Questions regarding body shaming arise over college musical theatre audition form
by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
A discarded form used for on-campus auditions for the BFA Musical Theatre program at Syracuse University is sparking outrage due to its usage of body shaming language and ranking aspiring students’ bodies. Program administrators have reportedly said that these were old forms that were mistakingly used for this year’s auditions, but that leads to more questions, including how past auditions for the upstate NY school were adjudicated.
Last weekend, Syracuse University held its on-campus auditions for its BFA Musical Theatre program. A student who had auditioned noticed an audition form that had been left behind when the audition session had concluded.
At the top of the form, it asks the adjudicator to check a box that best describes the body type of the student auditioning. The first checkbox is listed as “Compact/Tight.” It is unclear from the photos, obtained by OnStage Blog, what the other checkboxes are listed as. However, if we lock at the other criteria, it shows descending value from left to right. That would mean, according to Syracuse Univerity’’s MT program, “Compact/Tight” would be considered best along with “Great” in the Potential category or “strong/athletic” when it comes to conditioning. Pictures of the forms are listed below.
Obviously, this isn’t good. While it’s no secret that college BFA programs consider body type in their auditions, many schools I’ve spoken to are making changes to their audition process, so that body size isn’t explicitly considered. In over a decade of experience in college theatre auditions, I’ve never seen body size listed on an audition sheet, and certainly not with the terminology Syracuse uses.
And not for nothing, but it’s gross to describe a teenager’s body as “tight.”
Yesterday, I posted the below on Twitter and Instagram. Needless to say, it caught some attention.
According to sources at Syracuse, within hours of my posts, an email started circulating from school officials explaining the situation. Apparently, what had happened was that school officials had sent adjudicators the wrong audition form. That form was used in previous years, and the new form had a completely different format, which did not include ranking body size.
While this may sound like an accurate explanation for what occurred this past weekend, it does create a list of serious questions that administrators at Syracuse need to answer.
When did they notice an old form had been sent out? Was it only after my tweet was posted?
Were these forms used for every audition session last weekend? Meaning were auditioning students ranked using an old system that had been replaced? Were students that weren’t “compact/tight” scored poorly, or were their auditions impacted by their body size since that was the top priority according to the form?
Is Syracuse going to offer to re-audition students who auditioned for them last week since their forms incorrectly guided how their auditions should be scored?
See what I mean? Serious questions. And I haven’t even gotten to the questions regarding that these were old forms that were used for the program.
How long were these forms used?
Why was it the first category on the sheet?
Is it possible scores from these forms eliminated a generation of students from being admitted
to Syracuse due to their bodies not being “compact/tight” or at the very least, did their body size impact how their auditions were scored?
Knowing how much Syracuse admitted body size “used” to factor in their admissions process, it’s reasonable for any student who was rejected to know question the reason they were not admitted to the school.
Are you seeing the problems that Syracuse is now facing with their explanation?
The theatre officials at Syracuse need to come up with some answers to these questions, and my advice is to be transparent with everything. I also would like to know what training staff completed to educate themselves on body positivity and its importance.
If they don’t, I find it very difficult to recommend students apply to the university.