Questions to Ask Musical Theatre Programs
For high school students auditioning for college musical theatre programs, whether a BFA, a BA or a conservatory, and for the parents helping to pay for it. The 53 questions follow the order the decision usually takes: the program and its cut policy, the training in voice, acting and dance, casting and shows, industry access, cost and offers, and a last group for current students when no faculty are in earshot. Rules on aid, deposits and reply dates differ from school to school and country to country, so treat a note on any of them as a prompt to ask how it is done there.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The program
How many students do you take into each musical theatre class, and how many of them graduate from it?
Why ask it
The size of the class sets how much of each teacher there is to go around: a dozen students share a studio very differently from forty. The second half matters as much. If far fewer finish than start, ask where the others went, whether they were cut, changed majors or left the school.
Is there a cut system, a jury or a review that decides whether a student continues in the program?
Why ask it
Some programs re-evaluate students after the first or second year and some keep everyone who stays in good standing. Whichever this is, get the policy in writing, along with how many students were not invited back in the last three years and what became of their credits and scholarships.
How is a typical week divided across voice, acting and dance?
Why ask it
Ask for hours on a timetable, not the word 'balanced'. Two dance classes a week beside daily acting tells you which skill the faculty put first, and whether that matches the one you most need to build.
Is the degree here closer to a conservatory or to a liberal arts major, and is there room for a minor or a second major?
Why ask it
A BFA usually puts more of the credits in the studio and a BA leaves more outside it, but schools use the letters differently, so the name of the degree will not settle this. The telling detail is whether anyone in the current class is actually carrying a minor or a second major, and what they dropped to make it fit.
What do you look for in an audition that tells you a student will do well here?
Why ask it
Faculty tend to answer with the kind of performer they like to teach: the storyteller, the strong dancer, the voice they can train. Compare that honestly with what you showed them. It also describes the classmates you would be working beside.
Who teaches the first-year classes: the faculty we met today, adjuncts or graduate students?
Why ask it
The people at the audition table are often the senior faculty, and a first-year student may not study with them until later. Get the year in which you would first work with each of them. Whether the teachers still perform, direct or music-direct for a living is a fair second question.
How long has the core faculty been together, and is anyone about to leave or retire?
Why ask it
A program is its teachers, and a new head can change the curriculum partway through a degree. A recent arrival is not bad news: it can mean fresh contacts and a rethought course. What you want to hear is that current students were told what is changing.
How many general education courses are required, and when do students fit them in?
Why ask it
Credits earned in high school sometimes cover a few of these, which frees hours for studio classes or for sleep. The timetable matters as much as the count: academic courses squeezed into the one free slot of the day, or pushed into summer, change what a semester feels like and what it costs.
Do I have to be admitted to the college separately from the musical theatre program, and which decision comes first?
Why ask it
At many schools there are two decisions, an academic one and an artistic one, and a yes from one is not a yes from the other. The case to raise is the student the faculty want whose grades or scores fall short: can the program speak up for them, or does the academic decision stand alone?
If I am not offered musical theatre, is there another way in, such as a theatre BA or a second audition next year?
Why ask it
Some schools let students audition again from inside the college and some never take internal transfers, which changes whether accepting a different major there makes sense. A count of current students who got in on a second try is the answer that matters, since a door that is open on paper may not have been used in years.
Training
How long is the private voice lesson each week, and how is each student matched with a voice teacher?
Why ask it
A half-hour lesson and an hour lesson add up to very different amounts of training over a degree. The match matters just as much: find out whether students may request a teacher, and whether anyone has switched without it being held against them.
Which singing styles do you train: legit, belt and mix, pop and rock?
Why ask it
Listen for whether contemporary styles are taught as technique or left for students to work out alone. If your voice sits firmly in one style, ask how the teachers would go about widening it and how fast.
How are dance classes leveled, and which styles does every student have to take?
Why ask it
Placement by level means an experienced dancer keeps growing and a beginner is not lost in the back row. The details to collect are how many levels run in ballet, jazz and tap, and how often students are placed again. Top levels shared with the dance majors are good news for a strong dancer.
What approach is the acting training built on, and do musical theatre students take acting with the acting majors?
Why ask it
The name of a technique matters less than whether the teachers can say what a student is able to do at the end of each year. Classes shared with the acting majors can be a sign that the acting side is given full weight. The number of semesters of scene study is the figure to compare across schools.
