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[0:00] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping The College Audition. I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, Director of MTCA. That's Musical Theatre, College Auditions. Check us out at mtca.com. And today, we've got Julio Agustin Matos from Texas Women's University. For our newer listeners, it's another one of those college deep dive episodes where we explore the landscape of the college theatre world and try to demystify this daunting audition process. And I think you will quickly surmise from this interview, this is obviously a newer program. They are in year one now of accepting a full class after a soft launch the past few years, and really is the definition of what we call an emerging program. I mean, there's so many different ways, of course, to categorize these schools.

We break them down by most competitive, competitive, and then emerging. But really, we could give you like 15 different levels of competitiveness, though, then of course, it's going to get even more into like subjective opinion if we're going to do that, right? Right now, we use a combination of numbers and then of course, our anecdotal experiences and knowledge of these schools, which I do think is helpful to give you a framework toward how you can build a list with competitive balance. But just to say that like, in our nomenclature, a school being emerging, which of course, this like, definitionally is emerging because they're in the process of emerging as a school, is not a comment on the quality of the education at an emerging program, right?

Hopefully, I think that is something you're able to determine for yourself as you're diving deeper with these schools. You know, you have those in-depth conversations with faculty, you'll talk to current students, you'll observe classes, all of those things. But at the stage many of you are now as you listen to this and you're building a list, I do think it can be a helpful starting off point to kind of have a sense of where things fit in the landscape. You know, many of you may feel really confident that for you, having really well-established, very competitive programs is the most important thing to you, in which case, honestly, a school like Texas Women's might not make its way onto your list.

To others, you may feel you know you want to veer away from the most competitive schools based on your personality and you're really searching for that best fit, which you know, might lead to a hidden diamond in the rough like a Texas Women's. And then of course, everything in between in terms of different people's goals. I say all of that basically by way of saying I recognize this episode won't be relevant to everybody, in which case, if you're one of those people, thank you for the download. If you want to skip ahead to the takeaway, I will be talking a lot about sports, I talk about Moneyball, but I do just say in general the reason I really focus on these episodes alongside interacting with the most competitive programs is I get that consistent positive feedback from students and parents who speak about how grateful they are in discovering schools that weren't on their radar, especially at the end of their process.

I'll get that feedback. You know, and for some, not on their radar might mean a school like Montclair, which is still a very competitive audition-based program, but they might just have not heard of it yet if they're newer to this process. But for some, it might be a school like this. You know, we have had students attend some of those hidden gem schools, you know, even after they get into many more competitive programs that programs that are much more numerically competitive and be really glad they did. We've even had now had students who've done that where they discovered the school in the podcast, which of course is like an extra little glow for us, right? You'll know as regular listeners that I'm a big believer in fit overriding all and how important it is to find the right school for you and what that fit will be, which of course is why I enjoy doing this very podcast, right?

But we have a few coming up for you in this series of kind of hidden gem. They're not all emerging schools, but some more hidden gem schools that will be coming up the next few months. Alongside, of course, we'll continue our conversations with the most competitive schools as well, but I hope you'll enjoy those and I just want to give a little bit of the reasoning behind having them on. Some people talk about I want nothing but those schools and some people talk about nothing but the most competitive schools. Well, you're all going to have to take the balance that you get from this podcast, right? You can always go back through the annals of this podcast. We've got that directory coming soon to make it a bit easier, but for now you can scroll, scroll, scroll down if you want some of those multi-act episodes with those most competitive schools that we've already had on the pod.

Okay, well, speaking of some of those competitive programs, we do have our private audition weekend in December this very weekend alongside our junior college experience. We're so excited for that. Following that and the holidays, we're going to have more private auditions in New York City the first weekend of January and then in the days leading up to New York, Chicago, and LA Unifieds. Check us out at mdstate.com if you want more information on all of those and what we've got going on this year. This is the biggest year we've done with expanding those opportunities. You know, one of the big goals Leo and I were talking about, the idea behind this, this expansion, was really to help cue you all to the strategy that might involve coming a bit early and or, in some cases, staying late with places like New York City Unifieds to kind of expand those unified audition weekends, right?

Just knowing what was already true that those unified weekends were not only the two days or the three or four days or the two days and we're going New York, Chicago, and LA that they are, right? They really start earlier in many cases and some cases go later, right? There already were other schools that are auditioning and so we thought we would help add to that, give you a little more bang for your buck as you plan to go, what can I accomplish on the Friday before New York City? What can I accomplish even on the Thursday before New York City? What can I accomplish on the Sunday before Chicago? All those kind of things. So I'm really, I'm going to be so excited to see so many of you there, both at these private auditions but then just at Unifieds in general, which I can't believe now that Unifieds is around the corner.

It feels like just yesterday we're recording that Unifieds episode and we'll be back with another green room episode, all those beautiful things. You all know I'll be there in New York, Chicago, and LA, so please do come up and say hi. Of course if you're an MTCA student, but even if you're a non-MTCA student who's a listener, I really appreciate when you guys come up and say hi. I know for those who don't know, if you've just heard my voice, I am a giant. I'm like 6'4", and I've been told I'm an intimidating presence in the Palmer House, but I do love hearing from listeners, so please come up, say hi. I promise I'm usually nice. It's very rare that I'm not nice, and you won't be the person.

You won't be the exception. I'll be nice to you, I promise. All right, well, the last thing I want to do before getting to this episode, this is a longer takeaway than I expected, but this was really the reason I had the longer takeaway, was just to open up the opportunity for a mailbag episode, which we're planning to air the week of Christmas while I'm off, so I'm going to record that next week. So I'm just dropping that in. If any of you have any big mailbag questions you want to get in, please feel free to do so. I know there's a big part of the special episode I want to do as basically it's going to be a giant takeaway, which also is probably going to double with a blog this month, but I'm always happy to grab a few of those pressing mailbag questionnaires that our listeners have, especially the timely ones.

So if you have timely questions about the process, please get those in. If you have questions about my personal life, my softball batting average, whatever the case may be, we'll do it. You get those in, you know, to mailbag at mappingthecollegeedition.com. That's mailbag at mappingthecollegeedition.com, and we'll get them on the show. You're also welcome to hit us up on social media or wherever you can find us. If you let us know it's a podcast question, you can reach out to mailbagatmappingthecollegeedition.com, wherever you can find us for that question, and we'll get it on the show two weeks from now. So that's two weeks from now, mailbag at mappingthecollegeedition.com. All right, let's get to this episode with Julio Agustin Matos from Texas Women's University.

