The Midwest chapter held its competition last weekend and 2 out of the 3 winners in the Broadway 2 division were my students which made me look good. However, while I am proud of them, and happy for them, in many ways they should have been the last two out of my studio to win and are the least likely to have a legitimate shot at being cast in the real world of musical theater.
Why'd then win? They sounded more legit which is what won in those divisions across the board. The Broadway divisions should be adjudicated according to the standards of the genre not the standards of classical music and strictly classical singing. If this cannot be done they should just scrap the whole thing. Three schmoes off the street could have probably given more representative results than academic/classical teachers.
This is the exact reason I discourage my students from entering into most university musical theater programs. The same faculty that is dealing with the classical side is dealing with the musical theater side and they are (on the whole) clueless about this type of singing ... what a shame for those students that get sucked into that. They come out of the programs with very little chance of being hired. It's unethical.
Randy Buescher www.speechlevelvoice.com
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