When do students start working on songs as acting, and who teaches that class?
Why ask it
Singing a song well and acting it are separate skills, and the class that joins them goes by many names: song interpretation, musical theatre performance, scene into song. A program that starts it in the first year and puts a pianist in the room for every session is treating it as the center of the degree.
How do students find out how they are doing: juries, written evaluations, one-on-one meetings?
Why ask it
This is about feedback, not cuts, and the two are worth keeping apart when you ask. A program where each student sits down with the faculty every semester and leaves with specific goals is teaching individuals. If the only signal is a grade or a cast list, students are left to guess.
Do you teach music theory, sight-singing and piano, and to what level?
Why ask it
A performer who can read a score and pick out a harmony line at the piano learns music faster when rehearsal time is short. Where there is a placement test, a student with years of choir or piano may be able to skip the first level, so ask before the first semester's schedule is set.
How much time do students get with an accompanist or vocal coach, and how hard is it to book a practice room?
Why ask it
A lesson is a small part of the week, and the practice between lessons is where most of the work happens. Current students will tell you the truth about practice rooms at ten at night, so put the second half to them as well.
What do you teach about vocal health and injury, and who does a student see when something goes wrong?
Why ask it
Performing night after night is a physical job, and a program that trains for it has an answer ready. The part families forget is the policy: what an injury or a spell of vocal rest does to a student's casting and grades, and whether the people a student is sent to are used to working with singers and dancers.
Is there training for the camera, voice-over and self-taped auditions?
Why ask it
Many first-round auditions are now filmed at home and sent in, as you may know from your own prescreens. Two practical signs that a program has caught up: students graduate with footage they can use, and there is a room with lights and a camera they can book to tape.
Casting and shows
When can students first audition for the mainstage shows?
Why ask it
Policies run from open casting in the first week to no mainstage until the second or third year. Neither is wrong: a year without shows protects class time, and early casting gives stage time. Ask what first-years perform in instead.
How many productions do you stage each year, and how many of them are musicals?
Why ask it
Divide the roles on offer by the number of students who can audition for them, including acting majors, graduate students and, at some schools, anyone on campus. A big season shared across a big department can mean less stage time than a small one.
Is every student cast at some point, or can someone graduate without a mainstage role?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly, because the honest answer is often that it happens. Follow with how many of this year's seniors have played a principal role, and what the faculty do for a student who keeps missing out.
Who casts the shows, and are guest directors brought in?
Why ask it
When the same few faculty cast every show, their view of a student can set early and stay. A guest director sees the class fresh and is a first professional contact. Count how many of this season's shows had one.
How do you approach casting by type, and do students get to play against it?
Why ask it
School may be the one place where a student is given a part the business would never hand them, so ask for an example from a recent season. It matters most to a student who does not fit the old mold for a role, who should also hear how recent seasons were chosen with the actual class in mind.
What can students perform in besides the mainstage: student-directed shows, cabarets, readings of new work?
Why ask it
These smaller stages are often where underclassmen get their first real roles and where students learn to make their own work. The difference between programs is whether they come with rehearsal space, a budget and a pianist, or only with permission.
Are students allowed to take professional work outside school during the school year?
Why ask it
Some programs bar outside work in term time and some will hold a place for a student who books a tour. Find out who gives permission, how often the answer has been yes, and whether a student who leaves for a contract comes back into the same class.
What offstage work is required: crew, stage management, hours in the costume or scene shop?
Why ask it
Crew assignments are part of many theatre degrees, and they teach respect for everyone else in the building. What you need to know is how many hours, in which years, and whether a crew call can clash with a role.
How late do rehearsals run, and how do they fit around classes and homework?
Why ask it
A day that starts with ballet at nine and ends after an evening rehearsal leaves little room for anything else. The two details that decide whether it is livable are the hour rehearsal has to end by and whether one full day a week is kept free.
Industry
Is there a senior showcase, where is it held, and who comes?
Why ask it
A showcase is only as useful as the people in the seats, so the answer you want is a list: the agents, managers and casting offices at the most recent one. Whether it runs in person, online or both, and in which cities, tells you what the trip will ask of a senior.
Does every senior perform in the showcase, or do students audition for it?
Why ask it
If places are limited, the showcase described today might not include you. Who picks the material matters too, because a student handed the wrong song gets one chance with it in front of that audience.
What happened to last year's seniors in the six months after showcase?