[7:23] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are so excited to be joined by Julio Agustin Matos. Julio is an actor, director, choreographer, and educator. He has a BM in performance MT from Florida State, an MFA in directing from Pennsylvania State, and then a two-year certificate with honors from One Voice Center for Integrative Studies. He's been on Broadway, oh my gosh, Chicago, Fosse, Bells Are Ringing, Steel Pier, Never Gonna Dance, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. That's a lot of words for Broadway shows. I'm very impressed. He's also the author of the Professional Actors Handbook, From Casting Call to Curtain Call. Previously, he's held academic and leadership positions at the City College of New York, Western Connecticut State University, James Madison, and Elon, and is currently the artistic manager of musical theater at Texas Women's University, which is what we're here to talk about today.

Texas Women's is located in Denton, Texas. They're looking for a cohort of about 12 to 16 students, we'll talk about that, and they offer a BM in MT as well as a BA in music, a BA in theater, some other cool degrees we may get into. Julio, how are you feeling today? Welcome to the show.

[8:28] Julio Agustin Matos: Thanks for having me. I'm feeling, I'm excited. I'm feeling great. Thank you.

[8:32] Charlie Murphy: Okay, good, good, good. I gave a little like brief overview bio there, but anything you kind of would want people to know about you, we'll talk about Texas Women's here, but in terms of your journey, in terms of fun facts, who you are, like what should we know in terms of background before we dive into the school?

[8:42] Julio Agustin Matos: I think I should thank you for mentioning all of my flops. I've got a resume full of flops.

[8:51] Charlie Murphy: Well, I did have to look it up. I was like, Never Gonna Dance was a Broadway show? I don't, I've never heard of that.

[8:55] Julio Agustin Matos: It was beautiful. It was Jerry Mitchell's choreography. It was gorgeous, and I think it was meant to close.

[9:03] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meant to burn bright, not long.

[9:06] Julio Agustin Matos: It didn't run, it didn't run long. It had some great, great, I think it was his most beautiful choreography, but yeah, I think everything that I've done has always been on the journey to education. In fact, I was a music education major before I went into musical theater, but I thought, you know what, I'm going to do it first so that I know what to bring to the classroom. So that's, those are how I, that was my trajectory.

[9:31] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, and you were saying this a little bit in our pre-show, but the, can you tell me a little bit about your role at Texas Women? So, you know, you mentioned you've done a lot of education in the past, kind of what is your role currently? This is the first time I think I've read those exact words of artistic manager of musical theater. What does that mean?

[9:46] Julio Agustin Matos: It means that I am one of the luckiest human beings in the world because it's a position, I wasn't sure what kind of position I wanted next. I've been in the academic system for about 17 years and I was ready for a transition, but I didn't know what it looked like. And so this is, I'm, it's a new program. It's a bachelor of music and, which is very, not very different because I had a consultant look over the curriculum and she said, Julio, this looks more like a BFA than a BM. So a lot of them go, the BA and the BM, BFA and BM can be very similar.

[10:23] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're trying to make sure that it's 21st century, it's forward, it's forward looking. It's, I'm recruiting, I'm revising the curriculum and I'm setting the foundation so that when the students arrive in the fall of next year, they are supported in every way possible.

[10:47] Charlie Murphy: I see how that could be a dream job. I love the idea. I was like, if I could be from MTC, if I could be mission vision and not have to do all of the admin work, I would be so thrilled.

[10:55] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. Totally makes sense. Let's talk a little bit. So imagine, you know, I often talk about on the pod how I'm asking questions that I kind of know the answer to sometimes with some schools, more than others. This is one of these wonderful rare interviews where I don't know Texas women. So this is going to be, I'm going to be learning this fresh with our listeners as I go through some of these questions. I'd love to start off, first off, start off. I'm like, what is, what is that mission vision? What is a Texas women's student going to be? I know we should probably say off the bat that it's not just women, right? We're accepting all genders here, but in terms of what, what is the experience of like, when you talk about those 12 to 16 students, what are you picturing? What makes this person, a person right or not right for Texas women's in terms of the kind of students you're going to be recruiting?

[11:36] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. Thanks for that question. Cause it really is the why was the reason again, why I went back to academia. It is a co-educational institution. We actually have a, I think the university in music, we have 25% in musical theater. We expect to have closer to, you know, as close to 50% as possible. And the, if, if you look at the website for musical theater, it has the vision right at the top, because we want to make sure we're being very clear as to what our intention is with this is a transformative accessible program. So it's not, it's for me, there's two types of students who will thrive in this program. One will be the, the students, we just had auditions, Pittsburgh unified, and we call back most, most of the students we called back were students who played an instrument.

So it's a great, it's a bachelor of music, which is sort of a niche degree because the foundation is in music. We want some of our students to come in already reading music, already having either sung in choirs, sung in churches, but they have, they understand how music is made. And if they play an instrument, it's even better. We also are looking for students, especially in the area, North Texas area, who have not had access and opportunities like a lot of other students have. This is the kind of program we have theory tutors every day at any time a student can stop by the tutoring office and, or tutoring room and get tutored in theory. So we also have tutoring in other areas. It's meant for students, for those two types of students, the musician and the student who is really passionate, has innate talent, has a drive, but may not have had the same opportunities.

And I, I think I'm, as I'm saying this, I think I'm describing myself because I went to Florida State and got my BM, and I didn't get into the music theater program the first time I auditioned, but I was the student who.

[13:45] Julio Agustin Matos: Starting from scratch, raw materials, which, you know, I think a lot of people would find with the more competitive musical theatre programs. That might not feel true, certainly from the pre-screening and all that. If I have no idea what I'm doing, it can feel like, how do I get my way in even if I'm just as talented as these kids but I haven't had this exposure yet.

[14:29] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, and I think because I've gotten to teach at other institutions, I can make that choice to at this point in my life because, you know, when you're not in the right relationship and there's no wrong group of students, but the values have to match. And so this institution's values, at least from what I'm seeing, match my own.

[14:55] Charlie Murphy: That's really beautiful. And then can you tell me more about that word transformative? So what does, you know, if that's that lead idea of the program, what does that mean or how do you picture in terms of the, we can talk about curriculum, we can talk about the ethos of the university, but how are you transforming these two?

[15:10] Julio Agustin Matos: It's Texas Woman's University, which means the foundation is different from most institutions out there. It's a different, when you have the right firmament, I'm sorry if that's not the correct word, but if you have the right foundation in place, for example, some of the courses that we have at the university that our students are required to take, music and cultures, women in music, music and wellness. So there's a difference in how the administrators approach the education and the nurturing of the whole person.

[15:52] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[15:52] Julio Agustin Matos: And that's really exciting to me. And so it might feel like there's a little bit more, again, we're talking about just compared to other BFA programs. You might feel like there's a little bit more of this like artists as citizen mindset, as opposed to like, hey, it's just about preparing you professionally, though, of course, if you're going to do that, too.

[16:30] Julio Agustin Matos: But you're saying it's not just about how you come in to be an actor, but also how that actor plays a role in the world and some of that kind of thing.

