Each year, Carthage offers more than $300,000 in renewable music and music theatre scholarships to incoming freshmen and transfer students who demonstrate outstanding potential. Individual scholarships range from $500 to $13,000 and may be offered to music majors and minors, as well as students in the music theatre emphasis.
Scholarship reviews for fall 2020 have ended, but scholarship applications for freshmen entering in fall 2021 will be available in October.
Join our mailing list to receive more information about Carthage’s competitive scholarships.
How to Audition
An audition is required for admittance into the music theatre program and for scholarship consideration. All students are asked to first submit an application to the Office of Admissions before scheduling an audition. In-person auditions are held on scheduled audition dates before a panel of two or more music faculty members. Students unable to attend the scheduled audition dates may contact the Fine Arts Coordinator at finearts@carthage.edu about an alternate audition date. Auditions take place every February.
How to schedule your audition
To apply for a scholarship, students will sign up for an audition when the application form is available. A confirmation email listing the audition date, time, and other pertinent details will be sent once the application form is received and processed. Students should add finearts@carthage.edu to their contacts to ensure they receive all the information.
We recommend that students participating in the February Presidential Scholarships try to schedule their music theatre auditions on a separate date if at all possible.
The online application form will be available in October 2020.
What to prepare
Students who intend to focus on music theatre must complete a comprehensive music theatre audition for the music and theatre faculty. Students are asked to prepare two full-length, memorized vocal solos of contrasting nature (either style/genre or tempo). Additionally, students will be asked to prepare two short (memorized) monologues, each no longer than two minutes. Students will demonstrate musicianship through sight-reading and tonal memory exercises, as well as a music literacy assessment and keyboard skills placement. A dance call is also included in the audition day.
What To Bring
- A copy of your resume
- Head shot
- Two letters of recommendation (these letters can be emailed to finearts@carthage.edu)
- A copy of your musical selections. The copy should be in the key you plan to perform, double-sided, collated, and in a three-ring binder. Recorded accompaniments are not permitted.
- A change of clothes for the dance call: solid leotards or fitted T-shirts, as well as fitted dance pants, or black or pink tights that can be rolled off of the feet; ballet slippers or jazz slippers. No jewelry or baggy clothes should be worn
Where To Go
Auditions are held in the H. F. Johnson Fine Arts Center. This building is located just south past the chapel. Turn right when you pass the chapel heading south. There is a visitor parking lot to your left. Our building is directly north. There are two sets of doors. Please enter the southwest doors and head straight down the hallway to our check-in desk. Our staff will direct you to a practice room for pre-audition warm-ups. View a campus map.
Suggestions and Recommendations
- Give a clear introduction: state your name, and the titles of the work that your pieces are from.
- Perform facing straight ahead. Pick a focus point just over the heads of your audience or at a slight angle facing them.
- Select pieces that are close to your age range and physical type. Your monologues must come from published plays. Do not use your own writing, movies, TV, forensics or speech tournament pieces, or undocumented internet sources.
- Avoid dialects, pantomime, and props.
- Dress appropriately.
- Hair should be worn neatly out of face and eyes.