Why ask it
Ask about the whole class, not the two best stories: how many had meetings, how many signed with representation, how many booked work. A program that tracks this will have the figures to hand. One that answers with a single well-known name probably does not.
Thinking of the classes that graduated in the last five years, what are most of them doing now?
Why ask it
Five years is long enough to show who stayed in the business and short enough to reflect the current faculty. An honest answer is a mix: performing, teaching, other jobs in theatre and careers outside it. A program that can only speak about its performers has stopped keeping track of everyone else.
Which casting directors, agents or working artists taught or visited this year, and for how long?
Why ask it
An afternoon of questions and answers and a two-week workshop both get called a masterclass. Ask who gets to sing for the guest, everyone or a chosen few, and whether the visits happen every year or happened once.
What do you teach about the business: building an audition book, headshots, unions, taxes and paying rent between jobs?
Why ask it
A full course taught by someone currently working is a different thing from two sessions in the final term. Seniors are the ones to check with: they know whether they feel ready to walk into an open call and to manage a year of uneven pay.
How do you help students find summer work, and do companies come to campus to audition them?
Why ask it
Summer contracts are where many students earn their first professional credits and learn to put up a show fast. Where this year's sophomores and juniors spent last summer is the evidence. Help preparing for the large combined auditions is a bonus worth asking after.
How involved are alumni with current students, and can I speak to a recent graduate?
Why ask it
Graduates who come back to teach a class, or who let a new arrival sleep on a couch in the city, are worth more than a name on a poster. The request for a contact is the real test: a program proud of its outcomes will hand one over quickly.
Cost and offers
What does a year cost a musical theatre student in full, including any fees that only this program charges?
Why ask it
Tuition is the start of it. Private lesson fees, studio or accompanist fees and production fees are sometimes billed separately, so ask for the list and add housing, food and travel before you compare schools.
Are talent scholarships decided from the audition, or is there a separate application and deadline?
Why ask it
At some schools the audition is the scholarship audition, and at others the money sits with a different office and a date that passes before results come out. Three things to leave with: who decides, when you will hear, and whether the figure is for one year or renews for the whole degree.
Can a talent award be combined with academic scholarships and need-based aid?
Why ask it
Some schools add awards together and some reduce one when another arrives, so the larger headline number is not always the better offer. Ask the financial aid office to show the combined figure on paper.
What does a student have to do to keep the talent scholarship each year?
Why ask it
Conditions can include a grade average, staying in the major and remaining in good standing with the faculty. Ask what that last phrase means in practice, and how many students have had an award reduced or taken away.
Which costs come up that are not on the bill: dance shoes, sheet music, headshots, coaching, the showcase trip?
Why ask it
This one is best checked with a current student, who can tell you what they actually spent in the first year. For the showcase, ask who pays for travel and lodging, since that bill lands just as seniors are saving to move to a city.
Is there a process for appealing a talent award, and does a better offer from a comparable program count?
Why ask it
Some schools have an appeal form or a named person for this and some do not reconsider at all, so learn the process before you write. Have the other offer letter ready in case they request it, and get a date for the answer that falls before your reply deadline.
When is the deposit due, is any of it refundable, and can the date be extended while I wait on another result?
Why ask it
Audition results arrive on different schedules, and a deadline at one school can fall before a decision from another. Ask early and in writing. Some programs will extend for a student with an audition still pending, and others will not move the date at all.
How does the waitlist for the program work, and how often has it moved in recent years?
Why ask it
A class this small changes when a single student says no, so a musical theatre waitlist can move late. Lists may be ranked, or sorted by voice part and type, which changes what a place on one is worth. Scholarship money for someone taken from it is the other thing to pin down.
Students
What surprised you about the program after you arrived?
Why ask it
Students compare the brochure with the building every day, so the gap comes out quickly. Listen for whether the surprise is about workload, about people or about a promise that did not hold, and ask a second student the same thing.
What is it like in your class on the day a cast list goes up?
Why ask it
Everyone in the room wants the same few parts, and the way a class handles that is the culture you would live in. Stories of classmates turning up to cheer on opening night are a good sign. A careful change of subject is an answer too.
Does faculty attention go to everyone, or do a few students get most of it?
Why ask it
Put this to a student who is not the obvious star of the class. Favorites exist everywhere, so what you want to know is whether the student who is not cast still gets coached, pushed and noticed in the studio.
Has anyone left your class, and do you know why?