[16:37] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, you get to ask, you get to ask questions. My supervisor, Dr. Pam Youngblood, is super open, which is really unheard of in music. Music is a very traditional art. And so, but when I say we've got to have courses that are forward thinking, we've got to have a sound production and recording techniques class. We've got to have other things that make us stand out, that make us prepare students for tomorrow's careers, not just today's careers.

[17:11] Julio Agustin Matos: And also, we've got to look at the multi-hyphenate because students have to be able to do many things now. And as a career coach, and you probably know this, or you definitely know this as well, like I'm coaching students in musical theater, but I'm also coaching them, getting an agent for film and doing commercials. And I just had a job in New York, which was a, I'm not allowed to say, but it was in a different area of, quote unquote, performing.

[17:37] Julio Agustin Matos: So there's just not one business. There's like 15 different businesses, but really could break it down to 100 different businesses. You were talking about like, I do video game capture. I do, what if you go, who would have thought that was what I was training for? But sure, that's something I do voiceovers, but only voiceovers for these kind of audio books. Okay, great. Like, there's all those different businesses that are there.

[17:55] Charlie Murphy: So what about, so just from the broader university, you know, other than the name, Texas Women's, what should I kind of know about, like, you know, outside of the BM? What am I getting in terms of the experience of Texas Women's?

[18:06] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, so one of the selling points is that we are in Denton, which is a small community town, very safe environment. We had some students audition recently and they identify as queer and they said, how safe will I be? And we believe that they will be very safe within our community. But we are part of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, which is the fourth largest city in the country with over 22, I think 22 or 23 different regional theaters of different. We have non-union and union theaters. There are opera companies, dance companies, symphonies. So there's so much art happening. And yet they go home to their safe space so you can practice your craft, you can make mistakes, you can be messy.

[19:04] Julio Agustin Matos: And then some of the things that we have already put in process is an internship with a professional theater in some capacity, whether on stage, backstage. And we have an agent showcase because, you know, you have to be competitive. So we already have an agent showcase with both Dallas and New York agents and casting directors.

[19:31] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, I love it. Tell me a little bit, just if I don't know what the campus would look like. What is that campus life experience? So how big of a campus, how small of a campus? Are there other things like Greek life? Are there, you know, what am I getting in terms of the university experience, you know, compared to you went to two pretty big schools with Florida State and Penn State, I think. How is it going to feel in terms of the campus experience?

[19:51] Julio Agustin Matos: I wish I had a student here to help me because I'm still learning. I know that it's a medium sized campus. There's 16,000 students. There are 275 music majors, and that includes students in music therapy, music education, performance, instrumentalists. Then we have the theater division and they have their students. They have a bachelor of arts in theater and they have a music theater certificate. Then there's the dance, you know, interdisciplinary. There are all those areas that students will be interacting with.

[20:25] Julio Agustin Matos: I know that we have a recruitment and retention person who provides opportunities for students to be part of clubs. I can't say which clubs there are. I'm still learning all of that. Sure. It's a pretty campus. I went for another long walk the other day and it's a beautiful campus. It's also, I think, ranked number two in Texas for safety. And it's ranked high for a lot of the things, again, that matter to me, safety and affordability.

[21:01] Charlie Murphy: So those are some things that I think will make parents feel comfortable.

[21:06] Julio Agustin Matos: Yep. I mean, a lot of parent listeners talk to me about the academic side of things. So, you know, what percentage of my time am I spending doing, let's say, music, acting, dancing, anything that's in the artistic world? And what percentage of my time am I spending doing other classes? And, you know, does that mean do some students get a minor? Do some students even get a double major? How does that work in terms of the academics at all?

[21:25] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, it's a liberal arts degree. So comparable to a lot of programs out there, we're not a conservatory. So you will be taking your math, history, et cetera, et cetera. I think there are 42 credits in those and 120 total. So a lot in your area.

[21:43] Charlie Murphy: About 75 percent from doing that math.

[21:44] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have math issues, but 120, 40. I think it's about right. 120 out of 160.

[21:50] Charlie Murphy: Yeah.

[21:51] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. And then do students get any minors? Probably not a double major within that. But yeah. Well, as you said, we are planning on having 12 to 16 in our incoming, our full cohort next year. But the program started two years ago, a soft launch, and it brought in three students in its first year and two students in the second year while it was figuring out the curriculum of the three sophomores that we have. One is a double major in pre-nursing.

[22:20] Julio Agustin Matos: Great. The other student has a minor in marketing. We just started accepting students for next year. And one student, I'm encouraging her to do the business entrepreneurship minor, but she right now is set up as a double major in musical theater and business.

[22:36] Charlie Murphy: Great. So it would be possible. And I guess you'll see with the years of how practical and what do people recommend it and how, what does that look like in terms of people's life?

[22:44] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. But I'm really, because I've done this before, I'm able to get people out of four-year programs in three years if there's a reason for that, if it's financial. Universities don't like that, but I don't think that this nursing student is going to get out in four years, perhaps five years, but the minors will be able to get out in four years.

[23:05] Charlie Murphy: Totally makes sense. Well, and then you mentioned discovering, remodeling, something, what you've done with the curriculum. Can you just talk to me about, I mean, you mentioned the idea already, though I'd love to go a little deeper into like your understanding of this BM compared to, let's say, other BMs and other BFAs, but what is the curriculum? So what are some of the things that you've added? What are the, some of the things that you're taking from your programs? I just, what are the four years look like? I'm sure you spent a lot of time doing curriculum the past couple of years.

[23:32] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, I'm still wrapping my head around. I have it on paper. I don't tend to keep much in my head, but what I wrote. You don't have to give me the whole directory.

[23:40] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, what I wrote down of some of the courses that I'm excited about is the sound production and recording techniques, because there are students who are songwriters and that's something that's going to be helpful to them. The music theater entrepreneurship class, which is again a business class, because we are making sure that we are preparing students to enter the career. And to train, I mean, those first three years out of college, any program on the make it or break it years. And so making sure that, that, that, um, they are supported in their business.

[24:19] Julio Agustin Matos: The music theater seminar, which is connected to either an apprenticeship or an internship. I mentioned the agent showcase. What else? Music, from like a broad perspective, like, you know, especially with the BM, like how much music and let's say like how much music, meaning music theory, meaning other instruments, this kind of thing. How much singing versus how much dance acting sort of, how has that split up in terms of the big disciplines of musical theater?

[24:43] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, it's crazy because my bachelor of music, I had four semesters of theory. I mean, in fact, Florida State still, their BM has four semesters of theory, four semesters of sight singing, two semesters of keyboard and music history, et cetera. We have one semester of theory, one semester of sight singing, two semesters of, um, keyboard, the music theater history, not music history. So then again, it's a lot of it feels like a BFA, then you have the, the, then the fun stuff is, and we hope that students will take more theory again. We're going to have students who don't need to take that first semester of theory because they play an instrument. But, um, then we have the, um, the students are all in a choir in their first year.

