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[0:00] Charlie Murphy: Hello, hello, and welcome to Mapping The College Audition, where I'm your host, Charlie Murphy, director of MTCA. Check us out at mtca.com. And today we've got Valerie Accetta from the University of Alabama Birmingham, UAB, on the pod. Valerie is really great, and I think a fun example of a really quickly growing program. UAB is, that is, Valerie herself is not a growing program. And I think a really great interview. You know, she talks a little bit in the interview about her first graduating class of only five students when the program started just 11 years ago, and how it has doubled and doubled year after year in terms of students auditioning, and then their competitiveness, of course, the program has grown, and then through some of the excitement of that journey and where they are now.

You know, it's kind of cool to see that stage in the lifecycle. You know, of course, there's something so exciting about a brand new program just as it's starting, you know, really all ideas and hopes and dreams. But it's, you know, kind of like being in a startup right on the ground floor when you're still in someone's garage versus coming in after they've gotten their series B funding or whatever, I don't know if it's A or B or whatever it is, but later funding, where you might still have some of that startup energy, but you've also got some momentum already going the right direction, which kind of buoys you along the journey, so that can be really fun as well. I'm hoping all of you had wonderful, happy Labor Days.

As I record this intro, Elizabeth and I are about to celebrate our one-year anniversary tonight, and I have a card that I've still got to write, so I'm going to keep this one snappy, as they say. We use the word scrappy a lot in the interview. I'm going to keep this interview snappy. I will say, speaking of personal news, we do head out on our honeymoon next Wednesday, just on the day of your episode dropping, so while you shouldn't get any interruption into your pods themselves, I am going to be recording these intros a bit in advance, at least two intros in advance on the 11th and the 18th while I'm away, so if there's any breaking musical theater news, you're going to have to wait until I get back on the 18th or after the 18th, the 25th, my gosh, for me to address it, so hopefully the musical theater world doesn't explode while I'm gone.

This weekend also marked the beginning of our MTCA mock audition season, and we had a really wonderful MTCA mock on Labor Day. It always feels like the first day of school for our coaches to get to be back in a room together, diving deep into this with our students. The mock definitely makes the whole thing feel really real from the student perspective, and we saw a lot of that this weekend. Some really excellently prepared students, but then a lot of light bulbs flashing of, oh, this is what it is, you know, and seeing some of those areas where they could continue to improve from an audition skills perspective, and just to understand what this weird and unique audition process actually is, but I did see across the board some hungry, talented students, and I was really proud of the work I got to see in those rooms.

Okay, that's it. I'm off to write the world's most beautiful poetry for our paper anniversary. We got each other a caricature of us in our wedding outfits. If you want to check out on the socials media, sadly, I've never looked better than I do in caricature form, but I really do hope you enjoy this interview with Valerie Accetta from UAB.

[3:20] Charlie Murphy: Well, we are so excited to be joined by Valerie Accetta. Valerie has a BA from Otterbein University and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has some wonderful acting credits. She's on the first national tour of the State Fair, lots of great directing, and is currently the head of musical theater and the associate professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. I don't know why I said the associate professor, like you're the only one. The only one. At a musical theater at Alabama, Birmingham, which is located, shockingly, in Birmingham, Alabama. It's about 12 to 14 BFAMTs. They offer that BFANMT as well as a BA theater, BA dance, etc. We'll talk about some different degrees. Valerie, how are you doing today? Welcome on the pod.

[4:07] Valerie Accetta: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to chat with you and to talk more about UAB. I'm so excited to do it. And yes, and I think we will say UAB a little bit more colloquial now that we've said it, just to avoid the mouthful. But before we dive too deep into UAB, talk to me about, I read that brief bio of yourself, but talk to me about what is the previously on of what we need to know about Valerie? What do we need to know in terms of you as a human being before we get into the school, of your journey to the school?

[4:28] Valerie Accetta: I love that. I am originally from Columbus, Ohio. That was home for me. I grew up there. I moved away and went to college. I started at the University of Miami in Florida. And as you mentioned, I did do the first national tour of State Fair, which I booked my freshman year of college. So I'm actually a college dropout. Who knew that was going to drop out with a master's degree? That's how you do it. That's, you know, yeah, no, I did go back eventually, but before going back to finish my degree, I moved to New York. I was an equity actress and did that whole, you know, scene for several years. And then went back to Otterbein and they were really great to me. Of course, that's also in Columbus. So that was hometown for me. And I knew the folks there and they helped me to create my own degree, a BA in musical theater pedagogy, which was very cool.

[5:21] Valerie Accetta: And it seems like by the time you went back, you knew I'm going back because I want to teach. For you, finishing the degree was about, obviously you've studied pedagogy. You're thinking, I do want to pursue teaching.

[5:24] Valerie Accetta: That's right. Exactly. And then right after I graduated, I moved to Athens, Greece, and I was in Athens, Greece for seven years. I was the head of drama at a British international school there, working with high school and middle school students. And then after that finished, I ended up at Virginia Commonwealth University to get my MFA and then booked this gig at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And I was hired to create this BFA musical theater program. And what a dream. And 11 years later, I am here. I am remarried. I have a 17-year-old stepson and a four-year-old little girl. And so Birmingham is now my happy home. I really love it here.

[6:20] Charlie Murphy: I love it. What a great introduction to you. And let's talk about the 11 years of UAB. And in terms of the program you've created and sort of what it has become, I just would love to hear about what do you think makes a UAB student a UAB student? What distinguishes them from other BFA students, but also just kind of who are they? What is the culture of Alabama-Birmingham?