Why ask it
Faculty give you the number and classmates know the reasons. Money, injury, a change of heart about the career and a cut all mean different things, and only some of them are about the program.
What does tech week do to your sleep, your classes and the rest of your life?
Why ask it
Every theatre student is tired in tech, so listen to how the school responds. Find out whether teachers adjust deadlines, whether morning classes still meet, and whether anyone watches for a student who is running on empty.
Do you have time for a job, a club or friends outside the department?
Why ask it
For a family counting on term-time earnings, this decides whether the budget works. It also tells you how closed the world of the program is, which some students love and others find airless by the second year.
Where else did you get in, and what tipped it toward this program?
Why ask it
A student who chose between two programs on your own list can compare them better than any website. Ask what they gave up by coming here, and whether the thing that tipped it has turned out to be true.
What would you tell the faculty to fix if you knew they would listen?
Why ask it
The safe complaints come first: the building, the parking, the food. Wait for the one about training or casting, then take it back to the faculty as a question of your own and see how they answer.
How to use these questions through audition season
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Take each question to the person who knows
Faculty: training, casting and cuts
The people who teach the classes can describe a week, explain how casting works and say how a review or cut is run. They are the wrong people to ask about aid or housing. On an audition day they are also seeing a great many students, so keep it to one or two questions and save the rest for a visit or an email.
Admissions and financial aid: decisions and money
Whether the academic and artistic decisions are separate, how awards combine and when a deposit is due are office questions. Send them by email so the answer comes back in writing, and keep the reply with the offer letter. The waitlist is the exception: the program usually knows more about its own list than the admissions office does, so ask both.
Current students: what the days are like
The Students group is written for them, and it works best away from faculty and away from the ambassadors chosen to host the day. If the only students you meet are on duty, ask the program for the email of a sophomore or junior and write to them afterwards.
Parents: split the list
A student asking about training and a parent asking about cost is a natural division, and it stops one voice from carrying the whole conversation. Faculty notice an applicant who asks their own questions about the work.
What to ask at each point in the season
While building the list
Class size, degree type, cut policy and the weekly timetable can often be found on a program's site or learned at an online information session. Settle those before paying an audition fee, and let the answers take a school or two off the list.
On audition day
The audition is short and the day is long. Some programs hold a question session for families while students dance or wait, and that is the place for the first group and the casting questions. In the room itself, ask only if the panel invites it, and make it one question you could not have answered from their site.
After an offer
An offer changes who is choosing. Now the Industry group and the questions on cost and offers come out in full, and it is reasonable to ask for a call with the head of the program, a seat in a class and a conversation with a student. How quickly a program arranges those is part of the answer.
On an admitted-student visit
Watch a class at the level you would enter and, if one is running, a rehearsal or a performance. What students are doing in a second-year acting class or a senior song class says more about the training than any description of it.
Comparing programs once the answers are in
One page per school, written the same evening
By the end of the season the programs blur together. On the night of each audition or visit, write down the class size, the cut policy, the weekly hours in each discipline, the casting rule for first-years, the showcase details and the net cost, in the same order every time.
Compare hours, not adjectives
Nearly every program says it trains triple threats. Lay the timetables next to each other and count: voice lessons in minutes, dance classes per week, semesters of acting. The differences show up there.
Work out the cost of the whole degree
Take the full yearly cost, subtract only the awards that renew, and multiply by the years in the degree. Add the extras a current student told you about. Done this way, a program with the smaller scholarship sometimes turns out to be the cheaper one.
Match the program to the gap
Be honest about which of the three skills is weakest and look for the program that will work on it hardest. A strong singer who needs dance gains little from a school where dance meets twice a week, however good the voice faculty are.
Mistakes families make
Choosing on the name
A well-known program earned its name through the students it had and the faculty who taught them, and both change. The teachers you would study with, the size of your class and the cost to your family are what you would live with.
Accepting 'our graduates are on Broadway'
Every established program can name a few. The useful picture is how a whole recent class is doing, which is why the Industry questions ask about last year's seniors and the last five classes.
Asking the panel what the website says
A question answered on the first page of the program's site tells the faculty you have not read it. Build on what you found: 'I saw that first-years are not cast in the fall. What do they perform in instead?'
Saying yes before the last result arrives
The first offer feels like the only one. If other decisions are still out, ask about an extension, wait to pay the deposit until it is due, and compare complete offers side by side.