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[0:10] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping the College Audition, a podcast where we explore the landscape of the college theater world and try to demystify this daunting audition process.

[0:19] Charlie Murphy: I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, director of MTCA. That's Musical Theatre College Auditions. And today we've got Jeanne Slater from Circle in the Square and a fun and interesting podcast, I do say so myself.

[0:33] Charlie Murphy: I mentioned this in our Norwalk podcast a few weeks back, so I won't give you all the full caveats about programs that are not traditional university BFAs, but I will say Circle is really interesting in that they offer this path both for a four-year BFA experience through Eckerd College or a two-year training for the certificate. So of course, lots of different interesting paths for you all to explore. Some for some, this may be exactly what you're looking for, and for some, this may be not at all what you're looking for if you want a more traditional four-year university experience.

[1:02] Charlie Murphy: For those of you I say enjoy a bit of extra time on your holiday break, sip on some eggnog and listen back to some of our artist episodes. In the MTCA update of the world, I just want to give a little shout out to many of our students who just completed their private audition weekend with four schools. We've heard from the faculty how thrilled they were with the quality of your work, and I know we're all proud of you for the way you engage and committed to your process where you are in your journey right now. Just an excellent place to be and to have four auditions under your belt already in December.

[1:31] Charlie Murphy: Some of you have more already. If you did other early audition experiences, amazing. And to those students, and really all of our students, and even our coaches who are listening, I say enjoy some holiday rest. I know I need it. I have definitely felt the creep of burnout through the last few weeks. And this is not a place you want to be doing your auditions from. So I invite you, use this time productively to relax. Rest your bodies, rest your minds. That doesn't mean this has to be a long moment of pure sloth. You know, our dancers and vocalists know themselves to be athletes, and so there can be maintenance and moments of sweat for sure over the holiday break.

[2:08] Charlie Murphy: But please give yourself the goal of exiting the new year in a healthier, fuller, more rejuvenated place than many of you are in right now. You need it. Trust me, even if you don't think you do, you can almost certainly fill that iPhone battery from yellow into the green. You will thank yourselves in the rigor of Unified and January on-campus auditions and online auditions and all of your school commitments and all the stuff that's got that's to come in the next couple months to have had some real rest and recuperation during this time period. I promise you you won't regret it. So please commit to that rest and recharging with the same productivity mindset that you did your applications. Consider it your homework. I'm giving you homework to rest.

[2:47] Charlie Murphy: And speaking of rest, we're gonna take our own advice and take a week off next week from the podcast. I had originally hoped, and I said it in the previous episode, that we're gonna try to organize a mailbag. I was talking to Meghan, who's our producer, maybe on her break, and while I was down in Texas, maybe we're gonna try to do it. It just seemed like our schedules weren't aligning conveniently. And I want to take my own advice and take a break myself while I'm away. So this is gonna be our last episode of 2023. My apologies to those of you who send in some great mailbag questions. I will try to respond to them if I can in the new year, and or we'll save those and answer them for a future mailbag if it seems like they can wait.

[3:22] Charlie Murphy: But we will be back at the top of 2024 with some great new artists, some great new schools. We have some really, really exciting both of those. Some schools we haven't had on yet that are some big schools and some awesome new artists with different paths. Okay, without further ado, let's get to this episode with Jeanne Slater from Circle in the Square.

[3:47] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are so excited to have Jeanne Slater on the pod from Circle in the Square. Jeanne has a BA in theater from the University of California, Irvine, an MA in Shakespeare and Theater from the University of Birmingham. She is a graduate herself of Circle in the Square Theater School, has a distinguished acting directing choreography career herself. She's currently on faculty at the Juilliard School, the Trinity School, and many others, before becoming the artistic director of the Circle in the Square Theater School, which is located in New York, New York, the only conservatory in a Broadway theater as they bill themselves.

[4:20] Charlie Murphy: It's a two-year conservatory in acting or musical theater, but they also offer this unique two in two program through Eckerd College in order to be granted a BFA, which we're gonna get into the specifics of today. Jeanne, welcome on the pod. How are you doing today?

[4:34] Jeanne Slater: Thank you so much. I'm good.

[4:36] Charlie Murphy: We're so thrilled to have you. Talk to me about so I gave that really quick bio of sort of some of the basics, but tell me a little bit about sort of your journey to Circle. What are some fun facts or things we should know about you before you encountered this specific profession?

[4:49] Jeanne Slater: So I was, when I graduated from the University of California, Irvine with my drama degree, I wanted to move to an all conservatory non-academic program. So I was looking at those programs. Circle in the Square came up. So I actually auditioned for and got into Circle in the Square. I was a student here from 1993 to 1996. Then I graduated, I went on, I was working, and in 2006, I did I have been a teacher sort of my whole life. So I had was teaching at Juilliard. We shared a lot of faculty at that point. And the dance teacher at Circle was leaving. And so they called me and asked if I would come in essentially for the year and take over as the dance teacher. This was in 2006, I believe. So I took that on, and I've actually been a teacher here since from 2006 on.

I ended up just staying and taking on the first and second year classes here. And then when COVID hit in 2020, our director of 40 years decided to step back at that time. And they asked me to come in for one year as interim artistic director. And after a year, I decided to stay. So that's been my path here. I did when I left Circle, I did quite a bit of performing, a lot of regional theater commercials, things like that. A little bit of Broadway. And then really moved into teaching when I had my daughter in 2007. I decided to, I really wanted to focus on that. I just lifestyle-wise didn't want to be running around the country. So that's where we are.

[6:18] Charlie Murphy: I love it. Okay, great part. And now you've already introduced two things one from my little bio and then one from here that I think we want to chat about before we dive into the Circle in the Square specifics of the training, which I'm excited to get to. But first, can you just tell me a little bit about the history of Circle in the Square as a theater? I mean, some of our listeners will automatically know what that means. You hear Broadway theater. I know when my parents lived in the city 40 years ago, they were proud subscribers to Circle in the Square. They're like, this is the best theater that we have to subscribe to. But could you tell me a little bit about the journey of Circle in the Square as a theater and then now as a training institution, which has been now for many years?

[6:52] Jeanne Slater: Yeah, so Circle in the Square actually started the reason it's called Circle in the Square is it started as an off-Broadway, basically Circle, more or less. I would I'm not gonna say invented but codified what it is to be an off-Broadway rep company. They actually took a converted cabaret space downtown in Bleecker Street, and that was the original. So it was called Circle in the Square because cabarets were built where the seating was around. So it was a square building with a circle in the middle, and they performed in the round. And this is where people like if you know if you're familiar with older actors, James Earl Jones, who went on to play Darth Vader, but has had a storied career. Colleen Dewhurst, people of that quality got their starts when they were young. George C. Scott directed, like they it's the list sort of goes on and on and on in terms of the people that did Circle in the Square off-Broadway.

[7:45] Jeanne Slater: The city actually asked Circle and provided this space at a very, very low rent for us to move into the Broadway space. And so now our Broadway space reflects what Circle in the Square started. It's the only Broadway theater in the round. It can be done either in thrust or round. It's a very unusual space. If your listeners are interested, you can go online and see pictures of it. It's so it's a very sought-after theater because you are never more than 10 seats, 10 rows away from the stage. Yeah, so it's the only Broadway house that has that distinction. Circle was a producing theater through the 90s, and in the 90s it stopped being a producing theater and rent to it went to a rental space. So we now rent. We currently we had K-pop here last year. We just finished the Melissa Etheridge show, and now Enemy of the People is moving in with Sam Gold directing. So as our school, it exists underneath the space. We do have access to that theater whenever available.