[6:38] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, sure. So we are located on... UAB is an urban campus. We make up 100 city blocks of downtown Birmingham. And so we tend to attract students that like to be kind of in the center of things. What we are known for UAB internationally is our medical school. So as far as like the college campus and sort of culture on campus, we have some really smart students from all over the world that are here to be serious about their studies. It's interesting because we are in the state of Alabama and that is a big football state. And we do have a football team, but we are not the University of Alabama. We are not Auburn. So we do have a slightly different sort of culture on campus than some of those other sort of big... We're not Big Ten.

That's Ohio. Southeastern, the Southeast Conference. This is a musical theater podcast. You could say SEC and they would go, oh yeah, of course you're SEC. Whatever, you know, we'll never know. You know, three people listen, they like sports on this podcast.

[7:44] Valerie Accetta: Right. And I don't know either because our school is like not that. So that's sort of the college-wide, university-wide feel. The department itself is small. We have 48 musical theater majors right now. And then the whole theater department...

[8:04] Charlie Murphy: And 48 is across the four years.

[8:06] Valerie Accetta: That's across the four years, yes. So in the entire program, 48 musical theater majors. And then we've got about 110 theater and musical theater majors in the department. And we, you know, I said this word to a colleague the other day, and I'm not sure it's a great recruiting word, but I feel like we're scrappy. We tend to attract students that are uniquely themselves, whatever that may be. And so, I mean, wildly talented, right? But, you know, interesting and a little different and wanting to be in a place that is going to support and lift them up. And what I love about that then is that, and I feel this way with my colleagues and with my chair, is that we can take really big risks and we can challenge ourselves to go further than we ever thought we could, because we know we've got each other's backs. So, you know, you use that word like family. Oh, it's a big family, but we're not here patting each other on the back always. We're here to challenge ourselves to go further. So, yeah.

[9:23] Valerie Accetta: I love that word scrappy. And I think it's a good word for people who are going to be in this industry, because boy, is that an important quality to have if you're going to be successful in this industry. You got to have some grit and some scrappiness and some toughness and all that kind of stuff. Now, tell me a little bit about the curriculum at UAB in terms of the four years, you know, of those 48 students. What does a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year look like in terms of the sort of musical theater pedagogy that much of it sounds like you created?

[9:40] Valerie Accetta: Of course. So, you know, it is a dense BFA musical theater curriculum. Students are singing, dancing, acting every semester, as you do in a BFA. In fact, someone in one of our students, we have several students that are in our Honors College at UAB, and they were meeting with their Honors College advisor, and someone said that the musical theater program has more credits in its degree than almost any other degree program on campus. So, it is. It's a dense curriculum. Really, I would say if you're kind of talking in broad terms, the freshman and sophomore year feels foundational and maybe a little technical. Students are taking music theory and oral skills and class piano. Students are taking the beginning acting classes, the voice and movement classes.

They're going to be in those first. We do level our students in terms of dance into sort of a more advanced or more beginner level, but they will be taking ballet or jazz. And then everyone in their freshman year takes a course called musical theater class voice, and that's the anatomy and physiology of the voice and how the voice works. And so then in the sophomore year, we start taking those sort of building blocks and beginning putting those pieces together with our intermediate acting classes, with our musical theater performance classes. We have a sequence of musical theater showcase classes, and that starts in the sophomore year as well. We get even more deep and rich, I feel, in that junior year with musical theater history, with our showcase two class, which is all scene study and duets and trios, with our advanced acting sequence, with auditioning in that junior year.

And then senior year is like open the sign for your business, right? So everyone takes a course called the musical theater capstone class that is very much the business course. It's, you know, what is my brand? How do I do my taxes? How do I negotiate a contract? You know, all of those kinds of questions. It is probably the most difficult class that students take and also the most useful in terms of the business industry part. We also have a showcase class that senior year where we're building audition material. We're putting things on tape. We're getting websites together. And then we do a New York City showcase that spring of the senior year. We do it a little differently. We don't like run out of theater and put on a show.

We really spend three full days in meetings and workshops and master classes and individual sessions with people. So our students are really kind of building this team. And then we have a smaller sort of curated showcase. And it's been working so well. Every single one of our students had agent interest last year. I mean, it's really quite remarkable how well that's working. But we wanted to kind of rethink that model a little bit as times are changing. So that's beautiful.

[12:45] Valerie Accetta: You've jumped a couple questions ahead, which I love in terms of talking about the showcase and the launch of the business, but you also mentioned sophomore-junior year showcase. Are you using that word differently when you say a sophomore showcase class?

[12:54] Valerie Accetta: Yes. So the sophomore showcase class, it's musical theater showcase. So we have musical theater showcase one, two, and three. The reason we call it a showcase is at the end of the semester, we do share work.

[13:06] Valerie Accetta: But the focus of each of those classes is a little different. That sophomore class is kind of an early audition technique. We do a lot of Le Bon viewpoints in that class. The junior sort of version of that class is our scene study. So that's duets, trios, script analysis, things like that. And then the senior one is really like get that audition book together.

[13:28] Charlie Murphy: But the sophomore and junior one, are you not inviting in industry guests?

[13:31] Valerie Accetta: No, no, no, no, no. We share our work with our community.

[13:36] Charlie Murphy: With the community. Yep. Totally makes sense. Do you feel like there is a discipline of the three, either that you feel like you're consciously focusing on or also kind of from the industry perspective, is there something that you feel like agents and managers think, hey, a UAB student is going to be really strong musically or really an amazing actor, really strong dancers? Do you feel like there's one of those three that flows to the top?

[13:56] Valerie Accetta: You know, our students are learning technical skills in all areas. And so, you know, when our students go up to Dollywood, we are told that our students can sing anything, you know, like, so we're getting that kind of feedback.

[14:07] Valerie Accetta: But what I would say sort of our philosophy is that it all comes down to storytelling. So all this, all the technique that we're learning in terms of what we can do with our voices, what we can do with our bodies and how we tell stories through movement is all comes back to the story and what it is we're sharing.

[14:26] Valerie Accetta: And so that is sort of the thing that underpins everything that we do.

