Expert: Wanda Reinholdt - 1/4/2008

Question
Hello. My entire life I loved the theater, more precise: musical theater. I get so emotional every time I see a show, and I've seen lots and lots of shows over my 22 years. Due to confidence problems I was never in any of my high school shows, in fact it wasn't until after high school when I found out I can sing; at least I think I can, I have never been trained. I am almost 23 and I so depserately want to sing and act in musical theater professionally. I have no dance and no vocal training. I really need to go to a professional vocal trainer, I think, and have a few sessions with them for them to tell me if I have some...none...a glimmer... or adequate singing talent for it to be reasonable to pursue musical theater starting now. I wasn't involved in theater in college at all, I just got a basic liberal arts degree. How do I go about/where should I seek a professional to tell me if I have what it takes vocally. Thanks, Alexander

Answer
Hi Alexander....And thanks for writing.  The first thing to do  is to look in your city or area for voice teachers.  You can do that online.  You can do that in your local newspaper.  You can go to a university and find them there.  Or a local college.  

Then once you have some names, start looking online for testimonies of their work.  Or ask each of the people you have names of to give you some testimonies of their work.  These testimonies will no doubt highlight the positives of each.  

Then ask each of the voice teachers for their rates.  

Based on this info, choose a voice teacher and ask if you can get in.  Most of the time, they are taking students that are new in September and in January.  

Lessons are the best way to find out whether you have what it takes vocally.  Take lessons for about a year and stick to it no matter how hard it is.  At the end of your first year, ask if you have it to go somewhere vocally in musical theatre.  (Lessons will give you a chance to perform at a recital and it will also give you some repertoire.)

At the same time, if you can do it, take some acting lessons.  But only do this if you have the ability to learn lots of things at once.  This will allow you to determine if you like both or just one.  

Through these voice lessons, you will learn some musical theatre songs (don't be afraid to ask to learn some musical theatre songs).  Take one or two of those songs and use them as audition pieces and start to audition in local theatres for musicals.  

Through the acting lessons, you will learn about some shows and be able to choose some monologues.  Use these to audition for theatre.  

And just keep auditioning.  Eventually, you will get a part.  No matter what, just keep auditioning and enjoying whatever you get.  That will take you a long ways.

Does that help you?

Wanda
www.kaizenworks.org