In mid-to-late August, audition season starts in full force across Ithaca College. During the beginning of each fall semester, students prepare for auditions throughout the Dillingham Center, the Roy H. Park School of Communications and in dorms for a wide plethora of open spots in a cappella and dance groups, ICTV shows, plays and music ensembles.
School of Music, Theatre and Dance
Although housed between two buildings, the music school has been a part of the theater and dance school since the 2022–23 academic year. However, each discipline has separate, general auditions in order to place students into the groups and ensembles the school has to offer.
Based on how students perform in those annual auditions and their skill-level, they will be dispersed within the sub-groups of the music school’s nine major ensembles, ranging from band ensembles to choral ensembles and non-music major ensembles.
For the choir, treble choir and chorus, sophomore Cordelia Gilbert said the audition process felt less casual and more competitive in a professional way. This year, auditions for music students were held during move-in days. Gilbert said this exacerbated the stress level of the audition process.
“They took place on the Sunday morning [of move-in],” Gilbert said. “I know a lot of people were moving in that Sunday into that Monday. So that was a real problem. … Now you can get a new audition time, but most people just had to do [the audition] in the middle of moving in.”
Similarly, for actors, there is a general audition for placement in one of the three shows the Dillingham Center puts on annually during the beginning of the fall semester. This year, sophomore Gillian DuBroff, an acting major, auditioned for the three productions: “Newsies,” “The Wolves” and “X.” She said her first audition for the college last year was on Zoom. This year, held in person, she said her audition felt entirely different.
“You don’t have a mute button in real life,” DuBroff said. “I had a much easier time auditioning in person for these general auditions. … I feel like if I were home, I would have just been sitting on my phone because I wasn’t being watched by other actors and watched by the stage managers who were calling us in. I feel more present when I’m actually there to audition and not sitting in my basement.”
ICTV
While the School of Music, Theatre and Dance may come to mind in regards to auditions, the Park School has auditioning opportunities for students through ICTV across their news, sports, entertainment and scripted departments. The process for all shows begins at ICTV Recruitment Night, which this year was held Aug. 29.
This year, ICTV’s recruitment night had an estimated 550 people attend to learn about the 22 different shows, sign up for cast and crew and meet the different producers. After auditions, where at least one producer from each department is present, the “draft” starts, when all ICTV producers choose their top choices of talent. Jeremy Menard, manager of television and radio operations in the Park School, said the department directors make sure as many people get a chance before they start double-casting students.
“We have a lot of students who want to be a TV news anchor and we want to provide that opportunity, but we also don’t want to put them in a position where they don’t feel confident in that role or they aren’t ready for that role,” Menard said. “We’ve also had people who — right from their first semester — are ready to go and have the confidence and have shined, so we have a variety of talent from first-years all the way up to seniors who are involved in every single year on the station.”
There are many opportunities provided within the different sections of ICTV. The sports department organizes their audition materials to give the auditioners the best chance at commentating on the areas that they are the most comfortable with.
“There are some people who feel more confident in football, let’s say, rather than hockey,” senior Allie Barbaro, ICTV Sports Director, said. “So just having those options really allows us to open up not just diverse interests, but personally, I think it makes more people feel more comfortable.”
Sophomore Hank Jennings is one of those auditioners, but not for sports. Jennings auditioned for ICTV during the Fall 2022 semester, but for his auditions this fall for “Sketch Me if you Can” and “In Other Words,” he said his stress levels were about the same this time as his first auditions for ICTV.
“It was probably only intimidating this year because I have a little bit of a speech difficulty now,” Jennings said. “It’s a little harder to deliver lines than it was for me last time. … It was less stressful this time since I’ve done it before, but I wouldn’t say I was super nervous about it.”
A Cappella & Dance Groups
IC Unbound, one of the many dance groups on campus, has a range of dance styles and dancers every year. As far as the audition process goes, anyone is allowed to audition for as many or as few dances as they are interested in. The choreographers of a dance do a five-minute workshop with anyone interested in learning their dance and will learn one or two 8-count combinations, which are to be recorded and later used to decide who will participate in certain dances.
Senior Alyssa Carbonell, a choreographer and dancer with Unbound, said Unbound is a welcoming and low-stress environment, as all of the dancers trying out will learn the combinations at the same time. Since the material is presented merely minutes before the audition, there is less of a focus on accuracy and more of a focus on effort and energy.
“In my experience as a choreographer, I look less for accuracy in the combination that I teach and more for personality,” Carbonell said via email. “I choose dancers that catch my eye because of their energy and the unique qualities that they bring to the movement that I give.”
Between the five main a cappella groups on campus — Tone Cold, Voicestream, Premium Blend, Ithacappella and Pitch Please — each group seeks new students each semester but has their own process for auditions.
Junior Jackson Gruenke, Tone Cold’s social media manager, said that despite the stressful and intimidating nature of the auditions, it becomes worth it to be chosen by a group, since it gave him an opportunity to create a tight bond with the other members of Tone Cold.
An additional piece to any voice audition is to sight read music. Gruenke said that Tone Cold made sight reading music optional in 2022 and said this is an example of some of the values that have changed for the three-year-old club since its beginning: to be more inclusive and to be more straightforward with their members and those auditioning.
Gruenke said that if students try out and do not get into the group they auditioned for, they should try again and that students should remind themselves, no matter the type of audition, the outcome does not define them.
“There are so many talented singers and fun people in the audition you have such a good rapport with and you want them in the group, but maybe they aren’t the best singer, but that’s not telling them, ‘This is who you are as a person,’” Gruenke said. “There’s so many other opportunities if you don’t get into one of the groups, you should definitely try out for the other ones.”