[14:31] Charlie Murphy: And then what about the actors and the BFA MTs? How is their interaction or, you know, interested in maybe taking some voice lessons or, you know, auditioning for musicals? How does that work in terms of the way that those students interact?

[14:43] Valerie Accetta: We do have a beautiful sort of relationship and our students do take acting classes together. They take voice movement classes together. So there are there is some crossover in terms of the curriculum.

[14:53] Valerie Accetta: But if you know, I have lots of the BA acting students that take my musical theater class voice course. We have lots of take dance classes. They can both any of our majors can audition for any of the shows. So we will have students that are, you know, theater majors that are in the musicals or certainly musical theater majors as well.

[15:15] Valerie Accetta: We had several that were in Two Gentlemen of Verona this year. So there's lots of opportunities for kind of crossover and interaction for sure.

[15:25] Charlie Murphy: And what about outside of the theater program? So you mentioned sort of the beginning sort of what the college campus culture is like. But I'd love to hear both kind of from a culture perspective, what I'm getting in terms of the university experience, but also just like academic classes. What other options do I have? What else do I get from a UAB education that's not the musical theater?

[15:43] Valerie Accetta: Yeah. So we are sort of our tagline is that we offer conservatory style training in a liberal arts setting.

[15:50] Valerie Accetta: So students do take core classes every semester. It amounts really only to about one or two core classes a semester. It's not huge, but you do get to interact with other students on campus, which is very cool.

[16:04] Valerie Accetta: There are so many opportunities to get involved in things outside of outside of the theater department. I mentioned we have several students in our honors program. And boy, do they do so much around campus.

[16:19] Valerie Accetta: We have students that are involved in some sororities and fraternities. We have students that do other volunteer opportunities on campus. So there's a lot to get involved in outside of the theater department. Of course, our theater students are busy and they're in rehearsal a lot.

[16:35] Valerie Accetta: But there are plenty of opportunities for students to do things. And also in our music department, we had several students who were in the opera this last spring. So, you know, there are lots of things to get involved in on campus and also off campus.

[16:49] Charlie Murphy: I don't know if we want to talk about that now.

[16:54] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, go for it.

[16:54] Valerie Accetta: So there are several theater and arts organizations around Birmingham. The big one really is Red Mountain Theater Company. It's our two-time Tony Award winning theater here in Birmingham. They do primarily musicals, although they do do a Human Rights New Works Festival every year where they do stage readings of new musicals and plays.

[17:14] Valerie Accetta: But we've had a wonderful relationship with Red Mountain. But they just opened their twenty-nine million dollar arts facility three years ago, just after the pandemic. And so now we have a formal partnership with them, which is so cool.

[17:30] Valerie Accetta: Our spring musical now is a copro with Red Mountain. We just did for the first time ever last spring. We did Sister Act with Red Mountain. We had 19 students in the show. We did a three-week run on Red Mountain stage and, you know, performed to audience tens of thousands of people, which was very cool.

[17:48] Valerie Accetta: And then all of the adult roles were, you know, the Dolores came in from New York and professionals and all of the adult roles. So we're going to be doing that again next year. So that's one formal partnership we have.

[18:01] Valerie Accetta: We also have a wonderful partnership with the Alabama Ballet, which is a professional ballet company here. Several of our students take company class with the Alabama Ballet.

[18:11] Valerie Accetta: The Alabama Symphony Orchestra lives on our campus. Their home is the same facility where we do our performances. So there are so many really cool arts opportunities in Birmingham that our students get involved with outside of what we're doing on campus.

[18:27] Charlie Murphy: It's so cool. And it's such an interesting thing to think about as you kind of choose where to go to school of like sometimes you think, oh, if I go to one of these huge cities with the huge cultural tons of artists around me, you know, it's exciting. But it's also like there's something cool about being, well, this is where the exciting young artists are in this city that people will go. Let's go get them that we need a 19-year-old actor. We need a 20-year-old like that's a very cool. It's kind of I had some of that experience, you know, going to school in Pittsburgh of like when the shows that were casting, if they needed a 20-year-old, they're going to come to Carnegie Mellon and Point Park and the schools that are here, you know, it's kind of neat.

[18:58] Charlie Murphy: I'd love to talk a little bit just for talking in geography, you know, for our East coasters, our West coasters, many of whom are sort of thinking about. I don't really know what the experience of going to, you know, some may have very strong political opinions about I won't go to school at a red state. Like, what are we going to do? The state is red and I can't can't deal with that if I'm if I'm more blue. But, you know, people also just like culturally who are like, I'm not sure I know what that's going to be like for me coming from L.A. or New York or whatever or just anywhere on the East Coast. What do you feel like, you know, you have students I know that come from all over the country. What is the experience for people who are not necessarily native Alabamians?

[19:35] Valerie Accetta: I think people are surprised. I was surprised, you know, not from here originally. Yes, we are a red state and we do have to navigate certain political policies and things that that are a part of living in this state. But Birmingham itself, you know, we are this kind of little blue dot in the middle of this state. And so we are in, you know, we're in the Department of Theater at the University of Alabama of Birmingham, which is one of the most sort of progressive institutions in the state in this city, which is a beautifully diverse city.

[20:14] Valerie Accetta: And here's what's, you know, Birmingham has a history. And even even today, we are dealing with that history here in Birmingham. And it was the center of the civil rights movement. But I think what's really interesting, having lived here now for 11 years, is that the city and the state has really had to grapple with that and build an infrastructure to kind of deal with it.

[20:41] Valerie Accetta: So we are mayor here in Birmingham. Randall Woodfin is amazing. And so it's Birmingham is growing and changing and thriving and is really inclusive as far as the city goes. So I think people really are surprised when they when they come down here. You know, it is it is different than living in New York or different than living in L.A. or, you know, on the two sides of our country. But, yeah, it's it's a it's a pleasant, pleasantly surprising experience.

