URTA Tips for MFA Lighting

Hello all. I have a few questions for MFA Lighting recipients and current students who have attended the URTAs:

• What do you wish you knew after completing the interviews?
• What portfolio items did you wish you included, and which ones would you have taken out?
• When talking to schools, what did you find they really wanted to know about you other than the process and the result?
• How did you communicate the other side of who you are in a way that felt like you weren’t just telling them what they wanted to hear?
• Did recruiters give you any insightful feedback on your display or your work that you wish you would have known prior to the event?
• Did you see any red flags when talking to certain recruiters, and if so, what were those concerns?

Thank you!

Keep this in mind at all times when doing this... MFA programs need YOU. You need to be interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. And hot take here... MFA's are only worth the rolodex they provide you post graduation. So, have those questions ready too. Know what you want to gain by getting the MFA and make sure the school has graduates currently doing that who are still connected to the school. MFA's won't really teach you anything you don't already know, they just give you space to refine you as an artist.

Indulge me - MFA? URTA?

almorton said:

Indulge me - MFA? URTA?

Click to expand...

Master in Fine Arts, URTA is a "unified audition" for most MFA programs.

I never did URTA, I hated the idea of a cattle call for grad schools. I went to USITT, walked the floor with a few resumes, and had casual informal conversations with faculty. Keep in mind, whichever environment you go into, faculty will be performing and when you get there it can be different. It just depends what purpose an MFA will function for you.

My advice, don’t performed, be yourself. If the faculty can’t co exist with who you actually are for three years you will hate it.

Red flag, I had a professor talk about how all his students had weekly mental breakdowns and was super glib about it. I actively began to end the conversation after this person said that.

Red flag, the professors only want to talk to you about Broadway. 0.0001% of us will go to Broadway. See if students are working in other parts of the industry, no skool sends all their grads to Broadway, it’s mathematically impossible.

Thanks. Didn't know those.

So, in a window of the early 90's era, the URTA auditions/interviews for the West Coast were only held at Cal State Long Beach (or so I was told) so every spring we were inundated with folks from other schools coming to audition and interview with their portfolio's. I was the undergrad who ran the daily operation for both days, because I was still an Acting/Directing major at that time. It's fun to chuckle at that degree hanging on the wall even now. Anyhoo...here's some things that I remember and/or ring true based on what I'm reading here.

1. Nerves/stress are through the roof. Don't let your brain trick you into thinking this is the be all, end all of your time in academia let alone an entire career. Be confident in your abilities and yeah, watch for the red flags.

2. Get what you want out of it, and take notes. Don't go into some deep financial hole for this, or anyone.

3. If it doesn't work out, it's fine. In 30+ years, I've never met anyone in my working world who went through the process who mentions it. I'm not convinced anyone in rock n roll or theme parks or ships, etc...went that route. I could be wrong.
I actually blew off my interview day to go dork off with my girlfriend at a theme park. I was somewhere in Tomorrowland around lunch time when I remembered I had that appointment in about an hour.

If it can all shake out for me, I know you're gonna be fine. Give 'em hecc.