Performing Arts Scholarship Auditions
Guidelines
February 17, 2012
Schedule
- 9:15–10 a.m. Registration/meet and greet, Helfaer Lobby
- 10–10:15 a.m. Registration/meet and greet, Helfaer Lobby
- 10:15–11:15 a.m. Parent panel, Helfaer 006
Stephen Hudson-Mairet, chair; Carlos Garces, senior assistant dean, undergraduate admissions. Parents are free to join us for special campus tour.
- 10:15 a.m. Student forum and workshops, Helfaer 013
Debra Krajec, directing and costume design faculty; Chester Loeffler-Bell, lighting design and technical director; Connie Petersen, costume design and costume shop mgr.; Phylis Ravel, director and performance faculty; John Ricci, patron and scholarship judge; Nathan Miller, alumnus and scholarship judge
- 11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Student Q&A with faculty and current students, Helfaer 013
- 12:15–12:45 p.m. Lunch with faculty and current students, Helfaer Lobby
- 12:45–1:15 p.m. Directing presentation-Debra Krajec, Helfaer 013
- 1:30–4 p.m. Auditions with performance faculty, Helfaer 013
- 1:30–4 p.m. Interview/ portfolio presentation with design faculty, Helfaer 113
- 3-4 p.m. Break, optional campus tour
- 7:30 p.m. Defying Gravity performance at the Helfaer Theatre. Please plan on staying for this special Scholarship Day performance.
- Download a PDF of the event schedule
Register for our scholarship competition online
If you have any questions, please call Stephen Hudson Mairet at (414) 288-3391, or by email at
stephen.hudson-mairet@marquette.edu. Be sure to arrive a few minutes early for auditions.
How Auditions Work
- Check in at the registration table in the Helfaer Theatre.
- After a meet-and-greet with faculty and current students during
registration, you will proceed to a short information session and
conversation with Diederich College faculty, Department of Performing
Arts faculty and recent graduates.
- Faculty and current students will then take participants through a
class experience. The class may include improvisation, movement, and
vocal expression exercises. We encourage participants to wear
comfortable clothing that is appropriate for physical activity. You
will have the opportunity to change into other clothing for your
audition.
- After the afternoon Directing Workshop, you will proceed to the
individual auditions. Each participant will have a seven-minute
audition in front of our performance faculty. You will have
time to change into audition clothes and warm up for your
monologue. We encourage you to warm up for your monologue.
- Once your audition is complete, you have completed the audition
process. There are no callbacks. You will then have a break in
which we encourage you to explore the rest of Marquette
University’s campus—take a campus tour, stock up on gear from our
spirit shop, check out our Alumni Memorial Union, or explore
Downtown Milwaukee with dinner.
- Thereafter, you will have the opportunity to return to the Helfaer
theatre for a Marquette University main stage performance.
Audition Guidelines
- Please prepare two contrasting monologues. Together the pieces
should be no more than four minutes in length. If you sing, dance or
play an instrument, you will have two additional minutes to present. An
accompanist as well as a CD/cassette player will be provided.
- Please bring a photo and if applicable, a résumé
- Select your monologue from a play. Do not use poetry or something from films.
- Because our goal is to see you, your best and your potential. We
suggest you prepare monologues that highlight what you do and like best.
- All students should wear comfortable clothing and flat shoes (no
big boots) for class work. You also can wear socks or ballet/jazz
shoes. You will be doing dance and movement work as well as acting. If
you wish to bring a change of clothes for the afternoon audition, there
are changing rooms.
- Videotaped auditions are not accepted; auditionee must be present for interview.
How Design and Technical Interviews Work
- Check in at the registration table in the Helfaer Theatre.
- After a meet-and-greet with faculty and current students during
registration, you will proceed to a short information session and
conversation with College of Communication and Department of Performing
Arts faculty and recent graduates.
- Faculty and current students will then take interviewees though a
class experience. We encourage interviewees to wear comfortable
clothing that is appropriate for physical activity; you will be touring
our shops as well as different areas of the theatre facilities. You
will have the opportunity to change into other clothing for your
interview.
- After the afternoon Directing Workshop, you will proceed to the
interview portion of the afternoon. Each student will have an interview
with our design faculty. Each interview is approximately 10-minutes
long. There is not a fixed format to the interviews so this timing may
vary depending on what questions you have for us.
- Once your audition is complete, you have completed the audition
process. There are no callbacks. You will then have a break in which we
encourage you to explore the rest of Marquette University’s campus—take
a campus tour, stock up on gear from our spirit shop, check out our
Alumni Memorial Union, or explore Downtown Milwaukee with dinner.
- Thereafter, you will have the opportunity to return to the Helfaer Theatre for a Marquette University main
stage performance.
Designer/Technical Interview Guidelines
- You will need to be prepared to present a portfolio highlighting your best work.
- There is not a fixed format or schedule of questions for the
interview. We believe that the questions you have for us are just as
important as the questions we have for you. The design faculty who
conduct the interview are interested in the whole you—your theatre
experiences, academic record, personal achievements, extracurricular
activities, and your aspirations for the future.
- We recommend that to prepare for the interview you come with
plenty of questions both about the Department of Performing Arts and
Marquette University.
- To assemble a portfolio, choose up to 20 pieces of your work that
demonstrate your strength and depth in areas of particular interest and
the range of your abilities and your exposure. The pieces tell us great
deal about you, so choose pieces that show your best work. Feel free to
include renderings, drawing, photographs, drafting and mechanical
drawings, etc. Your imagery need not be from theatre alone – we are
interested in your graphic, artistic, painting and drawing work as
well.
- Résumés also are encouraged.
- Portfolios may not be mailed in; interviewee must be present for interview.
Our Mission
In Marquette University’s J. William and Mary Diederich College of
Communication, the study of theatre takes place within the context of a
liberal arts education. A liberal education is a freeing education. Its
aim is to release the student from the bonds of ignorance, intolerance,
parochialism and prejudice. A liberal education seeks to free the
student for citizenship in the realm of the intellect.
The mission of the Department of Performing Arts is to lay a foundation
for our students in the theatrical principles, techniques and practices
that will help them realize their potential not only as artists, but
also as human beings. We recognize the role of theatre in social
communication and the importance of fostering in our students and in
ourselves scholarship, artistic expression, and expertise in the
performing arts to accomplish our mutual goal.
The curriculum of the theatre major in the Diederich College is
dedicated to the idea that the study of theatre outside the context of
cultural traditions which gave it birth is essentially meaningless. At
the same time, we insist on the careful and disciplined integration of
curriculum with actual stage production of plays. Such integration
differentiates a Marquette education from a professional
theatre-training program.
The department expects its undergraduate students to gain practical
experience in every area of theatre, developing all their strengths,
even those that had been previously undiscovered. The department
believes the hands-on, realized stage experience is just as important
as classroom work. The production season is an active element of
Marquette's pedagogical program, where much of the true learning
happens under the close individual guidance of department faculty.
The departmental production program instills a strong professionalism
grounded in the respect and caring for others that graduates carry into
the world beyond graduation. An education at Marquette University with
a major in theatre therefore combines knowledge and skill; it requires
that theory be tested in practice and that skill be demonstrated in production.