[21:21] Charlie Murphy: Well, what does it mean? And I think it's a question we get from from parents sometimes. And, you know, I had my experience going to school and sort of the Pittsburgh is basically the Midwest slash around the edge of the East Coast and whatever that experience was. But, you know, parents will often ask about that of like, what does it mean to navigate? You sort of navigate some political issues like when you're in a blue city and let's say a pretty inclusive place, which is true of a lot of these college campuses that are in more of an urban setting, even if they were in a more red state. I guess what does that look like? What do you mean when you say that we have to navigate that or that's that's an experience like what what comes up for students that is either navigable or not navigable, you know, from that sort of political perspective?

[22:03] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, I would say like if you look at some of the organizations in Birmingham that are doing the good work, we've got the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute that first of all, they have a beautiful museum that is right across the street from 16th Street Baptist Church. And so they are doing programming all the time and working with legislators in the city all the time.

[22:23] Valerie Accetta: They have a wonderful relationship with our mayor to promote legislation that are going to support all of our citizens here. We also here's another really cool organization we have on campus. It's called the Magic City, not on campus in Birmingham, the Magic City Acceptance Academy. And it's a charter school that in their sort of bylaws or whatever you call that they are accepting of LGBTQ youth. It's grades, I think, six or maybe maybe they've opened it up to grades four and up through high school.

[23:02] Valerie Accetta: So we've been working with them and we have partnerships with the Magic City Acceptance Academy. So that's right here in Birmingham as well. So we have these organizations that are that are that are doing some of that work here that we are partnering with. You know, I see a lot of changes happening in terms of transportation. And, you know, if we're, you know, to be specific about some of the the areas in which we see legislation happening to to support all of the parts of Birmingham. So, you know, I am grateful to see that that this city continues to look at that and continues to challenge its past.

[23:53] Charlie Murphy: Totally. And then we mentioned, of course, that you do have students that come from different places. What percentage of your students do you feel like you have a sense of, like, how many come from the general Alabama area come from across the country? And then I also kind of ask, as much as you know, where do they tend to end up? Do most end up in New York, Atlanta, L.A., you know, different places. How does that sort of work in terms of where they come from and where they go to?

[24:16] Valerie Accetta: Of course, we so I would say, you know, generally maybe a third of our students are from the state of Alabama. And then and it depends on the class. But but, yeah, maybe a third to. Yeah, around there of our students are from the state or from Birmingham, the city, and then the rest are from around the country.

[24:39] Valerie Accetta: And we've got we've got a couple of students from California. We've got we have several from Ohio. We get a ton from Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana. Like we tend to attract those students that are sort of in this region. But we also have students that have come down from Wisconsin and that are that have come from Arizona. So we we are starting to attract international students. A student from Turkey is going to be joining us this year. So it's looking, you know, we we are kind of our student body is from all over.

[25:15] Valerie Accetta: Where do they end up? We have got a big sort of cohort in New York. We've got a big group actually in Atlanta, which is only two hours from us. So there are so many opportunities in Atlanta and our students are in Atlanta are killing it.

[25:30] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, it's kind of hard actually to look at that big sticker price because after freshman year some of our students move off campus and save money in terms of housing and that kind of thing too.

[28:00] Valerie Accetta: I would say in terms of what they can get from the university, most of our students are on five to $15,000 merit scholarships. The department scholarships go from $1,000 a year to about three or $4,000 a year. It's not a ton of money, but that can be stacked on top of that. And then if they are taking online classes, they may save some money there too. And then one other opportunity, well, two other opportunities for our students to sort of help financially. We have touring productions that go out. Students that are cast in those tours, they get a $1,000 scholarship for up to 10 shows, and then on Fridays they get booked in schools or assisted living facilities or community centers. So that's another way to get some scholarship opportunity.

We also pay stipend dollars for our students to work in any of the shops. So if a student wants to work on campus and have their schedule work around their class schedule and rehearsal schedule, they can work in our scenic shop or our prop shop or costumes or work at the front desk. And that's another opportunity for them to make some money in the department.

[29:18] Charlie Murphy: I love it. That's really helpful specifics there. I've almost basically stopped asking this question because people are so reticent to give me any answers. But is there any in-state, out-of-state chicanery that you know about that your students have pulled off? Come sophomore year I've now applied to be a resident of blah blah blah and become an in-state. Or is that something that is, I'm seeing by your face, there's nothing to say about.

[29:40] Valerie Accetta: My sad face. Yeah, no, it is really difficult to declare, to change your residency to being an in-state student once, you know, if you are attending UAB. It has happened for students whose families, like we've had a couple students whose families have relocated here and they've been able to fight for that. We do have what's called the academic common market agreement with Louisiana and Mississippi. They, Louisiana and Mississippi, as far as I know, don't have a state school that offers a BFA musical theater program. And so we have an agreement with students from those two states where they can pay in-state tuition at UAB. So, which is one of the reasons why we get a lot of students from Louisiana and Mississippi because they're paying in-state. We just got to open that up to all 50 states and we're all set.

[30:29] Valerie Accetta: Let's talk a little bit, you know, as we talk in June, normally we're months out of decision day. But now we're really, this year, we're only a couple weeks away from it. It feels like in the recurring, continuing decision day that was 2024. But, you know, as you're having those conversations with students and you've accepted your students and you've got maybe your wait list and you're trying to figure out what, who's actually going to go here and who's not going to go here. What do you feel like is the kind of final determining factor? Why do most students say, you know what, I'm signing on the dotted line. UAB is my school. And why do you find students sometimes go, I'm going to go in a different direction. You were my second choice, but I chose it because of what? Like, what do you feel like are those big factors that make people say yes or say no?

