs and not doing as much as my daughter at a much smaller less known program. When looking at colleges have her talk with students going there to get a good feel for their opportunities and college program itself.
My MT D2 was 100% set on going to college in NYC, Boston or Chicago. As a sophomore in HS, there was no convincing her to apply to any schools outside of the big cities. Fast forward to 2022âŠshe is a freshman MT major at TXST and after only one semester, has proclaimed she could not imagine herself anywhere else! Once she realized she will end up in NYC after she graduates, her focus shifted to the program itself.
What is most important is to find a program where your D will thrive and find her âpeopleâ. If she were to enroll in a national college prep program (Broadway Artists Alliance, TPAP, Artsbridge, MPulse), sheâd learn very quickly the level of talent she is competing against and the importance of applying to a balanced list of colleges.
