Student Blogger: Olympia Prodafikas

This semester, I have the privilege of workshopping a brand new production! I wanted to share a little bit about this amazing experience. It has been a really valuable acting and general life skill to be able to connect with a group of people on a deeper level.

It is now crunch time; I go back to school on Friday and have an audition on Monday. Obviously, I haven't been in school so I couldn't take advantage of the resources that I normally have there. I have my own process for learning songs at home and I think it is important for everyone to have their own as well.

It is now August, so I am sure most of us are starting to prepare for going back to school. For me and other musical theatre majors, this auditioning and just getting back into that 'go, go, go' mentality. Every semester is always a whirlwind of class, work, practice, and performing. A lot of times it can be hard to juggle these things.

In this profession, we normally think of vocal care and rest as the number one priority. While it is high up on the list so is taking care of our brain and mental state. This is a tough business with many rejections and heartbreaks. I'm sure most of the advice you've heard is 'suck it up and build up thick skin'. This is true to an extent.

A few months ago we received the best piece of news possible. Broadway was coming back in full swing! I am sure that we all already bought tickets to our favorite shows and can't wait to get back to that theatre and hear the swell of the orchestra as they start to play. However, what does this mean for our careers?

When we all heard about the breakout of COVID 19 in China, I don't think any of us would have guessed that it would find its way over here and that it would be so bad. COVID 19 forced us to do many things including putting our careers on hold. I believe that our career suffered the most and we had to completely reinvent our training process.

Hi, my name is Olympia Prodafikas and I am a BFA Musical Theatre major at Manhattanville College. In this post, I would like to walk you through the audition process and some information about the school. I auditioned at Manhattanville in February of my senior year in high school.