[31:07] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, when students come to campus and when they visit and they meet our students and they meet our faculty and they see our facilities and they see how beautiful the campus is. That's, you know, we have and they see our shows like they'll see a show. And we've had students like come up to me at intermission of a show and say, I'm coming here. You know, so I think it's stepping foot in the environment and really getting the sense of that culture. I think that's when we find that students say yes. You know, when a student chooses to go elsewhere, it can be for any number of reasons. I think sometimes it is location. You know, students will end up staying in the Midwest or heading to the East Coast. You know, I think those are location is probably the biggest reason people choose to go elsewhere.

[32:01] Charlie Murphy: Totally makes sense. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And on the back end of the break, we're going to talk a little bit about the audition and admission process for UAB. So back in flash.

[32:10] Valerie Accetta: All right. We are back with Valerie Accetta and we talk a little bit about the audition process for UAB. You don't want to start off with you both. I want to talk about prescreens and then live auditions. But sort of start up in general, you know, as you're trying to accept 12 to 14 students out of a lot of students. You know, what are you sniffing for in a UAB student? What makes you go? This is what I think is going to turn it into a yes. This is what I'm kind of looking for. For me to say yes, artistically.

[32:37] Valerie Accetta: Yeah. You know, I'm going to go back to that word scrappy. But, you know, when we get a real sense of someone and their heart and their spirit, that's when our ears kind of go up, you know. And so for us, I mean, you know, we see we get to see people's work in those prescreens and at the live audition. But really, it's the interaction that we have with them in the room and when we get to chat with them and when we get to kind of get to know them a little bit. Those are the moments that are the most meaningful, I think, for us when it comes to those decisions. In more of the sort of post-performance interview section of the audition is where you're going. I'm really getting a sense of the heart.

It's not something you're saying I need to see in the monologue or right when you walk in the room. It's, you know, could be that. But you're saying most often it's when we say, hey, tell me about yourself. Where are you from or what? Then you're going. Well, and sometimes it is as someone walks into the room, it could be, you know, and we see students audition on campus. We go to Chicago Unified. I'm sure we'll talk about all of that as well. We go to St. Louis. We see students in a lot of different sort of venues. And, you know, the Chicago Unified are crazy. And sometimes it's just a matter of opening that door and seeing a giant smiling face or seeing, you know, seeing them interact with their mom or, you know, like something.

Something that can just clue us into who they are. It may be that moment before they even come in and do any of their work on campus. It could be as we watch them interact with our students as they're signing in and things like that, that, you know, we like you get a sense of someone just having a huge heart or someone, you know, offering to share an apple with a fellow auditionee or things like that. Like those things can't be sort of qualified sometimes.

[34:31] Charlie Murphy: Note for auditioning students, bring apples to your auditions.

[34:34] Valerie Accetta: We provide snacks on campus, so don't worry. I want to talk about the different platforms in person, too. But let's start with the prescreen in terms of just talk me through how you use the prescreen as a process. So both if you have a sense of numerically, hey, this many prescreens I'm going to watch and this many are going to quote unquote pass. Right. And then also kind of if you're viewing those at all differently in terms of the way you're looking for a certain talent level or are you looking at those differently than you do the live audition, I guess, when you talk about the prescreen videos.

[35:03] Valerie Accetta: So, you know, we really try to see as many students as we can because we know that that in-person interaction is so important. We really do try and see as many students as we can. Now, there are some auditions like Chicago Unified. It's finite and we don't, you know, we only have so many slots. And so we do have to be a little bit more, I'd say, choosy. And the longer we exist. Right. We just graduated our seventh class. The more auditionees we, we were up 50 percent in terms of auditions last year. So we know that we're going to have to be even more choosy in some of those years.

[35:48] Charlie Murphy: 50 percent year over year, meaning 50 percent more in 2023 than 2022.

[35:52] Valerie Accetta: Yeah. Twenty, twenty three, twenty four. We saw 50 percent more students than we had in the past. It's a huge jump, huge jump. And of course, like numbers. We actually we didn't crash during covid. We kind of leveled out because we had been almost doubling our audition numbers up until covid. And then we sort of leveled out. And this year it's here we go again, which is great. But also we value that in-person interaction so much. So we do try and see as many students as we can. What I would say is like we when we're in Chicago, we don't do a live dance call. And we do use that prescreen dance video to assess dance skill. If a student is a really solid dancer, the ballet portion is optional for us.

Because that helps us in terms of, you know, leveling and things like that. So there are a couple auditions that we do go to where we do a virtual audition. We don't do a live audition at our live dance audition at our virtual call. So there are a couple auditions where we're not doing a dance call. And so those prescreen dance videos actually are extremely important if you're not auditioning on campus. But, yeah, you know, I know it's optional. But, you know, my favorite video, honestly, is the wild card. It's so crazy. And, you know, some people just want to share a video of them, you know, singing in a different style or something. That's fine. But I love when a student really can share something unique about them on this.

Another opportunity to show some of that heart. Something good is a special human being. Who are they? You know, it's so valuable. So that's a great whatever that introduction 10 years ago, whatever that came into the world. Boy, that was a our students love it. And I think so many schools love it. It's really we say it's optional, but it's not really optional. What are you doing? Get it. Why would you not do it? Do it. Come on. Why would you not do a wild card?

[37:50] Charlie Murphy: Let's talk about those different platforms. So you mentioned Chicago Unified. What are all the different ways to kind of audition for you throughout the year? Virtually, you mentioned on campus. And then what are the different places I might be able to see you?

[38:00] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, right now we have two on-campus audition dates. We've got one in November. We've got one in February. You know, if a student can make it here for that, we encourage them to. It's a chance to get to hang out with our other students to really get a sense of.