[8:39] Charlie Murphy: So cool. So the school actually started, Paul Liban and Ted Mann started the school because they wanted an answer to one-style teaching. So essentially every teacher at Circle comes from essentially a different school of training. So versus a neighborhood or a playwrights where it's one way, one style, Lee Strasbourg. It's the Lee Strasbourg method. We don't teach that. We teach that essentially you develop your own technique by being exposed to as many techniques as possible.

[9:06] Jeanne Slater: And what was the impetus of combining those two things? I just think it's not naturally something you'd be like, oh, a Broadway theater or even an off-Broadway theater and a training program. There aren't necessarily natural, like, oh, those two things definitely fit together. What was the impetus of starting this training program?

[9:21] Jeanne Slater: To train truly live theater actors. That was the goal of the they wanted when they were bringing the off-Broadway movement to life. It was really wanting the audience to get in there, get close with live theater, and they wanted to train actors that could step into any role and embody it, who were trained for live theater specifically, and who were essentially accessible so that they knew how to open themselves up to any material, and they felt that that was not being taught. So they really they brought together, which was we say circle is the school at the originally of no technique. In other words, it was we can't just say it's one technique. Every class you go to offers a different look, which can be very frustrating. But then you graduate and you go, Oh, I understand, I understand. Now I'm putting it all together as you develop really what works for you.

[10:16] Charlie Murphy: It's really cool as you move through the program. And you know, I mean, you talk about what is unique. Many schools will brag about we're kind of associated with a rep theater over here or whatever, but not other schools have association with a Broadway theater. I mean, that is really it's unique.

[10:28] Jeanne Slater: It is very unique, and it's a great thing. We could we get to use it, we're using it today as a classroom, and we're also this morning putting up a production of Romeo and Juliet on the stage. Talk about being spoiled if you're like, all right, now at my next I graduate from school and I go to this piece of crap closet where I'm doing my show. Let's talk about the other kind of unique thing in this two and two degree. I just would love to talk about sort of the options, you know, and the two and two options, but also then just the straight two options that would exist with Circle, right? In terms of for musical theater and actors, maybe specifically who are interested in Circle and the Square, but who are curious about what would it be if I actually got that degree in that BFA. How do you recommend the two and two, you know, in terms of how does it work?

[11:13] Jeanne Slater: Okay. So our two and two were actually I think we just I think we're heading into our fifth year. So it did debut sort of the year before COVID, so it took a minute. And it's now kind of we're getting it out there a little bit more. But you do two years at Eckerd, which is a small private college in St. Petersburg, Florida. And then you do two years here at Circle in the Square, which is the BFAs are folded into our professional workshop program, and they move through our two-year program just like the professional workshop folks do. Essentially, you front load all of your academics at Eckerd. So you have two years that you can absolutely take your pre-theater classes. They offer theater classes, they offer clown classes, mass classes, you can take your Shakespeare.

There's production opportunities, performance opportunities at Eckerd, but you really are front loading your classes. You do also have the opportunity to minor when you're there. Then when you move to Circle, we have no academics. This is a hands-on lab-based program. It doesn't mean you're not going to be reading a ton. It doesn't mean you're not going to be doing a little bit of writing on reflection, but you are really up on your feet working. And so once you get here your junior year, you move through our program. And when you graduate, you get a certificate of completion from us and a BFA from Eckerd.

[12:27] Charlie Murphy: Totally clear. And I think on the website, they talked about you could go in either direction, but you basically recommend for most 18-year-olds, you would start with Eckerd and graduate from go in that order, Florida to New York.

[12:38] Jeanne Slater: We have both right now. We actually do have a student here who is accepted into the two plus two. She really wanted to come here first and leave the beauty of our program also is that if you start at Circle and you finish Circle five years, 10 years later, you could go back and complete your degree at Eckerd. So and you can just defer. You can just say, hey, I want to go be an actor at 20, hit the ground running, but then I want the option to not have to do four more years of school if I want to finish my degree. You could just then say I'm going back to Eckerd a decade later.

[13:06] Jeanne Slater: Yes. Our partnership with Eckerd basically says if you have graduated high school in good standing and you have completed our program in good standing, you have an automatic acceptance to Eckerd to be able to finish your degree. And so it's not like you're deferring endlessly, you would apply but you would go through as a BFA who has already completed half of the program. And for our students who are not as interested in necessarily getting the BFA, you would just from the Circle experience, would just get a two-year certificate, right?

[13:31] Jeanne Slater: You would get a year certificate completion or whatever. If you are sure you want the degree, we always recommend that you start at Eckerd because once you finish here, we do the launch with your professional scene night and your showcase, our grad rep shows, and then you're out in the world. I think the students that choose to come here first are the ones that are not certain they want to get their BFA, but do want to have that option in their pocket if they do choose to go back at any time.

[13:54] Jeanne Slater: You do need to be accepted. We do need to feel you're ready for our two-year program. So we would not accept every student. There are students that we accept only if they start at Eckerd because we feel they need two years to sort of cook a little bit more. Our program is really intense. We accept up to age 40 in our program. So you're entering a program in which there are people with their equity cards already, people that have worked already, people that have done tours already and are looking to expand that. So we want to make sure you're ready for the intensity of Circle in the Square.

[14:24] Charlie Murphy: That's really helpful clarity. And it certainly makes sense just as I was looking at them, you would want the momentum of graduate and meet agents and then you're working. You don't want to then go two years back to school, especially because it sounds like, you know, there are theater opportunities at Eckerd, but it's certainly going to be a less intensive experience at Eckerd in terms of continuing your theater training. It would be a denouement if you spend two years and then you go do more theater at Eckerd. It's not going to feel as intensive as this.

[14:48] Jeanne Slater: Yeah, how our students put it that are currently here is they said Eckerd gave them a great opportunity to be in theater, do performances. I mean, last year they did Spring Awakening, so all of our students that are here this year had the leads in Spring Awakening. Eckerd offers a drama degree, not a BFA, but a BA in drama. So they do have a BA drama program, and you are a part of that. As a BFA, you tend to sort of monopolize the casting. If I do say so, because you're just accepted at a different level. But they all say that it allows them to sort of cook and grow as a person. Eckerd is located actually on a mile of private beach in Florida. So you have sunshine and air and ocean, and then you move to New York, and we are literally located three floors below a Broadway theater. Very different environment here, and it's a very different experience. But we love this program because it allows you to have a real college experience and then a conservatory experience.

[15:48] Charlie Murphy: I love that. And you mentioned this already, sort of the some of the older students up to age 40. And why for I can't be 41? I have to be up to 40, is my limit.

[15:55] Jeanne Slater: No, I just usually I think 40 is the oldest we have had in my memory. No, I don't know. In our summer program, though, we actually have had people older that come to the summer intensive. Never too late to learn. Last year, I think our age range was 18 to 36.

[16:09] Charlie Murphy: I love it. And those are people are using it as kind of an MFA experience, right? Even if it's not technically an MFA, but they're using it, they may have gotten a BA already, and they're saying, now I want an intensive conservatory style experience for themselves.

[16:21] Jeanne Slater: Most of the students, do any of those students already have BFAs who are applying?

[16:24] Jeanne Slater: They have a full BFA and then they're taking it as another step in their training. This training really appeals to people because it is a hundred percent lab-based. So it like me, I had already gotten my degree in theater, but I went to a school in which I was also taking a full load of academic classes and everything was approached from an academic point of view, including a lot of the theater classes.

[16:45] Charlie Murphy: Yep.

[16:45] Jeanne Slater: When I got here, I like to say you put on your sweats and you roll around on the floor. It's all up and working and in the work, it's less theoretical and more practical learning. So that is the appeal for the older students who want that kind of education.

[16:58] Charlie Murphy: I love it. Well, let's talk about so especially, you know, most of our listeners are those 17, 18-year-olds who are going into the college experience. What kind of human being, other than someone who we know is ready for the intensive experience of a BFA conservatory style experience, or even just a conservatory non-BFA experience, what kind of student feels like they are the right fit for Circle in the Square? What sort of ethos do your students tend to have that you go, this feels like you're the right person for our program?

