By Matt Putnam, updated by Grace Anderson in May 2026

Things you are responsible for

  • Evaluating auditionees’ vocal abilities at auditions/callbacks
  • Leading all vocal rehearsals
  • Coordinating with the Orchestra Director regarding musical logistical issues (entrances that are hard to find, cues, etc.)
  • Ensuring that technical and stylistic decisions between cast and orchestra are consistent
  • Leading vocal warm-ups during prod week and before performances

Schedule

As soon as you get the position

  • Look through all of the music and determine all of the vocal requirements for all of the characters. Obviously this includes the ranges of the parts, but it also includes the quality of the voice and any particular abilities needed to properly play the character.
  • For all characters, determine what deficiencies in vocal ability would make an auditionee uncastable for that part. The range is a starting place, but also consider tuning, sense of rhythm, ability to harmonize, vocal strength, and breaks. This includes not only the named characters, but the ensemble as well. You will need to make a case to the CRB in order to help define who can be cast, so be thorough.
  • Pick the vocal selections that you want to hear for callbacks. You need to have this done a few days before auditions so you can handle early auditioners and anyone else who can’t make the regularly scheduled callbacks.
  • READ THE DOCUMENTATION FOR RUNNING MTG AUDITIONS
  • Look through old CRB examples!
  • As Vocal Director, you are allowed to also audition and be in cast. If you choose to do this, you will need to have a proxy who runs the vocal auditions.
    • Make sure you choose someone with decent singing and vocal directing/music experience. If they haven't VD'd or run auditions before, they should at least be comfortable selecting, reading, and teaching the musical excerpts.
    • Usually the proxy takes over about halfway through the CRB process, after you have conferred with the director (and choreog when applicable) about tiers and priorities for all the characters.
    • The proxy is responsible for constructing the exact CRB language and choosing the callback materials. This is to ensure that you do not have an unfair advantage by knowing these requirements/materials beforehand. However, the proxy must follow your guidances on requirements and overall musical vision (i.e. the proxy should not unilaterally decide that the tenor lead can be sung by a soprano up the octave unless you have said that this fits into your vision or you don't have strong preferences).

For auditions

  • Determine what you want to hear from the auditionees and make a plan for auditions in conjunction with the rest of the dir staff. Typically, we ask auditionees to sing a short excerpt (“30-45 seconds” or “16-32 bars” are common phrases) and do a range check for the vocal portion. For vocal-heavy shows, you might want to ask for two contrasting excerpts, but be aware that many auditionees will still bring just one.
  • In the audition, don’t be afraid to cut someone off if their excerpt is going long (I usually cut off at 1min30sec if the auditionee has not already cut their music). Commonly, people will know the whole song and will just keep going until someone stops them. Also don’t be afraid to stop them and ask them to start again if the accompanist (or the singer... but blame it on the accompanist) messes up badly enough to throw them off. If you and the other dir staff members manage to create a casual, friendly atmosphere, this shouldn’t freak out the auditionee.
  • Grace's Guide for CRB and picking callback materials:
    • For CRB, consider carefully what the vocal requirements are and what aspects of the role's vocal demands are non-negotiables vs adjustable. E.g. Is that high C really important for X character, or can you adjust an opt-down? As a rule, vocal abilities of MTG auditionees are highly variable and audition pools can look very different from show to show so make sure you are flexible and open-minded.
    • Pick your callback materials based on the vocal requirements you list in CRB. Is there an important high note? Does the actor need to sing super fast while still being understood? Do they need to have a lot of character/expression while they sing? Make sure your callback selection reflects these. 
    • For high tier vocal priority characters, you may want to have 2 vocal selections, especially if they have a lot of diverse or contrasting singing requirements. 
    • If there are tricky harmony requirements for certain characters, consider having a harmonization test (see Assassins CRB document example). My recommendation is if one of your CRB reps can sing well, have them sing the 'melody line' to have a controlled process and the auditionee sings the harmony line with them and evaluate their intonation/blending from there. 
    • Make sure your selections are teachable in the short timeframe you have at callbacks. I suggest sections that are ~45sec to 1min. Also make sure that the difficulty of the section scales with the difficulty of the role (i.e. if the role is really musically challenging, pick a section that's maybe more challenging to assess if your auditionee is adept that learning complex music quickly)
    • My formula for teaching callback materials: have the pianist play the melody 1x by themself, play melody + let actors sing along, have pianist play accompaniment with you singing the excerpt, then let actors sing with the accompaniment 1x or 2x. At some point, I will also give some notes on musicality and characterization to cue actors into what I'm looking for at a baseline. Then I will let them ask questions/review any tricky sections before having them perform the callback cut individually.
  • When evaluating first round auditions, be open minded and flexible. I usually evaluate intonation, range/registration, and baseline singing ability during the range check, then use the audition cut for musicality and expressivity or diction. I like to write down the maximum list of callbacks I will consider for each actor in the room, then pare down the final callbacks after hearing most/all the auditionees (not always applicable for instacallbacks). I usually filter first by baseline singing ability followed by range and other advanced musicality/singing features and character preferences.