[38:16] Valerie Accetta: The GPA of a student at UAB, university-wide, is a 3.7 I think, so we do have a pretty high standard in terms of academics. I think you have to have, if, and again, test scores are optional. I don't know when, I know it's now some of the big Ivy League schools are now making test scores not optional anymore, so I don't know when UAB is going to get on that boat. I haven't heard anything about that, but when they do, prior to COVID, you needed a 20 ACT in order to get into UAB. Occasionally, we would have a student that wasn't admitted academically, and then there's nothing, now I shouldn't say there's nothing we can do. We can always write an appeal, and if there is a solid reason or something that could go into an appeal that might change admissions' mind, we have actually had that happen, so there are some options there. But yeah, the average UAB student has a pretty high GPA.

[39:06] Charlie Murphy: What does that mean in terms of if I am a student with a 3.3? Does that mean that I'm going to have a less good chance of being admitted to UAB? If you like me artistically, how does that work in terms of the way that interaction would go?

[39:19] Valerie Accetta: I don't think so. I think, you know, of course we know that they may get more merit scholarship money, and so that may influence the student's decision. But if we are really excited about them artistically and personally and they have a 3.3, you know, that's okay.

[39:35] Charlie Murphy: I love it. What else do you think about as you're filling out a class? Are you conscious of questions like, "I'm worried about our gender balance, our height balance, size, racial diversity, geographical balance"? Are you thinking about differences of ability? How does that factor into the 12 to 14 humans that you're putting together, or maybe the 48 humans if you're thinking across the four years? How does that factor into those initial offers? And then also with waitlist movement, obviously knowing you're not going to get 100% of your first offers, how do you think about those questions as you're putting the cast together?

[40:06] Valerie Accetta: You know, it's hard to say that it doesn't weigh. I think we, and so when we talk about looking for a diverse group of students, we are talking, yes, about race and gender identity and geographic location, and we just end up with a group of really unique students. I think when it comes to those waitlist questions, and you know, I hate this for our waiting list students. I wish I could let them know, like, April 1st, so that they could make decisions. But if we, and I will say we, for the last two years have not gone to our waitlist. So if we do go to our waitlist, sometimes we do kind of look at, like, what is the makeup of this class? Who do we have here? Is there someone on this waitlist that can add to this diverse group in a way that we aren't representing here?

Then those questions do come up. But I would say in terms of the offers that we make, again, I think we just end up having a unique group of people. It's not like we're looking for a certain gender breakdown or anything like that. It's not like we're casting a show.

[41:35] Charlie Murphy: When you say you didn't go to your waitlist, does that mean that you offered 14 and yielded 14, or are you over-offering knowing you're not going to yield 100% of that?

[41:46] Valerie Accetta: For me, we over-offer by just a handful of students, but not a ton, because especially in these last couple of years, we've been getting our full classes. Because we do have a little wiggle room, it's between 12 and we could have a class of 16. Because we're accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theater, we could have a class of 16 in our studio classes. We prefer under 12 or under 14, 12 to 14, so that's our golden number. We will offer a couple more than that and then see where the chips fall.

[42:27] Charlie Murphy: I love that. That's very impressive, that percentage that you're yielding if you're offering 16 or whatever and getting in 14. We mentioned the online audition. How are you offering them? And guess, how do you compare the online audition experience to, I mean, of course, you mentioned you love when they come on campus, but you know, as you look at online, compare it to Unifies, compared to a regional audition, compared to on-campus. How do you sort of evaluate those auditions?

[43:01] Valerie Accetta: Yeah, you know, we know what you and I are talking through the internet for this is through the world right now, you know, and you still can get a sense of someone maybe in two-dimensional form. But we do, so when we do our virtual audition, we have sort of a meet-and-greet before we go into our audition rooms, so we have an opportunity to kind of see people interact in a larger setting. We also have students that hang out in that room, so as students are waiting to come into their audition, they have an opportunity to interact. Our recruitment coordinator is always in that room too, so after we have those auditions, we chat with them about, like, you know, oh my gosh, we loved this person from this, you know, whoever this human was, like, oh, they were so funny, they asked such great questions. Sometimes we have ways of assessing those things too in the virtual space.

[44:02] Charlie Murphy: I love it. All right, one more short break with Valerie, and then we're going to be back to wrap things up. So back in a flash.

[44:12] Charlie Murphy: Okay, we're back with Valerie Accetta. We're going to wrap things up. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, 11 years is such an interesting amount of time, especially to have COVID right smack dab in the middle of that. So sort of, you know, in the history of your growth, you mentioned you were doubling those classes in terms of people auditioning. Then COVID hits, you level out, now things are starting to build again. So I'd love to hear a little bit of kind of like what the history of that growth is, and I guess what you're shooting for. You know, what are the ambitions of UAB in terms of what you're hoping to continue to grow into in the next five, ten years?

[45:06] Valerie Accetta: You know, our first class that came in, we had five graduate in that first class. Part of that, we had eight in that first class, and you know, for whatever reason, people chose to do other things or went out. No one went to another program; they went to different degrees. But that first class, you know, we actually didn't even have the BFA on paper until March of the year they were making decisions. I was recruiting students saying, "Yes, we're going to have this program," and it's not online yet, there's no proof, but yes. So the fact that we got anyone in that first class is a miracle, and boy, I have such a wonderful relationship with those five students, and they're doing such great work.

One is now the education director at Theater Aspen, one is doing theater and teaching, just got his MA in theater education, so like, and one's in Atlanta. It's an amazing group of students. The fact that we had anyone in that first year was a miracle, and then as we continue to grow, you know, I think we keep, I know our audition numbers continue to blossom, and we are getting more and more students that are interested in us, which, you know, is wonderful because we want to see all these students. But I hope, I kind of hope we never become one of those schools that sees 4,000 applicants. I hope we can continue to treat every single student that wants to audition for us not as a number, but as a person with a name and a history. So I'm kind of hoping that we don't grow beyond our means in terms of the audition process.

