NIDA's Singer Dancer Actor

Hey Kitty. I'm currently doing the SDA course at the moment and I think it would be well worth your while auditioning. It's a great course (although it'd be nice if we could do it for longer than a year) and rumour has it that the course will be accredited next year (a little bonus, perhaps). Course wise, the focus is on storytelling as a holistic base. But all other mediums (singing, dance, music theory, history, physical theatre etc etc) are covered extremely well. Avigail's tuition as a singing teacher and acting through song teacher is most definitely worthwhile. And all the other tutors are industry professionals. The dance component isn't _huge_ but you're always going to want more of everything. The course culminates with a showcase at the end of the year - it's mostly for industry - agents, casting directors and whatnot. My recommendation is that if you have already done a longer course in performing arts then doing the shorter 1 year course would be a better prospect than a longer degree (but I suppose that is just my opinion and I don't want to seem preachy!) Audition-wise, take in songs that you can act. Commit to a character, tell their story to the best of your ability and don't belt your tits off (Av hates that). The audition has a few rounds all done on the same day - the first round is dance and singing. They split the group in half, one learns a dance routine (it's not too hard if you've had a little bit of dance training and it's definitely not the most weighted part of the audition) and the other group sings both (or one, I suppose?) of their songs. Then there is a cut and those that remain will do their monologues and if they are good enough - they will be workshopped. And you'll be asked to redo some aspects of the piece a different way etc etc. Then people are shortlisted and you wait. At least that's what happened at my audition and I assume it's the same every year. The panel is only Avigail Herman. The rest of the people involved - accompanist and choreographers - are not involved in the selection process at all. Also, there's quite a few posts on here about Avi being scathing and horrible. She's not. She's a really hard taskmaster and will crack down on students but she only has her student's best interests at heart. She treats each student as an individual and has different methods for procuring results from each student, depending on their demeanor and personality. But overall, her criticisms are designed to help the student improve. If everything was always niceties, we'd never get anywhere. So, I suppose I'm just saying, don't be put off by the comments of others. She's not the warmest person in the world but she knows how to get the best out of her pupils. Hope this helps!