[17:24] Jeanne Slater: I would say the two words would have to be driven, maybe motivated is a better word, and also really curious. You need to be open to what is being taught here. And the teacher may approach it in a way that you are not used to hearing or asking you to come at something with a different perspective. And we find that people where it's already baked in do not do as well here, which is why in our audition process, we actually audition for a panel of teachers, and a teacher works with every single applicant because we want to see how that student takes in notes, makes adjustments, what kind of questions they ask, what kind of flexibility they have. Sometimes the teachers will send them in a completely crazy direction just to see how willing they are to go there.

Always safe, obviously, but that gives us a lot of information. We have had some students audition that felt like very talented students, but really baked. And that felt like maybe this isn't where we are not the best fit for you. You need to go somewhere where that is really an advantage.

[18:25] Charlie Murphy: It totally makes sense. And no matter how many times they hear that, I think students sometimes just refuse to believe that they're given adjustments that are not like this is to make it better, right? Like it's really hard for students to be like, oh, you just want me to play? Okay, you just want me to see how I take direct. They're like, is that how I'm supposed to do it in my other auditions? It's like, no, that's not what the point of that was is not just to make it better, it's to play with you.

[18:45] Jeanne Slater: To play, and they do try to specify, they'll say that I'm not saying this is the right direction to go, but let's just try this. We have an amazing Alexander teacher who works with them and actually through the screen manages to give like little mini Alexander lessons and has them adjust their body and it completely changes the way they sound. And so every teacher approaches it differently, they alternate, so it allows me watching to really see a student in motion. And that is really how we make the call. We have said no to some incredibly talented students who just didn't feel like they were open.

[19:16] Charlie Murphy: Yep, totally makes sense. So we're looking for an open student, and in some cases that means less experienced. But we find they thrive when they get here.

[19:23] Jeanne Slater: Totally. Let's talk a little bit about the two years, especially. So maybe let's start with as a musical theater major. How am I gonna come out changed? What kind of class am I taking? It sounds like you're saying a very wide range of different techniques. What does that look like in an intensive day-to-day two-year experience?

[19:37] Jeanne Slater: So we're the only program that I know of that our MTs and our ATs essentially take the same track, meaning everyone takes contemporary scene study, everybody takes Shakespeare scene study. Everybody takes mask, clown. We have unarmed combat in the first year, armed combat in the second year. Everybody takes voice and speech, everybody takes acting technique, jazz and ballet. That's across the board. Everyone gets a private voice lesson every other week, and that's acting track and musical theater track.

[20:06] Charlie Murphy: That's cool.

[20:07] Jeanne Slater: Yeah. So that's a very unusual sort of combination. The differences between the two tracks are the MTs are alone for their musical theater scene study class and their musical theater performance class, which really is more solo song. And that is the class that helps you prep for your cabaret, your showcase at the end. The acting track splits with them. They take a class called Beyond Shakespeare, which is team-taught by three different instructors. Every nine weeks, you get a different part of the canon from the late 1800s to 1970. They focus on three playwrights per nine weeks. So you're getting sort of a survey course for our actors focused on that. And they also take an acting the monologue class, which is also team-taught.

So you have a section of Shakespeare, a section of contemporary, and a section of audition. So our acting track is really focused on their book, while our musical theater are focused on their book as they move through the programs. The idea is that both leave with a full book of options for auditions when they leave.

[21:02] Charlie Murphy: It's really cool.

[21:03] Jeanne Slater: Other than that, they take class together. So we have the best educated Shakespearean musical theater people on the planet. They take, you know, so it's and forcing your actors to recognize also, like it's I love the voice lessons, no matter where you are, like you're going to have to sing at some point in your career. There's nobody as an actor who doesn't have to like at least sing as a human being who sings in this show at some point. Like you might not have to do a musical, but you're gonna have to. I mean, even my friends who are like, I'm Shakespeare, I'm not, I'm like, you're gonna sing in a Shakespeare show. It's gonna happen.

[21:29] Jeanne Slater: And it's interesting because when we started that, we actually started all the voice lessons for everybody over COVID during COVID because we were online, and I said the thing we can really offer everyone is a voice lesson. So let's do that every other week. And then at the end of the year, the musical theater first years have their cabaret, and we do it at the triad on 73rd Street here in a cabaret space. And the actors, we traditionally do a little, you know, cozy one either here in our space on stage, but it's just in-house or a dance studio, but they have their own actors' cabaret. Well, it turns out when you give actors voice lessons for a solid year, that actor cabaret is a real different experience.

And sometimes our actors actually end up moving to the musical theater track when you realize that there's a voice in there and it's opened up. We've also had the other way. We've had some musical theater students look at that Beyond Shakespeare class and that monologue class and say, actually, I think I want that education. I feel like I'm solid in musical theater. I want to move there. So we do have that ability to move between tracks as well if you're feeling it.

[22:30] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, we talk about it a lot of just the fluidity of the business. You're not an actor or an MT in the business, you're an actor. Like, no matter what, like the number of we have artist guests as well as the faculty, but you know, when it's John Bellman or it's Dakon Matthews or Bryce Pinkham, we've had all these artists on who got acting degrees, but then end up being very successful in the musical theater. Nobody out there goes, but do you have a musical theater degree? How you know you can sing, you can sing, you're in the show. Like it's, you know, it doesn't really have that distinction in the professional world.

[22:53] Jeanne Slater: But let's talk about the professional world. So, how do you prepare? You mentioned sort of the launch that happens after the end of the second year for Circle, whatever age you're at. How do you prepare your students for that launch into the business and sort of how they're hitting the industry?

[23:07] Jeanne Slater: I think we prepare them in a number of ways. I think the first way is really that they're in the class with working artists. So, for example, right now, two of our team, one of our teachers just left six, but two of our teachers were the resident directors on six on Broadway. We have another teacher who has a like longer than my arm, a Broadway resume, in and out. He's actually leaving next semester to go do a starring role in Washington, DC. And so all of our teachers are out in the world working right now. They're either out directing or they are performing. And that keeps what they are doing in the classroom incredibly current. So it's not a theoretical, it's not well, what I think is going to happen when you leave, or in my day, this is what happened when you let it's like what is happening right now.

When I was auditioning for six today, we were looking for, and so it definitely current, I think is the word. So all the material they pick and the way that they teach is with the idea in mind that we know we're a two-year program, and we do want people to leave with a technique in place, with some self-confidence in place, and with the ability to exist in that world.

[24:17] The second thing we do is in during the second year, second semester mainly, we start bringing in people in the industry to talk about it. We bring in a producer, we bring in an agent, we bring in a manager just to talk to them about what each person does. So that when they move out into the world, they understand all the pieces of the puzzle. They understand the difference between a manager and an agent. They understand why they might want one versus the other. They have spoken to a producer about what that looks like. They've spoken to casting directors, they've spoken to playwrights. So they have a better understanding when they're in the audition room, who really is sitting behind that table?

Who am I auditioning for? Who really has the power behind that table? And how do I go about working with them or getting this job or following up with them? That's the other thing we really like to talk about is how do you follow up? You meet someone, you audition for them, what it because that has changed over the years and since COVID, that has changed. So really trying to stay current with that and making sure they're getting that direct information directly from the people who are doing it.

[25:16] Jeanne Slater: We do a professional launch. We do a showcase, which when we can, we do it on our Broadway stage. So this year they will be doing it on the set of Enemy of the People. And we will have our 24 graduates out there. We mix our ATs and our MTs together. Some of our MTs opt to do a song and a straight scene. So they do have that option. We actually have one acting track who actually is a very, very, very good singer and a fabulous dancer. So he's actually gonna sing a song in addition to his straight scene, even though he's acting track, because we have that flexibility to be able to say this is what's gonna feature this person better. So the showcase is co-directed by one of our musical theater teachers and one of our acting teachers.

