We just got some bad news from kayla. This afternoon, she was notified that she did not pass her audition for a spot in the musical theatre program at Marymount Manhattan. She’s pretty heartbroken about it, and now has to decide if she wants to stay at MMC in a program that she doesn’t feel called to, or leave the school and transfer to a university that will accept her into their program.
Her mother and I are trying to give her as much support as we can, including a reminder to keep her eyes on the prize (which is a career in musical theatre, as opposed to a degree in musical theatre from a specific school).
Sorry to hear that. It’s tough to endure bad news for your kid - you always want them to get everything they deserve (and of course as a parent, you know they deserve nothing but the best).
We got bad news today today, though not quite as momentous. Our son has applied to four extremely competitive summer physics/math programs - the type of places high school kids go the summer before they get accepted to Cal Tech or MIT. We knew they were incredibly competitive (ie, 750 applicants for 72 places) but there was one program we thought sure he’d be accepted by for various reasons I won’t bore everyone with.
As of today he has heard from 3 of the 4 places, including the one we thought he had an excellent shot at … all rejections.
We’ll hear from the 4th place soon, but frankly it was probably the most competitive of the four, so we’re not expecting a miracle. Fortunately we have a Plan B, but it is not the thrilling, college-application-enhancing summer he’d hoped for.
Oh well. A little adversity is a good thing, right?
How is your daughter doing, so far? Is she in shock, or coping well…?
She’s only a ferry ride away from Wagner College on Staten Island, the #1 ranked musical theater college program in the country (2nd year running, according to the Princeton Review).
My daughter went through the program, was very happy with the school.
Tell her to find a school that wants to teach her as much as she wants a career in theater. And if she can’t find that school, tell her to take some time off and work in community theater so she can build a killer audition reel and use that to get into a program.
I have no false conceptions about the road your daughter wants to take (my son graduated with a degree in music composition and production, now he manages an art gallery;) ) but one rejection shouldn’t make her give up her dream before she even graduates from school!
Thanks for the words of encouragement and the ideas. She’s still processing the rejection; right now she feels like her best course of action might be to come back to California and hit community college for a year, then audition to the program at Cal state Fullerton.
She’s got a lot of nervousness about looking to her HS friends like she’s coming back with her tail between her legs after her triumphant freshman year; it looks like pointing her away from that line of thinking might be the most challenging task facing us right now.
This is a way of life, especially in the theater/acting/producing/etc. business.
Encourage her that it is NOT personal. Keep on riding that trail because if she loves that path, it will open avenues left and right.
Just my opinion. BTDT.
There are a hundred reasons why she might not get into a program that have nothing to do with her talent.
Maybe the judging panel was having a bad day.
Maybe in a normal year they’d have ten open slots and she’d get in easily, but this year they only have two slots.
Maybe they have too many of her “type” already in the program and needed to mix up the selection of students.
Maybe someone else auditioned with the same material and the judges hated that person so much it tainted the material.
If all else fails, remind her that Idina Menzel won a Tony award and had two other nominations and John Travolta still couldn’t pronounce her name.
When I was in middle school, my classmates would gush over actors and singers and talk about becoming stars, and I’d think “ugh, NO! Why would I want to be in a profession in which you can have a year where you’re working so much you get your sleep in cabs, and then three where you don’t get a contract because ‘you’ve been on too much’?”
Now my mother says the description of my line of work sounds “like you’re in the movies”:
if you want to hire me, you usually do it through an agent,
I spend a lot of time being contacted by people offering me projects,
I’m never unemployed, I’m “between projects”,
my piggybank is on the yoyo diet: when I have work I make a lot of money. When I’m between projects, I don’t make nuthin’ but still need to pay taxes and fees and mortgage and eat.
vacations are those things I have between projects (preferably at home, since projects normally take me away). And I spend a lot of them searching for the next project.
by the time I get paid, several other people have gotten their cut.
And I’m not even an artist of any kind, just a freelance consultant!
I’d go for finding another musical theater program, myself. If not a college program, then a side program she can be in to build experience. Try for one that’s fairly well thought of.
If you were a good dad, you’d get her transferred, enroll her in classes to make her better, and read up on how to be better at musical theater and be her personal coach.
If you were a great dad, you would murder all the other people better than her.
Long story short, if she wants to work in NYC and Marymount can still offer her access to placements and internships, she should continue, because she needs those things if she wants to work in NYC. If this cuts her off from those opportunities, she should leave and find someplace that can offer her those things.
If she’s serious this is just the first in a lifetime of rejections. Something to think about.
Tell her to listen to what her heart is saying, and follow that, and as with all big decisions don’t make a hurried one. “Following her heart” includes considering inputs from you and other sources. As her dad, give your treasured daughter the confidence to trust in herself.
If she hasn’t yet, encourage her to talk this over with some of the MMC faculty, especially with any teachers she really likes. The MMC faculty is well connected and may have connections to the CSUF program. Or they might offer ideas she hasn’t considered yet – you’re paying enough for MMC, so have her gather some advice there to add more value to her NYC experience and to your MMC investment.
My son went to MMC and finished with a BFA in Dance. Along the way he got some great advice from teachers in Katie Langan’s department that he respected. He’s now 28 and living in NYC as an official Struggling Artist - juggling 3 jobs and making it work, he’s financially independent and is saving for retirement. He’s living his dream and has been with the same company for six years.
(And, PM sent.)
While MMC is a great school, it’s not for everyone, and clearly they don’t recognize talent like your daughter’s got talent! Once she has gathered enough data & advice, then tell her, “Daughter, Listen. To. Your. Heart.”
This might be her most important lesson of all to learn, and that’s not to care what anyone else thinks. She needs to do what’s in her own best interests and don’t spend time explaining herself to others, it does no good in the long run. She doesn’t owe anyone a justification for what she is doing. She needs to learn now not to give that power to others if she is going to succeed in doing anything in life. I think that’s another problem with this generation, they are too verbose with their lives in social media like in Facebook and Twitter. So if their plans are slightly different than what they have been posting about, they feel they must explain themselves or keep up appearances.
Always, always, always go to the best school to learn what’s best for you. If it’s where she is at, then she should stay there and continue to learn. Getting a part or not in a school production in the scope of her career is so very unimportant. There are also politics with who is selected and other factors like that which are entirely out of her control.