Before rehearsals

  • Discuss the style and direction of the show with the director, and make sure that your vocal plans are in line with the director’s vision. Also check-in with who will be on stage at what points (especially for ensemble members who may be playing multiple characters) so there’s no confusion there.
  • Go through all group numbers and decide how to split parts. If ensemble members are being split in different ways throughout the show such that the voice type distribution changes significantly, it’s okay to assign people different vocal parts for different songs.
  • Evaluate your audition and casting notes to make your broad rehearsal plans based on what you know about your cast's average musical and vocal abilities. If you have a ton of experienced choir kids, ensemble rehearsals will likely be shorter or focus more on expression and character.
  • Make your expectations known to your cast ASAP and share any/all resources (cast recordings, rehearsal tracks, etc..). Do you expect people to rehearse on their own? Should they know which splits they're singing before they come to rehearsal? etc... You can see an example here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TvGLQJ_yiGREAmFODNpMAL8qB0Wbyx-j5r4SmtOmJlw/edit?usp=sharing
  • Make your rehearsal time estimates and send them to your stage manager! Rehearsal time estimates can vary greatly based on your experience/comfort as a VD as well as the complexity of the music or musical ability of your cast. You can see the spreadsheets below to get a sense for possible rehearsal estimates. 
  • Note from Grace: I like to use spreadsheets to track onstage/offstage cast members, splits, and song-by-song rehearsal needs. You can see an example of my preferred vocal spreadsheeting here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hPW0PM-XoYVARt__HTRtavrqPR5SKM89mE-Sz2mhWPU/edit?gid=83360715#gid=83360715 
    and here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nyFOoKuza7uw2KqTwf8HWu-aCAJ-JAjpLgplwnDBuUs/edit?usp=sharing 

At vocal rehearsals

  • Do your homework. Go through the song you’re rehearsing and learn how each part goes. You’re supposed to be the authority on the music.
  • Double-check with the director about who’s on stage. It’s a bad situation to have to re-split parts after they’ve been taught because you realize that all of your altos are off stage changing their costumes at one point.
  • Be aware that cast members have wildly varying levels of experience and musical skills. Some people will come in reading music extremely well, knowing all of their intervals, knowing theory, etc., and others will not be able to read music at all. Have a plan for how to accommodate all of these people. Be flexible, proactive, and patient. It may behoove you to make harmony tracks or other recorded materials or musescore resources to help your cast members.
  • Generally, solos/duets are already somewhat familiar to the actor(s) so rehearsal time should be focused on first solidifying tricky transitions and making sure rhythms/notes are learned, followed by vocal technique and musicality
  • In contract, ensemble rehearsals will be primarily focused on notes/rhythms followed by "putting it all together"
    • Ensemble rehearsals can be really tricky and overwhelming for first-time VDs. Some tips:
      • Be very well prepared and come in with a GAME PLAN. Tackle tough sections early in the rehearsal session when everyone is fresh and energetic rather than trying to hammer your way through the song chronologically.
      • Have a routine for teaching harmonies/parts
      • Emphasize precision in rhythm and diction (an in-tune but rhythmically messy ensemble sounds just as bad as an out-of-tune ensemble)
      • Be confident and move quickly. If one section (or person) is really struggling, it's more effective to get the rest of the ensemble locked in and then separately address the pain points at a later time than spend 20 minutes banging out the tenor line over and over. 
  • Vocal ability and technique will vary greatly, be sure you are ready to help actors navigate challenges in vocal technique. 
  • Make sure your actors practice independently, it is unlikely that vocal rehearsals will be sufficient time to get them performance-ready
  • Make sure your actors are taking care of their voice throughout the rehearsal process
  • Remember to plan for an accompanist, if you need one.
  • Encourage your actors to attend orchestra rehearsals in an unofficial capacity so they can hear the orchestration and practice their songs as they sound in the context of the show. 
  • If you are also an actor in the show, be mindful of how you give notes and maintaining dir and cast boundaries. Generally, when it's vocal rehearsal, you are the director and what you say goes. But outside of vocal rehearsal or when giving notes after runs, be sure to do so in a way that is respectful and try to avoid blurring cast boundaries. If you have a music director who is not performing in the show, you can also tag them in to be a neutral third party to relay notes! 
  • Don’t forget about warm-ups!

During Prod Week

  • For Sitzprobe, work with the Orch Director/Music Director to make a sitzprobe schedule. Sometimes it's easiest to run the show top to bottom, but other times, it's more effective to do the ensemble numbers first and let people go home early. 
    • Make sure your actors don't oversing at sitzprobe. It's very easy for singers to oversing when unmic'd in front of a big honking orchestra!
  • Encourage everyone to take care of their voices. Force feed people water, tea, honey, vitamins, or whatever you prefer. Prod week plus the first weekend of performances is a solid week (or more) of strenuous vocal work.
  • To the best of your ability, attend all prodweek runs and give notes to actors. Theoretically, all music should be learned and memorized but prodweek is often the time when small details fall through the cracks, or diction/projection is tossed out the window because singers have mics now. Be proactive and precise with your notes, and don't be afraid to get strict if you have to give the same note more than once. 
  • If there are ever offstage singers, get the sound engineer a thorough and up-to-date list of exactly who is singing offstage and when. If plans change (e.g., an actor who was once singing offstage now has to do a costume change instead), make sure that gets communicated. Otherwise you’re going to get, “augh, my zipper’s stuck!” blasted into the audience.
  • Likewise, work with the orchestra director and sound engineer to troubleshoot mic balancing, especially in vocal/harmony heavy shows, or if you have singers with wildly varying projection and dynamics in their singing. 
  • Unless there’s still music to teach, or something needs review, your job is pretty much over. You will be leading vocal warm-ups and doing any emergency rehearsals, but the more you can eliminate stress by letting things go, the happier everyone will be. Pick your battles wisely.
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