We really feel like it's really focused on these are our students, what is unique about them, and how do we best showcase them? And I have to say that that team has been unbeatable. Last year we graduated 15 people, and every single person got at least one and most of the multiple industry calls out of our showcase, which was like we've never really hit odds like that. And I think it's because they curated the program directly to showcase every student in their best light. Of course, we cannot promise that that will happen every time.

[26:28] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[26:28] Jeanne Slater: But it was we were really, really thrilled because Circle, you know, sort of our mantra is we are asking you to be the best actor you can be. We focus on your uniqueness. We're not trying to cookie-cutter anyone. We're not trying to say this is how we homogenize you, or where it's like we take who you are and we try to say how is the best way to expand that artistry and move that person into the world. So, you know, the last year's showcase started with a comedy routine between two actors who really specialized in comedy, and it was hysterical. We've never started a showcase like that before. It was completely different, totally unusual. They both got calls because it featured them in a really unique special way.

So I love that our teachers will take that time to get to know each student and really talk to them about right now. We're in that process now. Both teachers are meeting with each student individually to talk about what is the best material to showcase them.

[27:20] Charlie Murphy: That's really cool. And that'll keep developing through March. And how does that work with like so you know it's obviously a pretty condensed program already with the two years, but you know, if someone comes in, they already have representation or they meet someone after their first year.

[27:31] Jeanne Slater: How does it work with like you're obviously right in New York City, so they could be auditioning while you're there in school? Is that allowed? Is that encouraged? How does it work if people want to do that soft launch for themselves? So we can accommodate some, but we cannot accommodate large leaves of absence, excuse me, absences, and that's what we do tell people. Essentially, you are allowed 10 class absences per semester because we are a lab-based class. If you are not there, you are not getting the work. And so basically, if you're here to get an education, you need to be here to get an education. If you're trying to put your foot in one world and in the working world, there are schools that can accommodate that much better than we can.

And I'm very upfront about that. We have had many students manage to film commercials or film student projects while they're here. They go to Columbia and they do some student films. You can definitely be building your resume while you're here. But you are not going to be able to, if you need to leave, if you book something and you need to leave, you can come back the next year and start over. Yeah, like we do allow that. You can, there are people who've taken time off between years. So they finish their first year, they book something three years later, they come back and they finish their second year. We can make accommodations for that. It's case by case; we have to make sure we know the student will be ready and prepared to come back for their second year. So I'm not, it's nothing is a guarantee every time; it's a conversation with each student as we go through that process.

[28:51] Charlie Murphy: Totally. And you so you mentioned the dark windowless experience of the school itself. What is the, what's sort of the college experience? Obviously, it's not college for everyone there, but sort of, you know, and we talk about, you know, Eckerd, you're on the beach, you're having that kind of college experience if you make that choice. But for the two years of Circle, sort of what is the communal college-like experience? You know, obviously there's no frats and those kind of things, but what are they getting from the experience of Circle in the Square?

[29:15] Jeanne Slater: You are getting an incredible community. We are in a very, very, very small school. We are 50 total. We have a 26 person first year and a 24 person second year. Our entire campus is one floor down here below our Broadway house and we look at, we rent outside for our dance studios. But other than that, we are here, which means that the first and second years are sharing space, so you get to know each other really well. With our classes, everybody is intermixed for every other class, so you work with everyone in your class regularly. And often they choose to, we don't have a dorm. We have no on-campus living, but you live in New York City. Circle is located at 50th and 8th. For those of you that know your New York City, you are right in the heart of everything that is going on and everything that you want.

So TKTS is right down the street. Go get those tickets. We get a lot of free tickets for things. So people are able to go out and see theater. They get to know each other incredibly well. They tend to room together. Actually, our five BFAs, we have seven BFAs this year, all coming from Eckerd. Five of them live together in one apartment.

[30:15] Charlie Murphy: In one apartment?

[30:16] Jeanne Slater: In one apartment they found. They're not there, Queens or what they can't do. Actually, Roosevelt Island. They went to Roosevelt Island, which again, for those of you that don't know New York, is a tiny sliver of an island in the middle of the East River. So it's technically has a Manhattan address. Yep. You can get there by car; there's a little bridge there, there's a lot of things. And by a lift, this weird lift, like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.

[30:36] Charlie Murphy: Yep, yep, yep. I love it.

[30:37] Jeanne Slater: Many movies have actually been filmed on that. I lived on Roosevelt Island actually very briefly, my third year of Circle. So I played softball there all the time, and I'm always like, who lives here? It's your five students and you. That's who it was. I was like, who's actually living here? It's actually a wonderful place now. When I lived there, it would look like post-war Europe. Now they've really built it out and it looks pretty incredible. It's weird. They love it. They found a great, yeah, they found a great apartment and they live together and then come here and take classes together. And so far, no one has killed anyone. So I think we're in really good shape.

[31:06] Charlie Murphy: I just want to talk a little bit about the breakdown of your student body. We talked a little bit about age, which you're saying actually more of your class was not 18-year-old or I guess 20-year-old by the time they're getting there. More of the class was older than that, if I'm understanding that breakdown, right?

[31:19] Jeanne Slater: I would say that we, the majority of the class post-COVID, I would say is 22 to 26. That would be the majority, and then we have down to 18, always some people in that category, and then we have up, like I said, up in the 30s, up to 36. Yep, in the last couple of years. And then in terms of geographical breakdown, so do they come from truly all over? How many come from the Northeast? How many come from international? What sort of is the, where are they all coming from in terms of their geography?

[31:47] Jeanne Slater: Two answers to that in terms of the BFA. We have drawn from all over, but it has become a special favorite of either Florida residents or New York residents because then they get to do two years at home. Yeah, so especially for New York-based actors, they know that when they move back to New York, they can live at home for free, which makes this an incredibly affordable degree. Same thing for the Florida folks, because when you're in Florida in-state tuition, everything that's going on there, it makes it an incredibly cost-effective degree, probably the most cost-effective degree you're gonna get out there for a BFA. In terms of the two-year program, literally from all over. This year, we have a student from Australia, Germany, Israel, South Africa, and Indonesia.

So those are our international students, and then all over the United States. We actually have very few New Yorkers, only one or two, mostly from all over the US. One of our recent graduates, like from Iowa, we have students auditioning from Nebraska, all middle of the country. A lot of Californians are auditioning this year. So we really do draw from all over the US. We advertise at high schools and colleges across the United States, and oh, I have a question about exactly that later coming up of the different oceans. But what about just where they end up? So, do most of them end up in New York? Do some go to LA, some go different places? What percentage do you think end up in New York?

[33:10] Jeanne Slater: So it's really interesting. I would say everyone stays in New York for a while, and then it's interesting where people go. So there are some that end up going to California and doing other theater or television there. There are some that relocate to Chicago and end up doing theater or television in Chicago. So those are probably the main hubs. Our international students are always fascinating. One of our, several of our international students are huge stars back home. So they've come here and then they go back home, and they are like on every television series in Peru, in Columbia, and so it's, so some of them use it as a stepping stone to go back home with a New York United States credit, and that really has helped them sort of springboard there.

It's different for each student. I mean, it's interesting when I look at my class. My class graduated in 1993, 1996, and I'm here, right? Which is after a performance career. I have a friend who's incredibly high up in production at Nickelodeon as a producer in my class. She was a wonderful actor. I have another one who started a theater company that still exists in California that is doing incredibly well. That's just an example of three people who sort of went all over. And all of them started out as performers and then moved into production. We also have, last year, five of, or two years ago, we had five actors on Broadway at the same time. Some who graduated back in the 80s and some who had just graduated.