[46:35] Valerie Accetta: As far as how I see the program growing, you know, we have a new faculty member joining us this year, a new music director position that's joining us this year. We have a brand new dance studio, which I'm hoping will allow for even more dance offerings on campus. We have this new relationship with Red Mountain Theatre that I can see continuing to flourish and continuing to offer more opportunities. As we graduate more students, we have a broader alumni network, and so when our students go up to New York now, like, they have a community, which is so great. When our students go to Atlanta, they have a community. And that's the one thing with those kind of legacy programs that have been around for decades and decades and decades. It's just they have this alumni network, and now we are beginning to build that, and that is exciting.

[51:02] Valerie Accetta: Wonderfully mom-and-pop and individualized and as you grow it's like you want success and you want to reach more people. But then you go I don't want to lose in your case the scrappiness might be the word you lose. We always feel like we don't want to lose our heart. We don't want to lose gotta keep our personalization. You know, it's like that's a tricky thing as you grow bigger and bigger of how do you keep what made you? You and what made you sort of unique in terms of what did originally grow the program?

[51:21] Charlie Murphy: Yeah, um, let's talk a little bit you mentioned being a parent a parent of a 17 and 4 year old you said correct?

[51:29] Valerie Accetta: We love I'm a parent of an about to be three-year-old by the time this episodes released.

[51:34] Charlie Murphy: What advice do you have for parents in this process? So when you've gotten to interact with parents as you sort of see them supporting their kids and figuring this out and trying to navigate this you know, what advice do you have of what seems like it works?

[51:41] Valerie Accetta: Well, and what maybe you'd avoid as a parent in this process. Yeah. Well that that's one thing I do think may be a little bit different about UAB. We include the parents in so much of what we do in terms of the audition process. And I know like a lot of schools are like parents you stay in the other room. What especially when we're I mean on campus we have a room for the parents and we go and we interact with them because this is a family decision. We want this the students are just making decisions as well. The parents are making decisions as well. And so we want them to have a sense of our culture, too when we're in in Chicago, we interact with the parents we sometimes invite them into the room and chat with them because it we want to see the whole student and part of that includes who is traveling with them to do these things and so, you know, I think those those kinds of interactions can can also help parents with making decisions, right? Like where do you? Feel that your child is is going to be uplifted in the same way you do in your home, right?

[52:47] Charlie Murphy: So it is you know when I hear that the average number of schools that students are auditioning for is 20 something I mean, it's just so different than when I was going through it and I know parents are so it's it's so stressful. It is so stressful.

[53:06] Valerie Accetta: So, you know, I'm not one to like offer advice but if I were to offer advice to parents like do things to take care of yourself like whatever that means find a parent you're saying.

[53:15] Charlie Murphy: Yeah. Yes as the parent like take care of yourself, too you know like that that Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago is a madhouse like go find a restaurant nearby where you can go sit down and have a cup of coffee and not be in the crazy you know like find ways to support yourself during this process.

[53:40] Valerie Accetta: I'm like, oh my god, I'm gonna need that.

[53:43] Charlie Murphy: Right tend to your own use first that like that's real like I would just this past year it was at a very anxious parent. I was giving the advice. I was like you need to go get a massage. She's like, okay I'll book my daughter for a massage and I was like no no for you. You need a massage like you got to take care of yourself like you got to make some plans at Chicago to do something that's for you and not for your child, too.

[54:03] Valerie Accetta: So we actually do that for us. So we you know we go to Chicago over here and the two things that we always do for ourselves because those are long days for us too and like to be in that hotel all day it's a lot. We always go to a Greek restaurant in Greek town and get authentic Greek food. That's one thing that we do and then we always go see a show. We either go to seven wall for the Goodman last year we saw Illinois's at Heck yes Shakes right before you know before it transferred. So like we always have things that we look forward to at that too. That's like our reward for you know you're gonna do better behind the table they're gonna do better as supportive parents that that's great advice.

[54:40] Charlie Murphy: We love tend to your own use. We love it. All right, if people want more information on you or on UAB, where would you send them?

[54:47] Valerie Accetta: You want websites to be like social media as we have an at musical theater UAB tag here at the right place for them. That is run by our students. So go there like I if you really want to get a sense of who we are, I would say go to our Instagram. There the other one that is really fun. Our students have a student run sort of organization called ice cream social so it's an ice cream social UAB and it's a student run dance thing that they do on Fridays of student choreography and so you can see all of their combinations there and then you'll get a real sense of like our students and what they're interested in if you're interested more and you know like finances the websites the place to go and people can always email me. I am I will respond within 48 hours, so it's that's a promise 48 hours 48 hours traveling if I'm traveling I usually put a way message, but it's V a set a a cc e tt a at UAB Edu.

[55:45] Charlie Murphy: I love it Valerie. This was such a pleasure. Thanks so much for this time today. We really appreciate it.

[55:51] Valerie Accetta: Thanks for having me.

[55:51] Charlie Murphy: Yes, yes, yes, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Valerie very honest and I think really cogent. I feel like some of these faculty are like great politicians and really good salespeople. Of course, we are actors after all. But I feel like Valerie was giving you a very realistic picture on a number of questions where you'll sometimes get those more vague non-answers, which of course I understand when the faculty do have to be a bit cagey or political depending on whatever their situation is.

[56:15] I'm gonna do mostly quick hitters on a few things. We've talked about before here. My first one was just that this was another great example of a creative showcase for our listeners who've been paying close attention. I think it's very smart. Always nice. Of course, if you can have those big fancy showcases that everybody attends, but in the realities of 2024 I do think creative invites and creative structures are a great way to get to know people and get to know the people.

[56:40] But in the realities of 2024 I do think creative invites and creative structure makes a lot of sense for programs that are newer and still finding their footing and where they might not automatically command every agency attending. I do think some schools that are a bit more established could probably use some of that framework to help them as well depending on what their actual attendance looks like these days and what that means like what agencies and casting directors are represented.