So first and second semester, they're in some choral ensemble. They have the opportunity to be, if they don't want to do that, they can be in one of the, um, the, in the orchestra pit or part of the jazz band. So they are immersed in the music world right away.

[25:48] Julio Agustin Matos: Then in the second year, they start moving out into the theater building and they take their acting classes, their movement, their speech classes there, all the while taking dance throughout their four years in the areas.

[26:04] Charlie Murphy: I'd love to hear, you know, often we ask like, how did, how do dance classes work with leveling? So, you know, if you have very advanced dancers, very beginning dancers, though, I guess I'll really broadly ask that, like, how do the classes work with leveling? When you talk about somebody who might be a really advanced musician versus somebody who goes, I'm raw, I got the talents, but I don't know an A from a D, like, what does it help me make sense of that? How does that work? Are they all in the same class together? How does that work in terms of like leveling these classes?

[26:27] Julio Agustin Matos: As for dance, leveling across the board, nor often asked that with dance, but it seems like with maybe with music too. Well, for music, they, they, they take a placement test, so they will not be in a class that, that, um, everyone in the class will be on the same level, but that's, that's important. For dance, the same thing that the week before they start classes, they have a dance placement assessment. And so, um, one of the first year students we just accepted, she came in with some dance training. So she's starting at ballet two instead of ballet one. Our, the thing I want to make, make very clear is the program at Texas Women's University, the dance division is one of the five in the country that offers a PhD in dance. So, but their dance is very contemporary from my understanding, ballet and contemporary. The jazz comes from the graduate students and they offer, they offer other classes depending on what the graduate students, uh, background is.

[27:30] Julio Agustin Matos: I would not say that our program is the right one for someone who's looking for a dance focus. It's really dance intensive. That's not necessarily the way that if you're a really strong musician, you might say, hey, this is a really great fit for me. If I'm a really strong dancer, I want dance focus. This might not be my BM. But it could be if you want dance focus, because Florida State's dance is very modern-based. We used to complain... Again, I talk about myself, but when I was there, we used to complain because we weren't getting jazz. We were getting ballet and modern, but there was nothing I couldn't do when I graduated. There was nothing you couldn't throw at me that I couldn't pick up.

That's the benefit. We have one incoming student that we're excited about whose background is modern, so we know that he will be happy here. If someone's more musical theater and jazz, I'm going to make sure to give them this information because it might not be the right program.

[28:26] Julio Agustin Matos: What about acting? How do the acting classes work? What's that projected, at least curriculum through the four years, from an acting perspective? In our curriculum, they take the Acting 1 course, which is called Performance 1, and then the Acting 2 course, which is Performance 2. It's very similar. It's your character and then your action in the second level. They have other levels, but those are not required for the majors. Right now, we have one student who's a sophomore who's taking the Production and Design course, which is in theater, so he's learning about stagecraft because that's not something that we provide in our building. That, again, is the benefit. It's a little bit like some of the past, like we did when I was at other institutions, which is making sure that there's space for students to find their own way. It's not a cookie cutter that we're building.

[29:20] Julio Agustin Matos: Are those acting classes that you're taking with BA Theater majors? Is it just BMMT? Also, would I have music performance majors? Would I have all the different majors taking those acting classes together? That's my goal. Right now, because we only have five students total, everything is integrated. We have all of the other majors combined. As the program grows, of course, we have to make sure we're serving our students, but I am, if anybody knows me, I'm not about silo. It's about including other people because that's how you get to compare your craft with someone else, and you push each other.

[29:58] Julio Agustin Matos: What about, just from a perspective of location, you mentioned specifically like North Texas. Is that where you think a lot of students are coming from? I know at PUA, you're recruiting for people from all over the country. You might be meeting people. Do you have a sense of like, is there ambition with recruitment in terms of where students might come from? You only have five so far, I understand, but in this incoming class, how is that working sort of geographically with recruitment? Well, because it's Texas, I mean, Texas does music and musical theater, the high schools. I went to a high school because part of my job is recruiting, and the work that they're doing in the high schools, at least the production values are crazy, crazy.

We always talk about how like sports and theater mirror each other. Texas seems like they do sports and theater really well, like at a really high level. Those football players and those theater people, they pump out a lot. And choir, choir, because I was talking to my colleague and we had one student who was auditioning who said he was first in something. I don't remember what he said, but it was information that made my colleagues say, oh, this person is an incredible musician. So in choir as well, we're looking for students in the area. We're close to Oklahoma being in North Texas. I'm trying to think if, I think right now we're focusing on North Texas and Southern Oklahoma while that's one demographic that we are embracing while also making sure to attend the Unifieds because there are students outside in other parts of the country that are looking for us.

[31:33] Julio Agustin Matos: There are some listeners across the world now who are going to be hearing this, some of whom may go, this sounds just right for me. And part of the reason they might do that would be, let's talk about cost. It looked like our crack research team came up with some very low numbers, which we like a lot. It seems like tuition is $14,000. Is that about correct? Is that in-state or out-of-state? That's the question for you.

[31:55] Julio Agustin Matos: Well, yeah. It looks like in-state might be $14,000 and then you add $12,600, so maybe it gets up to $26,000 for out-of-state, if I'm reading this correctly? Yes. And I wanted to mention the out-of-state because if you get at least a $1,000 scholarship from us, you qualify for in-state tuition. Meaning I could be from Oklahoma or from somewhere across the country and get that $14,000. But are you saying I would get $14,000 plus, now it's down to $13,000 if I get $1,000 bucks? I'm saying do those things stack on top of each other? Yes. You give me $1,000 bucks, am I bringing my... I'm actually bringing $26,000 down to $12,000 because I'm going to $14,000 and then minus $2,000? That sounds... I didn't think about that. I'm making a lot of math on this podcast.

[32:35] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. Who would have thought I'm going to a musical theater podcast and I have to do a lot of math? But basically, that's a good question because then you would be an in-state tuition student, so that should apply and make it $13,000. I think so. This sounds great. We'll have to verify this. Verify it with your independent financial advisor or whatever. But in terms of... As you're doing it, of course, I know this is still early as you're working out scholarships. How would one get a $1,000 scholarship? Am I getting that from artistic merit from the audition? I shouldn't say the word merit because that's confusing. From my artistic audition or am I getting more academic merit scholarship? How am I getting that $1,000 that might knock down the $26,000 to $14,000?

[33:14] Julio Agustin Matos: The university is making a big push in recruitment. I know that they have tripled the amount of scholarships that they have for transfer students. Now, for first-year incoming students, I know that there's a lot... Especially if they apply early, if they apply to the university and right away get accepted... Because we have a two-step process. It's apply to university and then submit your accepted form and then we will schedule an audition. So that first step, if you know you want to investigate it, go ahead and apply to university then you can start applying for scholarships. That said, if you are an out-of-state student, reach out to me and I will all but guarantee you that $1,000 to bring the cost down. I don't know if I can legally say that.