So it's like the span of the working Circle actor. They're sort of everywhere, and it just depends on, we have them in national tours, we have them that have relocated on the West Coast, but they work, and so it's pretty cool to see.

[34:51] Charlie Murphy: Really cool. And you mentioned cost. So the what we looked at was 24,000. That's for the Circle years, right?

[34:57] Jeanne Slater: Per year.

[34:57] Charlie Murphy: Per year.

[34:58] Jeanne Slater: Circle will be going up to 25 next year, just so that everybody that would. So and we are, so we do qualify for federal funding. So that's something that people have the question about the two-year. The two plus two BFA, I just like to be super clear about this. Eckerd offers significant scholarship, but that exists only for Eckerd. When you come to us, we also offer scholarship and we also offer federal financial aid. So it's a set, it's two separate tuitions. Two separate tuitions, two separate scholarships. We'll talk about this in the back half, but two separate admissions, too, right? These are two different processes. But how do scholarships at Circle work in terms of, you know, how many of your students are paying 24 or now to be 25? How many are paying half? How many have free rides? How does it work in terms of, is it, you know, merit in terms of your talent for the audition? Is it need? How do you get scholarships?

[35:43] Jeanne Slater: So we have need-based scholarships. And I'm going to give a huge shout out right now to the Waldman Foundation. The Waldman Foundation actually has funded all of our scholarships for the last four years, and they have been incredibly generous in their funding. We have been very lucky for such a tiny school. I want to say 96% of our 50 students are on a Waldman scholarship of some kind. And that scholarship can be a thousand dollars or that scholarship can be $24,000, dependent on need. We have quite a few students this year in the 12,000 to $15,000 range, which is a significant portion of the city. My master is about half. The tuition, which is very exciting. We are very grateful to the Waldman Foundation for their continued support of Circle in the Square and has allowed students that I think would not have access to this education to have access to this education, which has been very exciting for us.

And I think we've gotten a really incredible caliber of actor due to the fact that we have been able to help. That is a year-to-year funding. So I can never guarantee year-to-year how much we will get in that support, but thus far we have been incredibly lucky. That's how scholarship works, and basically for us, it's we are a two-year conservatory. We have a tiny office staff. There are only four or five of us. We have a tiny student body. And it's a one-page form for us that basically outlines your need and why you need it and what it would mean to you to have it. And we use, we also use your, if you've applied for through the FAFSA, we use that EFC score to help make that delineation. I would say 90% of our students are also getting federal aid.

[37:20] Charlie Murphy: And then my last question on this. How do you talk to them about here's what's great about our school, whether it's the two and two or just the two? How do you talk sort of about those paths with parents of young people who they want to be actors? They know they want to be actors, but they're also thinking about what about a degree and does that matter to me, et cetera? How do you have that conversation?

[38:01] Jeanne Slater: We, it's again, it's family by family. When people come here to tour, we are happy to sit down and talk to the parents for as long as needed about anything. We have several parents that have always worried about living in New York, especially when they're sending their babies, their 18-year-olds, and what that looks like. What the school looks like in terms of how much care they will get, how much, you know, because we don't have on-campus housing, what does that look like? And we really sit down with them and talk them through all of those possibilities. There are dorm living situations in New York City. So that they could live in a dorm. It's just a multi-school dorm. Or there's women-only housing.

There is actually a housing unit that has like a strict, strict women-only and curfew policy that is run by nuns. We've had a student live there before. It just depends on the level of what the parents want in terms of care. We have other students at Sublet, we have other students that sign leases. So there is a housing option to meet every parent's need on that front. And we are happy to talk them through that. We do not provide housing, but we provide an extensive list of options and some guidance. We also connect them. In some cases, the parent has felt better if they live with an alumni or if they live with a current second-year student. We do our best to pair them with a current second-year student so that there's someone coming into the school with them initially at first as they get used to things.

So we definitely approach it from that way. The parents have been really grateful for the BFA option. We have a student here this year, 18. She really wanted to come here first. She really wanted it. I think her parents were really on the fence. And we spoke to them extensively, and they know she can always go back and get her degree if and when she is ready. But she was passionate; she knew what she wanted. She knew she wanted to be here. She is thriving here. And I think this was absolutely the right place for her. We felt she was ready in terms of talent and emotional growth to be here, and that has proven true. And so it was really a partnership between us and the parents to ensure that everyone felt as comfortable as possible with them being here.

That said, we are a school located in a Broadway house with no housing in the middle of New York City. And I highly recommend coming to visit. I highly recommend talking to a current student. You get a much better sense of us if you see our spaces and talk to our people. It seems to not feel so far away or so scary.

[40:25] Charlie Murphy: I love it. What a great answer. Okay, so we're gonna do a little break and then we're gonna chat a little bit about the audition process.

[40:30] Jeanne Slater: So we're back in a flash.

[40:33] Charlie Murphy: All right, we are back with Jeanne Slater. We're gonna talk about the audition and admission process a bit. We mentioned a little bit of it already in terms of you're looking for driven, motivated, open students. But what do you think makes a great audition for you? So what, when you're looking both from the perspective of that student's really talented and I think they feel like a good fit from the work, what are you hoping to see in the audition from a student?

[40:55] Jeanne Slater: We're hoping to see them. We need to see the student show up in the audition, who they are, who they are as a person. We always ask questions after to see if we can sort of get to really know who this person is, why they want this career, where their passion comes from, not just that they're passionate about it, but where is that coming from?

[41:19] Jeanne Slater: There are times we've actually auditioned people, and at the end said their interview was better than their audition. But based on what I saw in the interview, I feel like maybe this is actually a good fit for us. And sort of so it's a really individual conversation. At the end of our auditions, we'll see like 20 people in an evening. We stay on Zoom for at least another hour and we go through every single student, every panel member weighs in, and we sort of move through there. We're not looking, we stop accepting when we've hit our number. Um, and that's what we let everyone we have rolling acceptances. So we start, our audition season started at the end of November. Um, and we've already sent out our first round of acceptances, and we'll do that as we go.

When we reach 12 for the BFA, when we reach 12 yeses, we simply stop auditioning. And so we always recommend, we do technically have until May 1st to tell us whether or not you want to book, but last year people waited till May 1st and it was too late. So it's interesting in the fact that we do the rolling admission. So we could technically fill up at the end of February. Right. It just sort of depends on where we are.

[42:27] Charlie Murphy: We're done.

[42:28] Jeanne Slater: Yeah. Oh no, we definitely send out more than 12 yeses because we really see how the class is developing as we accept. You know, we've seen these first 20 people. Yep. And then now we, you know, we sent out our acceptances based on that group now, and then we've heard back from a couple of them. Yep. Like, let me look. This is really early, and we know very few people commit this early. So, but you know, they're in touch with us. I can tell that they're holding us in their top three or so. We kind of keep track of those guys. Usually we hear from them in February when they've done all their auditions. Um, and then we, you know, we start letting, we're very upfront. We'll say you've been accepted just so you know there's no pressure you have until May 1st, but we have four slots left.

So please, so we're really open out. Everyone's announcing their college decision by May 1st, but because you are a little separate, you're not identical to I'm a part of the University of Michigan or Penn State or one of those things. You're not bound by the same university sort of rules and policies.

[43:23] Jeanne Slater: It seems like you have the ability to be a little more flexible in the way that that game is played. Um, yeah, and I think that in some ways that really helps us, in some ways, it's a little harder to get a handle on for the students. Eckerd though, Eckhart follows the normal college rules. Um, they and um you do need to be accepted to both schools. We actually just had kind of heartbreaking both ways. We had a student that ended up canceling their callback with us because they just found out they didn't get into Eckhart. We've also accepted several. Eckerd has accepted multiple students that auditioned for us and but were not right. We did have another student though end up taking going to Eckhart and auditioning in their second year, and they did they were able at Eckhart to move into the BFA program. So there it's a it's it offers this very strange, hard to get a handle on, but also kind of flexible. It's unique, it's great.

