Open Forum

In an attempt at building both our music and theatre programs back up at the high school level (we've both taken a hit after COVID and still haven't fully recovered)- we are looking to extend auditions for our musical this year to elementary and middle school students (they will be mostly chorus members, I think). I've only ever had high school students involved in the musical so this is new to me and I'll admit, I'm nervous about the logistics. The plan is to do Wizard of Oz- we will have high schoolers audition like normal with prepared monologues and songs of their choice, but for the younger ones I was thinking it might be easier to do it 'cattle call' style and have all who are interested meet to audition as a whole group at a set time. That's about as far as I've got. Here are some concerns that keep ticking around in my mind as I try to envision this:

• How do I most effectively organize this?
• How long should auditions last? Is 2 hours too much? Too little?
• I'm thinking of giving everyone the same few lines to say then hear them one by one, teach them a few measures to a song and have them sing in groups and then teach them a few counts of choreography and have them dance in groups. Does this sound like the right tactic?
• I have no idea how many kids to expect. We are a large district (13 elementary schools and 3 middle schools, I know numbers for each MS are around 750, but I know only a small portion will audition- elementary might have more kids audition) I want to take as many as I can, but I'm also concerned about costuming as that's always a struggle for me. Any ideas on simple DIY munchkin/monkey costumes?
• What kinds of things should I anticipate including younger kids in the show? From the kids themselves and parents, community, scheduling, etc
• How do you best communicate with the parents of the younger ones? 
• Do you let parents sit in on rehearsals? I don't with high schoolers, but also most of them drive themselves- I know I will get this question from parents of the younger kids. 
• How often do you schedule the younger ones to rehearse and for how long?

For those of you who have done this kind of thing before or regularly have elementary, middle, and secondary kids in your plays, please, share your wisdom and all your pointers! Thank you so much!!

Ran a theatre program, CTAP, for grades 2-6 that did all the MTI Jr. shows with casts varying between 40 and 100+ (Lion King, Jr.). 

Audition blocks: 2 hours each, 1 one Tuesday, 1 on Thursday, 5:30-8P.

Audition process:

• Advertise well in advance by flyers (we distributed these through the music teachers in the elementary schools), email, posting on district website, Facebook, announcement in local newspaper: publish all information re: auditions including links to audition form, how to sign up for the shows' REMIND feed, rehearsal schedule, audition process including acting sides.
• Told everyone to come at 5:30P to fill out audition form which included all the usual data, plus extra emergency contacts and any/all health issues we needed to be aware of, conflicts and…
• Got headshot taken - each child held up a numbered card. Number recorded on their audition sheet. After printing them out (wallet size), attached to audition form
• At 6:15P or so, divide all students into 3 groups: acting, dance, music. Send them off to location of each.
• Music: they could sing anything they wanted with "Happy Birthday" the default.  Checking for pitch, vocal quality, projection.  Then lean a few bars from one song of musical and sing it in group and individually.
• Dance: teach whole group a series of steps from planned choreography.  Have them repeat back.  Usually done only as group with choreographer watching to ID the best dancers.
• Acting: Call them up in pairs or trios according to the sides and have them read for you. We always had an adult or HS student who would stand right behind them and assist those with lower reading skills in reading difficult words, making it clear that mispronunciation was NOT an issue - that's something we learn in rehearsal. Checking for interpretation, enunciation/articulation, projection.
• Once the acting group was done (always the last to finish it seemed, music usually second) rotate all groups.
• Children could leave immediately after completing 3rd rotation.
• Directors meet and decide roles
• At first rehearsal: announce roles, distribute scripts. Then split children into 2 groups: dance & music and send them off to those directors. Parents remain with the director who does a full orientation for them about how to find all the information (Remind, Callboard), and participation expectations of them and the children.
• Rehearse 2x week, Tue. & Thurs., 6-8P.  Parents could sit in if they so chose (encouraged) but were told they had to physically come in to the theatre to pickup their child(ren).  No, sending them out to the parking lot.  Stress that they have to be there no later than 8:15P.  We warned them we would call police if they were excessively late (and yes, we did have to do that once!).
• Blocked in lead roles only rehearsals, where only rest of cast stayed home.
• Rehearsals ran 8 weeks, with last week rehearsal every night (Tech: M, T, W; Dress: Thur.; Shows Fri. & Sat. evening)
• Since our shows were all elementary, we'd add 2 Saturday morning rehearsals the last 2 weekends before the show.  1st of these was intensive on music & dance., 2nd was intensive on running show.
  
  

When I did Sound of Music with HS troupe, we used younger brothers and sisters (built-in kid wrangler) of cast. HS sibling in charge of getting the little ones to rehearsal, unless a parent was available (usually not as we rehearsed right after school: 3:30P-5:30P). They only came last 2 weeks as they really only sang and did simple dance which their older HS sibling was in charge of teaching them.

For The Music Man, ditto plus a bunch more from the nearby elementary school. Winthrop and Amaryllis were very small, young looking HS freshmen.

I always made it very clear to all the HS students that when children were in the house, they were to be on their very best behavior with stiff consequences if not.

Expect the children to amaze you with their talent, their near inexhaustible energy, and zest for performing.

The parents are a different story: just think of your HS students for an idea of what to expect.   Do encourage them to help with all the tech. Some will, most won't. Some will be "in" to the whole thing, others "meh", others "babysitting service".  And, can raise money by selling program shoutouts to parents.