[34:05] Julio Agustin Matos: I love that. You said all but. You're safe because you said all but guarantee. You didn't say all guarantee. You said all but guarantee. We'll have to find what the all but is. But I love that. That's great. So meaning you think a majority of your out-of-state musical theater people would be paying in-state tuition? Yes. Yes. That's coming from my supervisor. Again, to have this kind of support from her, from the dean, from the provost and the president who are supporting the dean, and the dean is saying bring the students that you need and we will figure their tuition out.

[34:38] Julio Agustin Matos: I love it. We're just having this discussion at POA but I really do think it's a beautiful thing to have in the past couple of years where as more universities have sort of rebalanced the sort of crazy need. There are so many students who want to do it and not enough spots. I do think now in the past couple of years more universities are being better about realizing we have to be competitive financially. I think the information is out there of like, hey, I don't know that you want to spend $200,000 to go to someone asked recently of like the federal limit of what they could borrow. And I was like, please don't borrow the federal limit to go to musical theater school. It's that is a that's a big loan that you're going to be taking out and repaying if you're thinking about, you know, eventually even someone as successful as you, Julio, would have done those six Broadway shows, seven Broadway shows, whatever that was.

It's a lot. It's a lot of money to pay back. It's hard to make it happen in this. And ethically, I went to Columbia for my, I started my MFA at Columbia and that was 90,000 a year. And after the first year, I felt like, you know, I already had a career. So I knew I was going to have a career when I finish, but there were 15 other people there who I just didn't know. And I'm not saying they weren't, you know, because it has nothing to do with just talent, but it's just unethical. It's unethical to charge that much. And so I'm excited that I'm glad to hear that a lot of universities are paying attention.

[36:00] Julio Agustin Matos: I love it. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, just from a kind of broad perspective, and then we'll take a little break here. But what is the ambition for, you know, sort of a 10-year goal for if you think we'll be here 10 years from now, but, you know, in terms of what you're launching Texas Women's to be like, you know, I see that mission as a sentence. I just kind of love to hear like, what are you hoping if 10 years from now, you've graduated six classes at that point, or whatever it is, you got a full cohort going at that point? What does Texas Women's how does it look different than it will in year one? Like, so what is the goal of like, kind of, if you're thinking about like, on the map of, of the country of, you know, of schools, what is the ambition for Texas Women's?

[36:35] Julio Agustin Matos: That's a great question. You've got to have vision. And I'm, I'm in the planting and sowing phase. I mean, the planting and spreading seeds phase right now. But if I were to retire, this would be what I would want to do. And so that's why, again, I'm the luckiest person in the world to have this opportunity. The mission of the university is, or of the division of music, part of it is creating the future leaders in music. And so how do we, like our guests this year, we have someone scheduled who's a content creator and a local actress who's part of the Dallas Theater Center. She's a resident company member, Christina Austin-Lopez. So bringing in someone who understands how to have a career in this area, then we're going to expand to other areas.

But my, it has to continue to center women in areas that are, that we do not see that, for example, that students want to do new works. Great. So let's find women who are doing new works and invite them to develop their works here. Then we can open it up. I don't know if that's legal for me to say again, but this is what I'm, this is, I feel like I'm, that's the vision is to make it accessible to those who don't always get those opportunities. And we still see that a lot of the shows that my students pick are always written by men. And so you've got to work a little bit. You've got to work a little bit harder. We also have a voice. We're hiring a new voice teacher. And so that's exciting too.

So we're getting the team in place. And in 10 years, I think handing it off to someone and making sure that the foundation is rich and the students are going out and they are thriving in whatever areas they want to. If they're not working in this right now, they get to do this. So they get to have joyful lives because they are moving from one part of their career to another part of the aspect of their career.

[38:50] Charlie Murphy: Yep. So well said. All right, let's take a quick break. And on the back end, we'll talk a little bit more. We got a bit into it, but a bit more about the audition and admission process. So back in a flash.

[38:58] Charlie Murphy: All right. We are back with Julio Agustin Matos, and we're talking a little bit about Texas Women's University and the audition admission process. So you gave me that brief overview of like, first you apply to the university, then they get accepted video. And then there's potentially more information in terms of like a callback audition or that kind of thing. Let's talk a bit about like, how would I be doing those, or talk to me about the artistic aspects of that process. So imagining the application, I understand in terms of how that would work with the university. Is then there a pre-screen video? How does that pre-screen then turn into a callback or turn into further interaction? What does that look like in terms of your artistic admission at this point?

[39:34] Julio Agustin Matos: This year, we do not have a pre-screen. Before I came here, the system was set up for a pre-screen. This year, you're just filling out the information on the accepted website, and we have in-person auditions. If you're not from the area and you do not want to do, we have five auditions. One is the November 15th, and then we have four in the spring. These will be all on-campus auditions? On-campus auditions. However, as I said, we just did the Pittsburgh auditions and those were virtual. So those students submitted videos. And from those videos, we selected our callback prospective students. And then we did an interview. We don't need to hear anymore. We need to talk to them, make sure they understand who we are.

We get to know who they are, make sure that we're the right fit for them, and get a sense of who they are because it's really about community. I think I've described the community that we're building, and we want to make sure that the students who we accept are going to thrive here. We don't want people here who are great musicians, but they're not going to succeed because of some one thing or the other.

[41:39] Julio Agustin Matos: I love it. You mentioned Unified. Did you just mean Pittsburgh Unified, or are you also planning to do New York, Chicago, LA, one of the national Unifieds as well? I'm looking into the Chicago ones. I was researching you and your website, and I didn't plan on being there. But I'm also wondering if me not being there is anti-our mission. Yeah, I think we could talk a little bit more about that. You know, maybe we'll do it off mic for the sake of our listeners. Happy to talk about that in terms of sort of why you would or wouldn't go if that's something you're exploring.

[41:16] Charlie Murphy: I think generally you will be exposed to more people if you do attend a Chicago Unified, if you do attend New York Unified. So yeah, I think it can only help. I think, you know, obviously, the university is always considering stuff like yield and all those other things as we go as well. Do you have a sense of like, when you're when you looked at those videos from PUA, do you feel like you have a sense of like, these kind of students I was interested in? I want to maybe split because you mentioned the culture part of which I think is, of course, important in terms of the human beings they are. But just from that, like, artistic side of things, acting, singing, dancing, what are you seeing? Your musicianship, I'll add that as a fourth discipline, given that something you're looking for. What are you seeing in the videos, in the singing, in the acting, in the dancing? What are you seeing that makes you go, hey, I want to call this person back?