[44:10] Charlie Murphy: Um, you mentioned in the interview, you know, I say something that I think all of our students struggle with and they're stressed about. And we just did a mock audition last weekend in San Diego where you know, just watch these students really go like they're trying to say the right thing in the interview. What are you sniffing for when you're asking them just question trying to get to know them? What are what is the goal I think from the student? And what are you hoping you're gonna get from a student in terms of the way they answer interview questions or the way they interact in an interview?

[44:37] Jeanne Slater: Real answers. Um, we are looking for the person. Um, we're not looking for a predetermined answer. In other words, an answer in which you know we maybe disagree with you is fine because that's who you are. I think the hardest thing for me in auditions is it's clear that some years um the students are coached to ask certain questions, and we hear the same questions over and over again. Every once in a while, a student comes up with a question for us, and the whole panel goes, oh, that's a good question. And then you really get answers, and suddenly it's a conversation between the person auditioning and my three panel members, and what we find in those real conversations. So good questions and also don't say yes, you understand if you don't understand.

I'd much prefer a student that says, you gave me a direction on that, and I don't fully understand where you want me to go. Could you clarify what you're asking from me? That student shows like, I'm like, that's gonna be a student I want in my classes, yeah, who's gonna be curious and also know what they don't know and be willing to admit what they don't know. We're not looking for Academy Award winning auditions, you're 18.

[45:39] Charlie Murphy: Yep.

[45:39] Jeanne Slater: We're looking for potential, and part of that potential is being open, and part of being open is knowing what you don't know. The Cuba question for us is so hard because it's like, I think they have been told, and I think not incorrectly, like it's good to have a question prepped because you don't want to seem uninterested. If you say, do you have a question for us? You go, nope. You know, people are like, oh, I guess they're not that interested. You know, even though I'll always say, like, if you do a lot of research, there's nothing wrong with saying, I really feel like my friend goes here, I know everything about it. I'm so there's nothing wrong with saying no if the answer is no. But I think they feel like I'm a bad actor if I say no, I'm not being curious.

And they have 18 schools on their list or whatever the number is, and so they don't necessarily actually have organic questions for all 18 schools. And so that's where they sort of have their back pocket question, which can feel like this is what you're asking everybody, huh? You know, and sometimes it's a great back pocket question. Yeah, I just have noticed that sometimes people come in or they ask what I know they've asked a million times, but our answer sparks another much more organic question from them. Ask that question if there's something that we said that you said, ah, wait, you said that, and I'm really curious about that. You might you're gonna find out more about our school if you follow up and ask that second question, and we are happy to answer it.

That's the other thing is we really are happy to stay on Zoom. We book 15 to one to half hour auditions. So we're looking for your audition, and then we're looking to talk to you afterward. That's a long, that's a nice chunk of audition. There are times when we need to, and that could be a second callback. And there are times also that if a student we're not sure, we'll say, hey, could you come back and bring another monologue? You don't need to reapply, there's no other admission fee for that. It's just, or could you send us a video of something in a different way? Because we see something, but we want to make sure that everyone works so closely here.

[47:22] Jeanne Slater: Well, that leads me perfectly to, you know, how do you use the pre-screen video or you know, just I'll call it a video, because sometimes it can be used as a post-screen, but how do you use the pre-screen in terms of um a cut for those initial auditions? And then also, is it an evaluation at the end that you go, we might rewatch that pre-screen, or to your point, we may have someone send something in. How is the how is that video portion of the audition used for you?

[47:42] Jeanne Slater: It really as a pre-screen, just make especially for the BFA, because again, we're looking at young actors. And the expectation I have for an 18-year-old is very different from the expectation I would have from, you know, a 30-year-old with their equity card looking to come back to focus more on acting versus musical theater. You know, it's a different expectation. So we want to make sure that they have a strong point of view in their video, that they um that it is them. So we ask for quite a lot for musical theater. We need one post 70, one pre-70 song. So we're looking for a legit line, a legit voice as well as a contemporary. And then for acting, we do ask for a Shakespeare. Um, and we ask for a contemporary.

So I am looking for not the same thing four times. Um, and there are some actors, it's kind of crazy, they can do the same thing four times, even with that spread because somebody has said that's what you're good at. Okay, yeah. I would almost rather see something that you went for in a pre-screen video and maybe didn't quite get there, but went for it. And then it's like, ah, I what now I want to see that live and I want to see if the teacher can get them where they were headed. Um, and so I we really use it for potential.

[48:51] Charlie Murphy: Yep.

[48:51] Jeanne Slater: And also for me, I'm just gonna say for Circle, short audition videos are fine. Yeah. And this would be my audition, my advice for everybody, really. Like you do. You don't need a four minute song. No, yeah. Like a monologue's 45 seconds. It's a solid length. We get everything we need in that 45 seconds, and you want us to want more. Not to be done. That is the kind of thing you believe as soon as you're behind the table. You're like, oh, I need the first five seconds, and I know. Like it's just like you know so quickly. But students just do not believe. They're like, how could they possibly tell in 60 seconds? I'm like, they can tell in five seconds. Oh no, they can 10 seconds is my is I will watch the whole thing, but 10 seconds.

I know in the first 10 seconds what it's going to be. And then every once in a while, I'm surprised. Every once in a while, I'm like, oh, you actually have 30 seconds of change in my mind. But almost always, I'm like, yep, I feel like how I feel. And that didn't change.

[49:35] Charlie Murphy: Can we talk a little bit about the different platforms? So you guys are everywhere, right? You're at the main Unifieds, New York, Chicago, LA, you're in Pittsburgh, you're in Florida, you're in Texas. I read always say if there's a boon afides you'll over Halloween, you'll be there, right? Like there, if there's something, which is amazing. I'd just love to talk through like what are the different, how do those different platforms for because you're not unique in that other schools will really go to a lot of those different platforms, and especially to the point that you're talking about um timing, you know, that you're announcing already by December, we're in early December, some of these yeses. How does it work at different times of year, different platforms, different regions? How does that work for you in terms of the audition process?

[50:15] Jeanne Slater: Well, for our because some of them, those are specific to the BFA. Um, and we've been expanding that platform for ourselves because we realized very much that we were starting a brand new BFA, and we really needed to get the word out there. And so we found that if we attended these, often people would sort of walk by our table and come back and say, wait, what are you guys? Yeah, and we had this opportunity to say, oh, this is what we are. We're this two plus two, and this is what it looks like. And whenever we can, we bring a student with us who can actually speak to the experience. Um, but all of those we send one person generally, and that's the pre-screen. You still have to do the full callback with our panel.

And that is where the decisions are made. What those pre-screeners are looking for in all of these platforms is potential. Um, and openness and interest and intellectual curiosity. So for any of those unifieds, or this is maybe SCTs and Ertas and all the different unifieds of Drunifides and Munafides and Gunafides, those are all become for you a live pre-screen that says, yes, we're interested, but you're still gonna have to come back.

[51:11] Charlie Murphy: Could be sounds like virtually, but either virtually or in person, you're gonna have to come back and do auditions, yeah.

[51:16] Jeanne Slater: The only one that that is not true for is the Florida combined because they they require a full uh and accepted they said no callbacks there. So we do send this year. We have one per two people in person, and I'll be on Zoom. Um, and so we will have a three-person panel still making the decision since it has to be. But um, yes, we use it as a live pre-screen, and then when you fill out our application on accepted, you click a button that says this is a callback from a live pre-screen, and you don't have to submit any more video. We've already seen you live. And then we do tend to do Zoom callbacks. We every once in a while we'll have an in-person callback, but we did find that a Zoom callback is much more financially possible for everyone to attend that callback versus coming to New York for that callback.

