TETA Board of Governors
Auditions Committee Chair
It is hard to believe that summer is gone and we are starting a new year of school. If you are like me, it comes with very mixed emotions. Whereas, I still have a huge number of things on my summer to-do list, I am anxious to get back to the kids and to doing the things that I love to do. For me, there is a little anxiety as there are many changes happening at my school, and there are changes that we are incorporating into this year’s Student Auditions at TheatreFest 2014. So there is a lot of change going on in my life!
The biggest change to this year’s student auditions is that we will be utilizing the online system Acceptd.com. Many of you may already be familiar with this system as it is used for Texas Thespian auditions and many more throughout the country. What this provides us is ease of access, a reduction in the amount of paperwork being sent back and forth to Austin, and of course, the opportunity to go green as we will no longer be using so much paper. Since the application system is online, we will not be providing books or USB drives for college and university representatives as we have in the past.
Reps will be given early access to student forms in order to preview, download, and print if they choose. This will be our trial year so your patience and flexibility will be greatly appreciated. With that, please do not wait until the last minute to submit materials. Because submissions will be made online, the December 1st deadline is a hard one.
The one thing that will not change is the actual audition process. As always, we encourage you to start early with your students in preparing them for the auditions. If a student is auditioning, it is vital that they have worked with their director or sponsor to provide them the best opportunity for success. The college and university representatives want each student to perform at their best so the best matches can be made in pairing up a student with a university. If a student has not had time to work with their director, they are at a disadvantage and will not represent themselves or their school in the best of ways. Be confident in the fact that everyone wants the students auditioning to do well. When they do not, we all suffer.
Pick monologues and songs that demonstrate the student’s talents. This may seem overly obvious. Do not pick things for its shock effect or just because you think it is a ‘mature’ choice. Students and directors should be aware of the limits of the student, so it is best to stay within those limits. Show the reps what you can do, not what you cannot. This includes having a full understanding of the piece. It is awkward to have a comic monologue presented as a serious piece if it is not written that way or vice versa.
Students should practice their selections for people who will give them honest feedback. That is usually not parents or friends who tend to see students as perfectly talented individuals who can do no wrong. We all want to encourage students, but not at the expense of doing great work. In the end, it will benefit the student more to be honest with them than to put them in what could be an embarrassing situation.
One frustration that seems to come up every year is that paperwork has been thought to have been submitted and we get emails the week of auditions asking about the paperwork. Rule of thumb, if you submit an application (or think you have) and you have not heard anything (director or student) by January 1, email me. It is easier to take care of a situation earlier rather than later. Students and their director are sent emails of all information. Many times there has been a typographical error in the email address or emails have been directed to the spam or junk folder since emails are sent in mass.
And as always, all the volunteers are here to help make the auditions a pleasant experience for all, so please feel free to contact me at any time with questions or concerns at dustydavidson965@gmail.com.
Best of luck on a great new school year! I wish you many successes!