[41:59] Julio Agustin Matos: See, it's different. Some of them were really silly. They had a sense of humor. A couple of them were very serious students. And those students I was interested in to see what made them smile. The things that stood out for me were having a sense of humor. Those students who were like music nerds, those students who played, there was one student who played the flute while she was doing the hula hoop. So are they strong musicians? Are they? Just to be clear, I think you're talking about their wildcard video there. Just it's people are like, is that part of an audition cut of my song? Like, probably that's the wildcard video. I so forgot, sorry.

[42:40] Charlie Murphy: That's fine. So in their audition video, I mean... You can use the wildcard video, I just wanted to be clear. That's for the listeners if they're newer to this process.

[42:51] Julio Agustin Matos: I'm looking for potential. I'm looking for a student with a healthy voice. There's one student that we are interested in who may have some, we're not sure it sounded like there could be some vocal damage. So we're interested in that student, but we may ask if, again, I have to explore the legality, but can that student be scoped? Because they sing in a, she's Latina. She does, oh, we have mariachi. We have a mariachi education track here. So students who want to sing mariachi, come here. But it's cultural. And so we want to make sure that the student is able to sing in that way, but also healthily. So we're looking for healthy students. We're looking for physically free students. We're looking for risk takers. We're looking for students whose parents are teachers. Also, one student, her father's a theater teacher, her mother's a choral teacher. So we know that she knows what it's going to be like here.

[43:50] Charlie Murphy: And a lot of, we're looking at students who... I kept watching the callback list, and I was watching for these amazingly talented students who, for some reason or other, were not getting the number of callbacks that I thought they would. And so I want to make sure that those students, that we got to hear those students. The ones who might have fallen through the cracks otherwise. That might be how you're finding that second population of going, is there a raw talent there that's not being recognized for whatever reason that you're mining that order?

[44:22] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. It takes effort. I mean, you know, you got to watch how many, five videos for each student. And then...

[44:28] Charlie Murphy: There are a lot of students. There's like 200 students. I mean, I don't know the final number. 422 is an official number, but I think for musical theater, it was 288 when I started watching the videos. And then I watched the ones that I was interested in, went back and watched them over and over again. And then I went back and looked at some others that I felt I may have missed.

[44:48] Julio Agustin Matos: And that's just one place, right? That you're talking about. Now you're also going to be seeing people from all of the places.

[44:55] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. A lot to look at. And what about that other half of it, as you're talking about the kind of culture conversation, obviously some part of a callback interview would be you explaining yourselves to them as kind of like we're doing now, right? But what are you sussing out in that interview or as you're talking to them? Like, what are you trying to get from them to go, I thought from the video you might fit well here, but kind of how does that process go from the student end in terms of that interview?

[45:15] Julio Agustin Matos: I think there's the intellectual aspect, which is, are they curious? We had one student and the intellectual, not meaning like book smart, although a lot of the instrumentalists come in with, they all had 3.6s and 4.4 point somethings. So if they have a high GPA, we know they will succeed academically. Do they have a personality? Are they interested in students from other areas? Because we had several students who said, well, it's Texas. What, am I going to be okay in Texas? And I think that was a great question, a great conversation. And then students who didn't have a high GPA, we wanted to get to know them as well and see if they were curious and what were some of their interests, because maybe they won't do so well in some of the academic courses, but it would be balanced by their passion for the other courses. So we think they'll be okay. If they weren't super curious, then we would be setting them up for failure.

[46:18] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the GPA there. Are you looking at, when you see students who didn't just apply, who aren't part of a PUA situation, are you looking at the academic application? Are you looking at their essays, letters of recommendation? Are you looking at anything else in terms of stuff that, from an artistic perspective, are you checking that out before you were to say, yes, I'm going to bring you in? Or is it more about, hey, I'm looking at the monologues and the songs in the wildcard video?

[46:40] Julio Agustin Matos: I'm looking at so many aspects of their application. I don't look at the recommendation until there's a question for me, but I do look at it before we do the offer. If I didn't look at it before, I want to make sure that I look at it before we make the offer. But I think there's enough information because they're asked questions, that the material that they present, it says something about them. I mean, there were several people singing Tonight at Eight. A lot of people singing Tonight at Eight this year. So I was like, okay. Because I sang Tonight at Eight when I first started, but I wasn't the greatest singer when I first started. But I was like, okay, why are they singing? Let me hear the other ones. So I just think there's such a puzzle, and I'm curious. So there's a lot of investigating.

[47:33] Charlie Murphy: It's really tricky for a lot of students you would have seen there who are going through this process. I think especially depending on the guidance that they have, they're trying to fit themselves into a process of what is an older-timer song, because a lot of people say pre-1970, which if that's not their sensibility, I mean, I often feel that way. I love Shakespeare. As an actor, that was my passion. But sometimes you watch a kid do a Shakespeare monologue, I'm like, someone's making you do this monologue. It just kind of feels like you're forced to do this monologue. And it's tough at 17, 18 to be picking stuff that you go, this is because I love it, and this is because this shows really who I am, versus I'm trying to meet the requirements that these different schools are asking of me. I wish it was easier from an 18-year-old perspective.

[48:15] Julio Agustin Matos: I love that you called it an old-timer song. I don't think I'd heard that before.

[48:18] Charlie Murphy: An old-timer? Yeah, I don't know.

[48:21] Julio Agustin Matos: An old-timer song.

[48:22] Charlie Murphy: That's just for me not wanting to say pre-1965, pre-1970. Different schools, they say it different ways, but golden age or whatever we're saying.

[48:31] Julio Agustin Matos: I should mention, our process, we asked for two 16-bar cuts, 16 to 32-bar cuts of at least one musical theater from a musical theater, from a musical. And then the other one could be from a musical. It could be if you sing classical, if you sing country, if you rap, whatever it is, that's going to give us information. And then a monologue, a short 90-second, at the most, monologue. And we don't say what kind, because again, what they choose gives us information about who they are.

[48:58] Charlie Murphy: I love it. You mentioned the idea of trying to find some gender balance to your class, something like 50-50. I know you don't have to commit to that idea. Are you thinking about other things as you're filling out your class? Are you thinking about stuff like racial balance, height balance, different skill sets? Are you thinking about, I want a certain amount of tenors and a certain amount of sopranos and a certain amount... How do you think about, this is the first year of 12 to 16 you're putting together. How are you thinking about all the different ways those 12 to 16 are going to fill the room and create the culture that you're trying to put together?

[49:27] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah. I can't say the D word anymore, but I'm... You noticed I didn't say the word. I didn't say it.

[49:35] Charlie Murphy: Innately, I'm looking for representation. Again, if it's transformative, it means that a student will come and sit in the audience and they'll see themselves on stage. So what does that mean? It means making sure that there is representation. So I want to make sure we're not tokenizing a student and only taking one of a certain type of student. I shouldn't have said 50-50 balance because we have students who will identify as non-binary. But yes, I think without going into specifics, the way I'm wired, it's always making sure that there's representation, including neurodiversity, physical diversity. So yes.