[51:56] Charlie Murphy: Because it sounds like you're gonna ask them once they're in to come to New York and visit and see the school at some at some point if they can.

[52:02] Jeanne Slater: We highly recommend, yeah, that you do that. But um, we also have done video tours before where we have like carried a computer through and said this is what we look like, just for people that can't um because we we know we're a unique program and we want people who show up here and see our quirky little library and our little spaces and go, oh, I like it here. Yeah, this is my place.

[52:21] Charlie Murphy: What do you look at in terms of, you know, obviously Eckerd is gonna have their own college admission process, but what do you look at in terms of an application that goes beyond the video of the pre-screen? I mean, are you looking at essays? Are you looking at their grades and SATs? Do you is there anything else that you look at? Letters of rec?

[52:34] Jeanne Slater: No, we actually do not need a transcript. We need that you have graduated from high school. You do need to be a college graduate. We've also had um a few people come through the program that were homeschooled, and so they actually never attended high school and they we did take someone as young as 16. We do now require 18. We just feel like that is um a stronger start for everybody. Um, and um so we either need a high school diploma or the equivalent of that. We do not need to see a transcript, your grades are not important, but we do require two recommendations. We do read those recommendations and they do figure into how we move forward. Um, and then uh I mean it's a very short application. You preload your videos, that is what we look at. If the panel that looks at those videos recommends a move on to the full panel, then they move on to the full panel.

[53:21] Charlie Murphy: I love it.

[53:22] Jeanne Slater: Um, I think my last sort of set of questions just about um as you're filling out your class, what else are you thinking? I mean, obviously, you're looking at talent and is this the right fit, you know, in terms of a student, open and curious all the things. Are you conscious of stuff like gender balance and height balance and race and size and geography? You know, are you thinking about that? And then especially as you're thinking if you're thinking about that in the first thing, how does that work for you as you make multiple offers with who says yes to you? And it sounds like you guys don't do a wait list particularly, you do more of just rolling yes to the we do do a wait list um when if we reach that point, and then and then we do, but we it's it is a the wait list. In other words, if you are the top of the wait list, you were the first person waitlisted. We don't like if a if a guy doesn't come, we don't then go down and find a guy. We just it's the next one.

[53:38] Jeanne Slater: How does that work in terms of your classes in terms of any kind of control you have over that that diversity? It's fascinating. Um, we we have made a uh we realized that what really helped in terms of making sure the classes were more diversified was simply offering that opportunity. With the Waldman stepping in, offering a much larger scholarship opportunity for us. Essentially, we had all those people auditioning, it was just whether or not they could come in terms of um in terms of both a racial balance of the class, but also a cultural balance of the class and also an international to national ratio of the class because we really want sort of opinions from everywhere. We find that makes a class, however, a student has grown up, whatever life experience they bring, they make the class stronger.

And we are looking for differences, not samenesses. So we want, we want um when I say a diverse student body, I do mean diversity in all of those ways. Um and we found that if we were able to simply offer the fiscal opportunity for people to be able to come to school, what we realized is often New Yorkers could not afford to come to this program.

[55:07] Jeanne Slater: And New York is incredibly diverse. And so making it, we offered several New York based scholarships that were like so that it was an opportunity that if you come from Brooklyn in New York, like we now have an opportunity for you to come here on a full scholarship. You get to live at home for free and you can come here. Suddenly that's affordable, suddenly that's attainable. And so that we found really added to the depth of our classes and sort of really went toward again. I want to be really specific about full diversification. I also really like age-wise, so but we're not going to accept an older student over a younger student if that student isn't as talented or gives us strong an audition.

We're we do not this is um, this isn't a school based on audition. It is an audition admission school, and you do need to meet that standard. At that point, we do end up, it's interesting that you say male to female ratio. Um, we do end up with um, okay. So an interesting thing happened during COVID. We went online. Our incoming class, I spoke to them and I said, we're doing a year online. If you want to defer, you absolutely can defer. Fascinatingly, almost every man in that class accepted and almost every woman deferred. Huh. And so the class that ended up graduating had more men than women, and the year below had two men, and the rest were women. And that is where it just landed. And there was that is just what happened.

And I thought there's a deeper psychological experience here that I'm not delving into yet as to why who was willing to jump in and who who wasn't. But um, and so sometimes the classes just land like that. Last year for the BFA, we took 12 uh female identifying musical theater students. I mean, they were all the year before it, the year we have here, we have a mix of AT and MT. Three are men and four are women. We never know how it's gonna land. That's who we accepted, and that's who accepted us first. And again, we go to this number and you and we stop. You go to the number and you stop, and it sounds like yeah, you're not in control of it. You're leaving the control to the students who say yes, and they order this.

Yeah. So that's where you you're not gonna be able to fully control all the other aspects of the person. No, because once they say yes, they're in, do we've tagged that spot. We're not gonna then say no to a really talented female person because we've maxed out on it's just like this is we're just gonna have to bring it. And we just hope when they get to us that our professional workshop um has enough, you know, male identifying actors to balance that out. But sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes we do a lot of female based scenes.

[57:35] Charlie Murphy: Um, I'd love to just wrap with um do you have any advice for the parents out there? Um, you know, many of our parent listeners who, you know, you mentioned the idea of being a little, maybe some of them are scared of New York City. Uh, but even just in terms of this process, you know, many of them, if you're a parent of a junior right now, or sophomore, or even a freshman, you know, who are just sort of approaching this process and trying to think about I know my child wants to be an actor, I would just love to speak toward like the value, I guess maybe if we want to speak in the positive version of a conservatory versus potentially their fears surrounding a degree.

[58:09] Charlie Murphy: And should I be going a full four-year? Should I get a BFA liberal arts degree? Should I get a BA? You know, like just as the parent is going, I think I understand what the value of Circle in the Square is, but could you maybe talk a little bit to my fears, my stress about that as a parent?

[58:25] Jeanne Slater: Absolutely. It's I always tell the parent that it comes back to the student, and what you you have to know your kid, and you have to know what your kid wants to do. The beauty of this BFA is that they can always go back and finish their degree, and they could change their major if they wanted to do it, you know, at that point. The other thing is people land where they're going to land. In other words, we have people move through this program, go out, perform for years, then shift and go back to grad school for something else. And then they move forward with this is not, you know, I have a I have a performance degree. I never thought I'd be running an acting school. That is the path my life took for a variety of reasons.

There was no way that I could have called that when I was 18 years old that this was going to be the path that I took. And I think that the students, what I I try to make sure that the parents understand that this is not a life and death decision. At any point, your your student can go back to school, shift, change. We're a two-year program. If they're here at 18, they're going to graduate from us at 20. 20 is a whole lifetime ahead of them to either continue down this path or shift gears if they feel like they want something else. And what I can tell them is that here we are focused on the thing their kid is passionate about right now, and we lean wholly into it and they will be supported and they will be cared for physically, emotionally.

Um we will prepare them as much as we can for a very difficult business. Uh we try to get them very much we focus on how strong they can be in themselves so that they when they are moving forward. This business takes takes some armor, it takes some toughness, and um we really try to uh offer the student as much support while they're here. We will launch them to the very best of our ability. What happens after that, how they handle the business if they enjoy what it is to be in this career as a career is going time will tell. And no one's gonna know that until they do it, but they'll always regret it if they didn't try.

[1:00:26] Charlie Murphy: Very well said. All right. Well, we know we can follow you at Circle in the Square Theater School if we want more. Um, is there any other places we should be checking out information if we particularly want to hear more than what we did in this pod?

[1:00:37] Jeanne Slater: I mean, we have all the information on our website, and we have uh, you know, our Instagram account um uh and we apparently we have some students running a TikTok that that is very student led. People to TikToks that don't trust them, somehow the police government will take us over.

