Preparing Students for Auditioning Outside of Your School Program

As an educator, you do your best for all the students you work with. For some of your drama students, this can mean preparing them for work outside of your school’s theatre. Community and local educational theatres present great opportunities for student performers to continue their growth. Here’s how you can help them prepare for auditions outside of your school’s program.

Theatre educators have seen it before – the student whose natural talent and potential can seem overwhelming. The student that wants the limelight but does something special with it as well. These are the students who can be the most rewarding and sometimes challenging. How can you manage your busy classes, program, and productions while trying to enable their maximum potential?

Recognizing Acting Students’ Potential

The first step is recognizing when you have a student like that. Someone whose hunger for more knowledge and more practice is at a different level than their peers. Broadway-level talent is built over years of effort, but you’ll recognize the spark of their passion in monologues, or improv, or in enthusiasm for a performance that raises the overall level of your production.

Next, talk with your student and learn what their mindset is. Are they content or frustrated? Determine how motivated they are to apply their theatre appetite in a focused way. Then strategize with them about the possibilities for doing more which could include:

• attending a performing arts high school if one is available;
• auditing theatre classes at an area college or university;
• auditioning for community theatre; or
• trying out for professional theatre in your community.

Run Monologue and Audition Workshops

As part of your curriculum, consider adding focused work on monologues and audition strategies. By preparing your students for what they can expect from community and professional theatre auditions, you’re helping them grow skills that will serve them well later in life. Whether they’re auditioning for college admissions, community theatre, or even preparing for a difficult interview, your targeted work here can help them succeed.

While we know educators like you often go far beyond the extra mile for their students, focused one-on-one work is sometimes too much for you to handle for a single student. Here’s where outside support for them may come in handy.

What should an audition coach offer?

A growing resource for students interested in performing arts is the audition coach. These focused pros function as a tutor to help hone their audition skills for admission to top-tier performing arts high schools and colleges. Engaging with an audition coach is one potential investment your students and their families may be interested in, so long as they have a clear understanding of what the potential value is.

• A college audition coach should be intimately familiar with the requirements and preferences of the theatre programs your student is considering, as well as a wide range of other programs to offer alternatives. That insight can be a game-changer when it comes to choosing audition material and the focus of preparation.
• Intensive one-on-one attention. As an educator, you rarely have the opportunity to focus on a single student for an extended period.
• Bespoke attention. Not only is the attention one-on-one, but a coach’s attention can also zero in on what will help this student the most right now. Is it perfecting a technique? Is it on analyzing their strengths to help match them to audition material?

One more way you can find more time to coach students yourself is to delegate some of the work you do with website maintenance, ticket sales, promotion, streaming, and more. You focus on the students, we’ll take care of the rest! Find out how On The Stage can support your next production at no cost to your school or your district.