Evaluating your talent
Admission to the musical theatre program is competitive. Each year 20-22 students,
ranging in experience level, are accepted into the program. While exceptional talent
is certainly appreciated, the department is not always looking for readiness for the
profession, but the readiness to train for the profession.
During your audition experience, the department encourages you to:
- Leave your ego at the door, be yourself
- Allow the day to be an enjoyable one.
Audition purpose
The purpose of this audition process is to allow us to evaluate your training and
our ability to educate you with respect to a career in the theatre. The process is
also designed to afford you the chance to decide if this program is best suited to
your goals and abilities.
Audition process
Since moving to a virtual audition platform because of the pandemic, the audition
for the musical theatre program will include the following:
- Monologue — Prepare a monologue from a play or musical, not to exceed 90 seconds. These selections
should be drawn from contemporary, published theatre literature and should not require
props. The selections should be appropriate to your age and be prepared and memorized.
Please review the Audition Preparation Guide for helpful suggestions. You should also
have a second, contrasting monologue prepared in the event the auditors need to see
more of your work. The second monologue should also not be more than 90 seconds in
length.
- Songs — Prepare two contrasting songs, a ballad and an up tempo, each of them 60-90 seconds
in length. Both of these selections should be from the American Musical Theatre repertoire.
At least one (1) should be from the classic period, e.g. Rogers and Hammerstein, Kern,
Porter, Gershwin, Rogers and Hart, Lerner and Loewe, and the contrasting piece (2)
should be contemporary, preferably written after 2000. (If needed, please have some
alternate songs selections ready to sing.)
Piano Accompanist: You will be responsible for providing either your own accompanist
or recorded music.
- Dance — Please upload into the Media tab on Acceptd any dance or movement with which you feel comfortable and confident. About one minute
is sufficient. If you have dance training and feel that dance is an important part
of your personal brand: approximately one minute of your choice of a ballet barre
combination and one minute of a center jazz combination will suffice (two total minutes
for the dancer types, one minute for the mover types). If you do not consider yourself
a dancer or a mover, there is no need to upload any dance audition material at this
time.
- Interviews — You will be interviewed by members of the faculty to discuss skills and interests.
An interview will allow you to talk informally with a faculty member and discover
what Missouri State University and you have to offer one another.
- Attire — You should wear appropriate audition attire. This means that your clothes should
be comfortable and reflect who you really are. Coats and ties, dresses and heels,
are not necessary unless you are comfortable in them and feel good about yourself
when you wear them. No hats, please.
- Acceptd — All students are expected to register for any recruitment venue through Acceptd and supply at least your headshot and resume in the Media tab. We encourage you to
also consider providing audition materials on the Media tab. Even though we don’t
require prescreens, having your audition material uploaded on Acceptd ensures that
a review of your work will be readily available when we make our final decisions in
the spring.
Additional audition considerations
Audition personnel may ask you to perform one or more of the following tasks, and
may ask that some of these tasks be completed within specific guidelines or conditions:
- Briefly discuss the plays and/or characters of your audition pieces
- Perform a simple physical task without words
- Re-perform one of your audition pieces with a different set of goals and conditions
- Ask the interviewers some questions relating to the musical theatre program at Missouri
State University.