[1:00:54] Charlie Murphy: We're not gonna no, that's fine.

[1:00:56] Jeanne Slater: No, I but I believe that actually. Um, but um so I think those are the the main places. The other the really the best way if you're interested in in talking to us is call the school um and ask to be set up with a student and we will connect you with a student either in person on Zoom and ask that student all of the questions that you have because they will be honest. They will say, This is what I love, and I hate Thursdays because they're really long, and I have both on camera and on contemporary, and I'm exhausted. Um, you know, like they will they will be very honest, but they will also tell you all of the the good, and we really like to let the students alone for those conversations. We do not try to adjust it in any way. Um, that's gonna give you the best sense of what it is to be here, what the community looks like, what the education looks like.

[1:01:39] Charlie Murphy: I love it.

[1:01:40] Charlie Murphy: And do follow us at musical theater college editions on TikTok, of course.

[1:01:43] Jeanne Slater: I mean, just for us, but only us and no one else.

[1:01:45] Charlie Murphy: I'm just um Jean, thanks so much for the time today. This was such a joy to get a chat with you.

[1:01:49] Jeanne Slater: Thank you.

[1:01:49] Jeanne Slater: You too.

[1:01:50] Jeanne Slater: I appreciate you having us.

[1:01:56] Charlie Murphy: I ho-ho hope you enjoyed that interview with Jean. Some great stuff in there. I think a really interesting and different program that she's running. I have some small quick hit takeaways. I always say that I know, and they turn along takeaways. We'll see how we do. So let's get to them.

[1:02:11] Charlie Murphy: Um, first, I just do want to talk about this question of the value of this degree. Um, we talked about it a bit after Matt Scott's episode on kind of the value of a degree from a bigger name school, you know, what that can mean in terms of getting your foot in the door if you have a prestigious name that everyone's heard of on your resume.

[1:02:26] Charlie Murphy: Yes. We've also talked previously about the value of a degree from an educational perspective and what the bachelor's part of the BFA can potentially offer you from different university experiences in terms of future opportunities in different industries. But I'm gonna say on the other side, which I've said before in a few artists' episodes, but I don't believe I've said this in a college episode yet. And many of you may know this, maybe intuitive for those of you who know this field, but that's specifically for this industry, nobody's gonna care about the letters on your degree, whether that's BAA, BFA, BM. I've said that before I know, but that really does include certificates as well, or nothing, or not not finishing school at not having gone to school at all.

Nobody has ever been cast or not cast based on having completed a bachelor's degree or not. People can recognize training, but it's not like a corporate recruitment where they'll automatically value an MFA over a BFA or a BFA over for a certificate or a certificate over nothing. Right? They care about the quality of work that the actor's putting out and whether that's from a conservatory program like Circle, a conservatory program within a university, or a liberal arts program with some conservatory elements, those can all be really great, intensive training. And then again, of course, we talk about all the different paths where you didn't go to conservatory program at all, but you have some training from some different ballet background or whatever it is.

So all that is to say you may be limited by the lack of a degree for other career paths for non, you know, musical theater or theater industry paths, you know, and not having a degree and future things that you want to do where you'd have to take additional classes and you know finish your your bachelor's if that's where something that you wanted to be a dentist or that kind of thing. But this will not be a direct hindrance in this field. Again, I think many of you know that, but if not, I'm just gonna make sure I say that if you're listening to this episode.

[1:04:05] Charlie Murphy: I also really liked what Jean said about the training they do to follow up with professional connections as part of their showcase experience. We were just talking about this last weekend with our students at the private audition weekend in terms of the question of writing thank you notes, but it really does extend farther in terms of follow-up and creating and maintaining a relationship with people. This industry is a relationships business, and that really starts with the college edition process. Some of you have started already before you began the college edition process. And while the circle experience in terms of college, we talked about that is a bit unique with their 12 spots filling up based on timing.

That really is not uh usual in the college edition process. And of course, they talked about how that works with their wait list. The idea of that though is not unique at all. That schools will be looking to actively communicate with you over the next two or three months to help you negotiate scholarships and other details that'll get you to sign on the dotted line and commit to their school, and then most importantly, for anyone who's waitlisted, that's a whole other can of worms in terms of the kind of communication you're going to continue to do with the schools you've been accepted to and the schools that you're waitlisted for, which we're going to talk about a ton in future webinars for MTCA students.

We'll do a whole webinar on nothing but wait lists as well. So more to come on that. And we may do some more takeaways on that as well. But I just really like the way she talked about and just how important that is for all of you to start thinking about and really start thinking about now.

[1:05:22] Charlie Murphy: Um the other small takeaway I just wanted to hit was taking classes with older actors. This is not something that's unique to Circle. You know, some places like Juilliard have a truly mixed MFA and BFA class of students, and lots of MFA programs do this too, where they have 22 year olds and 40 year olds, right? But the 18 to 40 is really an interesting uh gap there. It's not usual, certainly, in terms of how it changes the way that work can be done. I'll say I'm I'm generally a huge fan of it. I got a bit of that experience at CMU. Some of my classmates, as freshmen, were in their early 20s, maybe they're juniors or sophomores before they transferred in and became a freshman at CMU. And already how much that small gap really made a difference to the seriousness of class.

But I think that only tends to increase as the median age rises. So for some students, this might not be the best thing if you want a more casual experience, right? If you like the idea of maybe rolling into class a bit hung over after a fun night on campus or a fun night of the football game or whatever it is, uh this may not be for you, but I will say, in general, the older the class, the kind of less of that nonsense tends to happen, right? The feeling I think that comes from most 32 year olds would be, hey, I'm 32 years old. Maybe I'm married, I'm paying a lot of money to be here, and I know what that means. I'm I'm ready to attend this class with a seriousness of purpose, and that tends to snap a class into focus beyond just that student.

I always like using the example. I may have told us on the pod before. My best friend Alejandro was classmates with Adam Driver, and he was like at Juilliard having already fully completed military school. He's much older than you know, uh an 18 or 19 year old. And when I was 19, I went and visited Ale. I took classes. We rolled into movement class one day. It was like at like 8 a.m. We're bleary-eyed from the night before, but we're also like early. We're a couple minutes early. He was a few minutes before class began. And here we are, we've got our clothes on. We didn't feel like we were unprofessional. And Adam was like in a full lather. He'd already run across the Brooklyn Bridge. He did an entire physical warm-up.

He'd been in the room for 30 minutes. That was a seriousness of purpose that was much more intense than what Ale and I were bringing at 18 years old showing up to that random class, right? And for the right student, that can be really great for the 18-year-old who wants that. But then again, as you say, maybe a bit daunting for the more tentative student who isn't looking for that kind of intensity at 18 years old. And that's also not to say that old always has to equal intense. I just definitely found myself in rooms as one of the youngest a lot. And that maturity does tend to equate with a certain level of professionalism.

[1:07:47] Charlie Murphy: Well, if you admire the professionalism of this podcast, you can give a shout out to the great Meghan Cordier and Kelly Prendergrass. Maybe you'll do that in a rating or review. I mean, were we one of the top podcasts you listened to in 2023? Well, what a great way to pay it back by writing us a review on your podcast platform of choice. At least hit us with a quick rating if you hate writing reviews. I know you can do it. You can also follow us at mapping the college edition on Instagram. You can TikTok us on TikTok, and check us out on our website at mtcollegeauditions.com. If you want to see videos of my daughter singing some Bob Marley at the top of her lungs, you can follow me at Charmer 7 on all platforms.

[1:08:25] Charlie Murphy: To my young artists out there mapping their journeys. May your days be bright, may your nights be merry, may you rest and rejoice, and may you all be in good voice. We'll see you in 2024.