Cast party for the young ones was a pizza party with cake for dessert held in the afternoon before Friday show.

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Douglas Fox
Lumberton NC
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So much good information! Thank you! I hadn't even thought about how to do the cast party, so thank you for that. And right now I have the rehearsal schedule sketched out with rehearsals right after school, but you make a good point about the little ones probably needing to meet in the evenings so parents can get them there. Good things to think about for sure. Thank you so much! 

I highly recommend reaching out to your local elementary and middle school arts teachers.  One of the high schools near us did Mary Poppins and they recruited middle schoolers for the chimney sweeps.  Instead of asking kids to come for an audition, they sent a high school choreographer to our school for after school rehearsals and it was open to any kids in our program that wanted to participate.  

It gave some high school students a chance to choreograph, teach, evaluate, and organize.  Our students were assigned general costume guidelines and anyone who couldn't come up with one was able to work out of OUR costume closet.  They simply had to attend a couple of rehearsals with the high schoolers and then the performances.  The high school make up team did their smudged faces and a final once over on their costumes, but that was it.  The rest was done at their own school with kids they knew and were comfortable around and then they went to perform with the high school students.

We've done something similar now with elementary kids in our shows and the arts teachers there for them to learn at their school and perform at ours.  It's been like a pay it forward situation.  We have a big brother/sister troupe and we are the big brother/sister to troupe to a younger program.  It's created a beautiful feeder program for our collectively zoned schools.

Hope that helps,

Amy

Oh, I really like this idea! Something we need to look into for sure! Thanks! 

What fun!  When I see high school musicals, there seem to be an awful lot of towns out there with no children in them!  LOL   Both of my sons were in the kids' chorus for several musicals at the high school where I was a resident lighting designer - they had great fun!  An elementary music teacher would rehearse them at one of the district's elementary schools, and they wouldn't join the high school cast until the week before tech, which is when they'd have a sitz probe and figure out all the blocking.  What a great experience you are offering these kiddos!

Thank you for the encouragement, I've been questioning if I even want to attempt this, but you're right, it will be really good for those littles. :) 

I have been doing k-8 productions for the past six years and before that k-12 productions at a private school. Here are some things to bear in mind:

1) expect your older students, especially those auditioning for lead roles, to do a proper audition with a prepared song and either cold read or monologue. The little ones may prepare a song, but they are just as likely to sing jingle bells. I usually ask them if they know a joke to tell me. It let's me hear their speaking voice and usually brings out their personality.

2) Find a show that has a couple of big numbers that all of the kids can be in, usually opening and closing, trust me when I tell you that putting the littles in every number will be like herding cats. Think Seussical or Joseph and the Amazing....

3) Employ the buddy system for rehearsals. Pair the older kids with the younger ones, that way there is someone watching them. You'd be surprised how quickly you lose a kiddo when you're directing a scene on stage. An alternative is a couple of parents that will act as "kid wranglers".

4) I typically only rehearse with all the kids one day a week, until we start running the whole show. 

5) I treat my littles just like I do the big kids, when it comes to theatre rules, etiquette, and responsibility. They learn stage directions, backstage expectations, rehearsal expectations, and even responding to the stage manager ("thank you, five!"). They love it and they really step up.

The buddy system and the one day a week are brilliant, thanks for that! Lots of good advice! 

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julia miles
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Hi,

At GCS we have all grade levels, so I try to include as many as possible.

For auditions, I have a separate day for MS/HS and then for Elementary. I typically set auditions for 2 hours and if needed, I add another day. For the elementary students, I just have them sing a couple lines from a song of their choosing.

For costumes, I typically ask the younger students to provide a base costume and then purchase or build ears, tails, skirts, scarves, etc.

Be ready to be flexible. Younger kids will want to tell you all their stories and take up a lot of your time if you aren't firmly structured. Leave time for story time every once in a while during rehearsal. Keep things simple. Don't give overly difficult choreography. Teach them 1-3 songs in the show, maybe not all the group numbers. Have staff or volunteers ready to watch these kiddos when they aren't on stage.

For middle schoolers, they need to see you with lots of energy and understand clear, quick tasks to stay engaged. Allowing various students to lead in physical or vocal warm-ups is a great leadership opportunity for them.

High Schoolers should be leading any place they can in the musical. Allow them also to lead warm-ups, engage with the middle schoolers, and have their own space to be high schoolers. I have separate cast parties for the age groups as well. It can be as simple as cupcakes for the littles and a bonfire for the bigs.

Give parents all the information up front, such as costumes, fees, tshirts, ads for playbill, sponsor info, rehearsal schedule, etc. I communicate only through email.

Typically our rehearsal schedule is broken down by scene, but my elementary kids have separate rehearsals until 2 weeks before GO. That's when everyone comes together. For the Elementary only rehearsals, I don't keep them more than an hour and half, but typically only an hour. I schedule them two days in a row, then once a week moving forward.

We have also performed the show or final dress rehearsal for our elementary students so they support their peers and see how fun a show can be.

I do not allow parents to sit in on rehearsals. If you want supportive parents, give them opportunities to help with the show: painting the set, building costumes, selling concessions, bringing snacks for tech week, etc. It can cause a big distraction during rehearsal if parents are there. However, maybe schedule a dress rehearsal that parents are welcome to, that way they get a sneak peak and there really isn't time for distraction when the show is running.

These are just some things that have worked well for our program. I hope it helps!