[57:04] But also it's about like who is actually attending from that. Is it the casting directors assistants assistant? Versus is it you know that big wig casting director actually showing up to the showcase?

[57:14] The other one we've talked about it before but for our newer listeners who have not caught every episode I just want to remind us to be careful how we think of the words conservatory and liberal arts we of course use those words at MTC a and we know what we mean when we say this is more of a BFA conservatory or this is more of a BFA liberal arts program. But I think those words can really trip up the newer parent listener sometimes you're gonna hear one school that's describing itself say we're really conservatory style. We we only allow one academic class a semester and another one might say, you know we love that there's a liberal arts university surrounding our drama school and our students can take up to two academic classes each year that are outside of their major but of course for our savvy listeners, you're gonna notice that they're describing the exact same academic schedule and that's why I think it's helpful to think of it more of a spectrum instead of like a binary.

[58:03] Yes, or no, is this a conservatory? Is it more liberal arts think of it like a spectrum in terms of what they're actually allowing on an academic perspective on that far end there are those rare schools that are truly academic which will let you double major and then in the middle are those kind of like minors are possible schools and then you know the and talk about what possible means and varying ways in which they talk about what's possible and the extreme end you're gonna see those schools that say, you know we have a few required gen eds and that's it and the rest you got to figure out you know fitting into your schedule in the summer or at nights or whatever you can do, you know and those are very different experiences from each other those those ends in the middle of the spectrum are very different experiences from each other but I think it's helpful to look at the BFA curriculum and look at what the day-to-day schedule is to see how different a program actually is from another program.

[58:48] Some of those schools in the middle that might call themselves a conservatory when they're referring to intensive sequential training might actually offer more academic opportunities than another school which is stressing its liberal arts bona fides about the university itself that is outside of what is actually a conservatory style program in the way we use that. So again, that language can be a little bit confusing if you can get a percentages you can get a gaps in the schedule and really just looking at the curriculum I think it's gonna tell you more than any specific word of are we conservatory or not?

[59:18] And the last little takeaway I want to do is just on wild cards. I mostly just want a second what Valerie said here in steps. I don't know we've talked about wild cards before but you've all heard my advice is always to lead with your personality and showing more of who you are as opposed to just what you can do. It absolutely can be both. I want it to be both. I think most of my favorite wild cards have an element of some fun special skill and then a lot of personality. But I think just like the actual edition itself students tend to focus too much on the what and not enough on the who they over emphasize how much the what is important and not as much on the am I revealing myself the experience of an audition should feel like it is sharing and revealing who you are and the wild card is part of that video audition experience.

[1:00:04] You can you find a creative way to express your personality and show off that you can juggle or Irish clog dance or sing opera or whatever it is. Sure that's amazing, but I would absolutely take a video that is creative and teaches me about who you are without showing off some special skill over a video that was really technically impressive but was lacking any of that you element. So ideally do both of course, but don't let the what crowd out the who they've just watched you sing two songs so it's not as important that you show off another vocal style then you show off another side of your sparkling and unique you-ness.

[1:00:39] And the last thing I want to talk about is we hit it in the episode pretty well but I think it's so cool when you can be in those cities that aren't New York Chicago in LA when you're going to school, but where there are artistic communities doing work. Let's not say that's better than going to city school in one of those cities or in a really rural experience but anything is something kind of unique about those kind of mid-tier cities.

[1:01:01] I don't mean mid-tier like it's second rate but just in terms of tier that where there's not necessarily a class full of professional actors at 21 years old all were working in that actual city, you know Valerie talked about specifically their partnership with Red Mountain and that kind of partnership it's not unique to this school not unique to UAB plenty of other schools will have partnerships with local theaters sometimes official partnerships like this and sometimes not, you know, I've talked before at CMU there wasn't like a an official partnership with city theater or the public theater but there was some great local theater and all of the CMU and Point Park students got hooked up with those opportunities.

[1:01:32] I remember having I had a great agent in Pittsburgh. I did some voiceover work. I booked a TV show I did lots of local theater opportunities while in school, but it all felt real it was exciting at the time but relatively lower stakes compared to booking a Broadway show, you know I do think that is a great way to get your foot in the door without distracting from school especially when those places do have that official university relationship like we're talking about here.

[1:01:54] You know, those places are used to working with and around university students in general and again, it's not like booking a Broadway show or a Broadway tour where it's gonna disrupt from your educational experience but it can give you that nice taste apprenticeship style experience obviously each of these experiences are unique and you know in and of themselves and I can't say one's gonna be better than another in terms of this partnership versus that partnership without experiencing all of them.

[1:02:17] But I think it's just a cool thing to ask about when you're visiting programs what the nature of those relationships are and examples of how students have gotten to get that professional experience while still in school. It is certainly not a necessity. It's something of course you can supplement whether you're doing summer stock or other creative ways you know in most experiences, you can find a way to get professional experiences while you're still a young person if you're hungry for it.

[1:02:39] But it can be a nice bonus to have that facilitated experiences kind of in the way that a semester abroad can be nice for students who want that though it's not unique. Of course, you could find different ways to get international experience abroad maybe you figure out a summer program or something like that but it's nice when it's facilitated and you have classmates going through it, too and it's already sort of the groundwork is laid for you in that way.

[1:03:01] Well, that's it another episode of mapping the college edition produced by Megan courtier Kelly Prendergast and myself. Follow us at mapping the college edition and me at charmer 7th that's h a r m u r 7 if you want to see my beautiful face in caricature and check us out at mtca calm for more information about how we can help you with your individual college prep needs to my young artists out there mapping their journeys. What do you think it says about someone if their caricature is more attractive than their headshot? We'll see you next week.