[50:28] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. Obviously this is your first time doing this, so I'm asking a question that's probably unknowable, but how do you imagine that happening with the idea of yielding students? So are you picturing you're going to take 12 to 16 and then have a wait list? Are you picturing you're going to take a bunch and then whoever comes, comes? That's always when you're considering those factors of like, we think we want the class to have some conscientiousness the way we put it together, but you're not going to yield likely 100% of your students in year one. If you did, that would be amazing. So do you have a plan as sort of how that's going to work with those initial offers and then how you might put together the 12 to 16?

[51:04] Julio Agustin Matos: It's crazy. Yes. That's the question, du jour, because we have nothing to compare it to. At other institutions, I was really good at never going above the number. Sometimes we came in below the number, but then you make up the next year with transfer students and there's always transfer students wanting to come. I have a feeling that, I don't know, I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that we may go over because it's such a different kind of experience that we're offering. And my supervisor's okay. We can go over the 16 and still make sure we provide each student with what we need. I have a feeling we're going to offer more, which is obviously you do anyway. Programs offer more. I don't know how many more, but everyone that we're offering is someone who we want, who would thrive here.

[51:59] Charlie Murphy: And then how do you picture that interaction? Again, this is year one. So this is you viewing this, not year one for the program, but I mean year one of this full recruitment that we're doing here. But how are you picturing that? Are they emailing with you in April as they're going back and forth between the $1,000 scholarship that they're all but guaranteed, and they're trying to figure out money, and they're trying to figure out these questions. That's mostly interaction with you. How do you like best to be interacted with in that way, then, as a student? Let's say they're working between three or four options and you're one of them.

[52:24] Julio Agustin Matos: Email, email, and then schedule a Zoom with the parent or a phone call, preferably a Zoom meeting. Definitely, it's a personal relationship you're establishing with these young people. So it's got to be, I mean, it's a professional relationship, but it's that final process. You have to be accessible to the students. And if a student, I mean, right now it's happening, students are interested in coming to one of our productions. We're offering them classes. They're free this week. Can we stop by and meet with you and take a tour? So all of that, that's why it's a great thing right now. I'm not teaching because I can be available for an impromptu visit or a student who wants to talk about the scholarship they received and they need more money. Great. Let me talk to my committee on November 15th and see what our pot looks like. So definitely, it has to be an ongoing conversation.

[53:32] Charlie Murphy: I love it. And you mentioned the parents in that process and sort of how they're involved in it. I'd love to just talk about, as we move toward wrapping, from your experience at these different universities and now as you're doing this, interacting with parents, I don't know if you got any interaction with PUA parents this past weekend, but do you have any advice for parents in terms of how they can best guide their child through this process? I know a lot of our parent listeners feel like this is an overwhelming process. I don't know what to do. So sort of how do, what do you sort of think in terms of what parents should be doing in this process?

[54:03] Julio Agustin Matos: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think I've evolved, evolved, I've evolved. I have a different opinion at this institution. At this institution, I believe that it's okay for a parent to do their research first and then with their young person, I don't, like, whatever relationship they have, it's theirs. But they should not be afraid to reach out to me as well because there are things that they need answered that the student may not be focusing on. And so I'm open to that as well. This institution is that.

[54:41] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I do think it is a way in which the world is changing and evolving. We certainly talk about that with our students of like, the number of 17 year olds who used to just like come into the city and like, you know, coach with us. And now it's much more likely they come in with a parent as opposed to by themselves, you know, they're 17, they can.

[55:33] Charlie Murphy: Yes, yes, yes. What a nice interview that was. Julio is such an artistic spirit, right? Hopefully, you can feel that through the camera. There's a lot of genuine curiosity that goes beyond some of, I think, some of the salespersonship you often see in these positions. I think from Julio, you got a real openness and a willingness to not know the answers that I really appreciated, just both from his actual answers and just from his energy in general. I'm going to try to keep on the shorter side. We'll see how we do. I often say that. We'll see. I don't always accomplish it, but we did do that longer intro, so I'm going to try to keep it a little quicker here. I'm going to start off with just the idea of Julio mentioning that they're specifically looking for raw students.

I really like that, and I think it was a smart framing for them, especially as a newer emerging program. You have heard many schools talk about this very idea of looking for potential, and I know our regular listeners will certainly have heard my Aaron Sorkin re-quoted sprinter's metaphor with the idea that if you have two runners who are running a 40-yard dash and one has terrible form and one has great form, which one would you want in your program or which one would you want to work with? The answer, of course, being that the one with terrible form is who you'd want to work with because if you can teach them good form, imagine how fast they'll be. Then, of course, I have to always give the caveat that it's not easy to run a 40-yard dash with terrible form.

Some people who are really raw, they might not easily be in the position to show the skill set they have to run fast yet because of what's in their way, and often in this process, they feel like they can't even get themselves to the starting line. Again, you understand the metaphor there of certainly all schools are looking for raw talent. That is the idea there. They all talk about they're looking for potential and how important that is and teachability and all those things, but especially in the way that Julio is framing it, the idea of students who slip through the cracks, I think it's really intriguing to me in terms of hearing that articulated that way, and you don't always hear that. You actually rarely hear that idea articulated that we're looking specifically for the kind of student who might slip through the cracks.

I think the reason I'm doing for this takeaway, especially as an emerging program in a competitive landscape, you almost need some kind of angle like that if you're going to grow to compete with the more established programs, if that's your goal, which, again, it's not for everybody. It sounded like from Julio that is a little bit of what he's looking for, right? Growing up, I loved reading Moneyball, which for anyone who didn't catch that book, it's this awesome book about baseball and sort of analytics in baseball, and then there's this excellent movie with Brad Pitt, which will make you cry if you're a parent. Of course, I cry at everything now. What do you expect? It's about basically the idea that the Oakland A's are trying to figure out how to compete as a small market team with sometimes literally a quarter of the budget of some of their rivals.

I have 25% of the money or 30% of the money, depending on some of my big competitors I'm trying to compete with, and we're offering salaries to players, and we got to figure out how do we make this work, right? They realized, with the benefits of math, they realized they had to take an innovative approach and look at things from a different angle, look at things differently. There's something to what Julio's talking about here. Whether schools verbalize it or not, if you're an emerging program, you have to figure out some kind of angle if you want to make the equivalent of the World Series. Again, if that's the ambition, and it's not the goal of every emerging program. Some of them might say, we're going to take the students that come to us.

