musical theatre

Dear Melody, The head lecturer/teacher is called Avigail Herman. She spoke at length about the course and the auditions at the NIDA Open day which I went to on June 3, 2006. She advised that you should prepare two songs from musicals. One should be a ballad and the other should be a lively show piece. When you do the singing pieces, you're not allowed to use CD's or any backing tracks, you should however provide the piano music in the correct key. The other thing that you will have to do is a dance piece. She emphasied the dance piece was important as she believes she can teach people to improve their singing and acting techniques but if you don't have rythym from the start it is difficult to teach you rythym. She said it may be useful to take a weekly dance lesson between now and November so that you can practice getting moves. - whether it be tap or ballet or both. You must wear comfortable clothes so that you can dance on the day. You must also prepare a monologue that is current. You can get some examples from the NIDA website from the Fulltime Action Course Audition Pieces for females. It's always a good idea to research the play and the other characters that your monologue is from as they may ask questions about it and you want to show them that you're dedicated and are knowledgeble about what you're performing. She only takes about 12 people a year and they are required to be there from Monday through to Saturday but only for three to four hours a day, after hours. (So you can have a day job if needed. Talking to this years students they find it hard to do the course and earn a living. For those living at home, it sounded like a bonus since they had the support of their family without the need to work long hours to support themselves. The auditions are in November but I think you can send your application in now. I hope I've helped. Ask me anything and I'll try to help you...! Good luck Melody! (p.s. be confident on the day and don't let anyone psych you out - just focus on yourself and the job you need to do on the day. I personally find it annoying if people start to get chatty or loud around me and have learnt to take myself to a quiet spot or outside and just concentrate on what I'm going to do in the audition.) Check out the website: http://www.nida.com.au/short_courses/open/sda/Auditions.aspx