College Audition Prep
Circle in the Square Theatre School is launching a College Audition Preparatory
program for rising high school seniors. Sara Louise Lazarus, audition coach and
Circle’s Chair of Musical Theatre, is offering seven private 1-hour a week
sessions on Zoom between June 15-July 28. Sara will meet with each student to
hear them sing, and then choose specific songs for them from her vast music
library. She’ll ensure that the songs participants choices fit the requirements of
the Musical Theatre Common Prescreen. Sara will create appropriate cuts of
the songs, and have accompaniment tracks made for each song. She’ll then
coach them on these songs to explore the text and the music to bring out what
is unique about each singer’s talent. At the final session, Sara will be on Zoom
with each singer as they record their prescreen videos. For those in the NY area,
there will be an option, at an additional fee, to record the videos at Circle, with
tracks or a live accompanist. All participants will leave with 2 song videos ready
to be submitted to their colleges of choice.
Sara’s students have been admitted to Carnegie Mellon, Ithaca, Michigan,
Northwestern, Baldwin Wallace, Elon, Circle in the Square, BOCO, NYU,
Marymount, Manhattan School of Music and other prominent programs.
She is an award-winning NY Director and is part of the team at Paper Mill
Playhouse that worked with colleges to develop the Musical Theatre Common
Prescreen. Sara is well-versed in the requirements of all the schools, and can
work with participants to develop their college lists. For students who would
want it, she can also set up a separate coaching schedule for monologues.
This program can be a one-stop shop for college audition preparation.
“My goal is to see the humanity in each of these students; the uniqueness in each of these students and to bring that out.”
Price: $999.00 for (7) Coaching’s and Directed Virtual Self Tape / Optional $150.00: On-site filming and editing reel in NYC.
Reserve your spot by emailing: Summer@Circlesquare.org
After enrollment, we will contact you regarding your personalized coaching schedule.
Sara Louise Lazarus is an Award-Winning Director, having received both a MAC Award and two Bistro Awards, the most recent in 2018 for her direction of the original musical revue It Helps To Sing About It. In 2021, Carried Away: The Lyrics of Comden and Green, which she directed, received a BroadwayWorld Award as BEST SHOW. In New York, she directed Ludlow Ladd with Kristin Chenoweth, Tovah Out Of Her Mind starring Tovah Feldshuh, Sam Shepard’s Cowboys and Icarus’ Mother, the world premiere of Terrence McNally and Skip Kennon’s Plaisir D’Amour, and the American premiere of James Saunders’ Birdsong. At the 92nd Street Y, Sara co-wrote and directed The 1959 Broadway Songbook for the Lyricsand Lyricists series, which later played off-Broadway at 59E59. Additional NY directing credits include Babes In Arms at Avery Fisher Hall; The Music Of Alex Rybeck and Remember Me: The Songs of Edward Kleban, both at 54 Below. She staged two Harvard Hasty Pudding Shows, She Loves Me at Yale featuring Melissa Errico, Ernest In Love with Jimmy Smits, and Starting Here, Starting Now with Carolee Carmello.
Sara produced and directed Stars Over Millburn for Paper Mill Playhouse, and co-founded Paper Mill Prep, where she was on the team that created Paper Mill’s Common Musical Prescreen. Sara is known for her collaborations with singer Jeff Harnar and musical director/arranger Alex Rybeck. The trio has created eight shows, and in 2019-20 NY has seen revivals of three of them. Sara has taught workshops for Yale, Harvard, the University of New Hampshire and Penn State, as well as Master Classes in Los Angeles produced by ASCAP. In NY she teaches professional musical audition and cabaret classes. Her students have appeared on Broadway in leading roles in The Ferryman, My Fair Lady, King Kong, TINA: The Tina Turner Musical, Wicked, Bette Midler’s Hello, Dolly, Book of Mormon, School Of Rock, The Producers, Phantom of the Opera, The Scottsboro Boys, Les Miserables, Ragtime, and on TV in Smash, Glee, Hawaii 5-0, Better Caul Saul, The Middle, Bull, The Blacklist and many more.
As an actress Sara was seen on Broadway in Show Me Where The Good Times Are and A Christmas Carol. Off-Broadway she appeared in Hay Fever, The Drunkard, A Child’s Christmas In Wales and in national tours as Nanette in No, No Nanette with Helen Gallagher, Chava in Fiddler On The Roof with Theodore Bikel, and Young Sally in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies with Robert Alda, Vivian Blaine and Julie Wilson. A protégé of the brilliant David Craig, Sara is a graduate of Northwestern University and has a Certificate in Acting from RADA. She is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Actors Equity Association, and the League of Professional Theatre Women. As faculty and current chair at Circle in the Square Theatre School, Sara has developed Circle’s Musical Theatre program, and most recently created the Circle/Eckerd BFA.
Reserve your spot by emailing: Summer@Circlesquare.org