We've had podcasts on here where you go, it sounds like they're basically saying, we'll take who comes to us and we're okay with the competitive level we're at. That's what we are and we're okay with that, right? But if not, if you are that program that wants to grow and really compete on the landscape alongside some of those other big programs, you've got to find some version of your angle of how you're going to do that, right? Some people talk about, we'll make it incredibly cheap, which Julio talked about, certainly the financial angle of it, right? Sometimes they're basically giving money away or there are other attractive things that they could offer, right? But in this case, this idea of the students who are falling through the cracks, it's really interesting, right?

In Moneyball, it's Kevin Euclid, for those who really are Moneyball fans, you'll remember Kevin Euclid is the god of walks, right? They did the math and they figured out teams weren't appreciating and paying for the value of walks the way they were paying for the value of singles, even though basically from a baseball perspective, it's all the same thing, right? And then there's all these other things that they could realize, hey, other teams are overvaluing things that we are going to try to appropriately value. They talked about players who looked appropriate for their positions, right? We expect a shortstop and a tall left fielder or whatever it is, right? We expect people who look like they're going to fit into the uniform.

So sometimes about like body fat and stuff that actually wasn't relevant for baseball, but tend to be the kind of thing that a scout is looking for and they go, I want somebody who looks the part, right? So in some ways, you know, Julio is trying to figure out what are those equivalents, right? What are the things, you know, do we care too much about defense compared to do we like bunting people over as opposed to hitting home runs, whatever the math things that you talk about from sort of Moneyball, there's the musical theater equivalent of those two, right? And I don't want to go like too deep on the Moneyball idea of it, but I do, I think that idea of searching for hidden gems and what talent might get passed over is a really smart and cogent way of understanding kind of where they are in the landscape and hopefully a helpful way for schools and students to find the right fit.

Cause you know, we talk about this with interviewing all the time with our students, the same way we tell our students, the more you know yourself and you can clearly speak to what you're looking for in a program, the more you're actually opening up the possibility that the specific chemistry will be there with the right school, that you'll find that fit with the right school who also is looking for that, right? And I'll say the flip side of that is really true for the schools as well. So in here, you're hearing Julio be able to articulate, I'm looking for A and B, do you fit into one of those categories, right? A was sort of the more musically inclined people, maybe played an instrument and B that raw talent.

That's potentially helpful for you as a student to go, Hey, I'm B or I'm A and this might be a good fit for me, right? That same way that we want you to articulate yourself to the schools, it's nice to hear them articulate themselves to you. Not that they have to be the Oakland A's of Texas. I'm really, of course, putting that metaphor on them of just, it intrigued me of like, what is falling through the cracks must have kind of triggered something Moneyball in my head. I'm also realizing as I say all this, that I might've just quoted Moneyball twice. I don't think I did. I think the idea of that Sprinter quote is a West Wing quote, but I'm definitely double quoting Aaron Sorkin who wrote the movie of Moneyball and it might be, it might be a Moneyball quote.

I might've done it twice, but hopefully you understand the metaphor and you enjoyed the Moneyball sort of taking you down that rabbit hole if nothing else. The other thing I will say, I talked about this a bit in the intro was just with the idea of emerging programs in terms of different levels of competitiveness, but also not just, you know, emerging, emerging versus competitive versus most competitive, but in this idea of a really brand new program. And we've talked about this idea before. There's just a bit of risk always involved when something is brand new. And I feel really good saying this in the case of Julio and this episode, because Julio really does seem like somebody who is in it to win it from all calculations, right?

But I would add this for any program where it's brand new. And especially if you really love a figurehead who is spearheading that innovation, what happens if that person gets a different offer? Again, this is nothing with Julio. And in fact, I only feel comfortable saying that in this episode, as opposed to some other episodes where I maybe could have said it, because it's not something I would directly suspect in this case, right? He describes it as his dream job. He seems like this is really going to be his dream job. But it's just something to consider anytime you're looking at a program, especially any program that's brand new, is this idea of like, if it's really about one person who's attracting you there, what happens if they do a fantastic job?

If they hit it out of the park, to stick with our baseball metaphors, they do a fantastic job, they really start building an amazing program, and then they get poached, right? Again, to keep with the sports metaphors, this happens all the time in the college sports world, right? Someone does an amazing job, they build up a program growing levels and divisions way beyond where it was in a short time, and then a big division one school comes in and offers tons of money and poaches that coach away, right? Now, I wouldn't say the tons of money thing is really common in the musical theater world, the idea that you're going to get this huge multi-million dollar offer that's going to pull you from, you know, one program to another, but it does certainly happen where a school with really established prestige might lose their program head for whatever reason and says, hey, you're doing great work over there in Texas, I love what you're doing, and we already had a relationship, and will you come do some of that here?

I like some of this innovation, we could use a little Youngblood, we could use a little innovation over here, right? You know, or of course, we've talked about this before too, and the idea of do you want all of your people to be active performers or not? With any active performer, that amazing next Broadway show happens, and it could pull them away in some capacity, even if not away entirely. Again, none of that is specific to this case, but I just want to say it's worth weighing that in all the factors as you're considering to look at all of your programs. What would happen if this person left? Would I still be excited about the program and the foundation that they left behind beyond them themselves, right?

If you are, amazing, then it's a totally a good reason to keep the school on your list, and it's not even necessarily a reason to take the school off your list, it's just worth sort of factoring that in as a risk factor, right? You want to factor it in, you know, alongside the upside of, you know, what you think an emerging new program might be able to do, right? Just like that raw talent that Julio is looking for, I do think there's a lot of exciting upside in the unknown in terms of the ambition of what could be built, especially when something is new, but obviously then there's more downside in that if you don't have everything pre-established in terms of like a reputation, right? With emerging programs, you, the student, you are creating and spearheading that reputation.

You're creating what it's going to be, which I think can be incredibly exciting to some students, right? Rather than riding the wave of reputation of what previous students have done, you're blazing that trail and you're saying, this is what a Texas Woman's University student is going to be on Broadway, and this is what our reputation is going to be. It's, you know, being branded based on me, right? But some do realize, hey, I kind of like having that wave behind me as well in terms of alumni network and in terms of people already kind of knowing what it means to be a student graduating from that school. All right, that's it. Another episode of Mapping the College Audition. As we bring 2025 nearer to a close, my God, I can't believe that it's true.

This episode was produced by Megan Courtier and Kelly Prennergrast with social media work by Jordan Rice. You know you can check out Jordan's amazing work at Mapping the College Audition on Instagram, and you can like and subscribe to this very podcast wherever you consume it via audio or video form. That could be Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, GoNuts, whatever you like. If you leave us a nice review on the episode, it will give my heart a little tingle of holiday cheer. Hanukkah's coming up soon. Leave me a nice Hanukkah review, why don't you, right? And you know you can check us out at mtca.com, the place for all holiday cheer, for all of your individual college prep help. To my young artists out there mapping their journeys, please trust that you're enough for the right program, exactly as you are right now, on whatever scale of rawness that may be. Now keep striving. We'll catch you next week.