The seniors for Kent State’s theater and dance program returned to New York over spring break for big-time auditions. 

The New York audition has been happening for over 20 years and this year’s auditions started on March 27 where they performed on Broadway. This audition consists of seniors going to New York City to sing and dance in front of industry professionals that can potentially get students a job after college. 

Students can have the option to stay for the whole week or can leave early depending on what agents are interested in signing. Terri Kent is the coordinator of the musical theater program and is producing artistic director of the summer professional theater board house theater. She is the one who really understands the audition best. 

“The point is to put together a showcase, they have like two or three minutes each. I weave them together so that they make some kind of coherent, cohesive program or story and usually around 40 minutes long,” Kent said. “We then go into the city and present this for agents, casting directors, directors, managers, anybody who can help students get a job.”

Jonathan Swoboda has been with Kent State since 2008 working as the music director and faculty member and works closely with the musical theater majors as well. Swoboda says that the experience is helpful for students so that they feel comfortable. 

“It’s really about their exposure to New York and the experience of performing in New York so that it’s out of their system,” Swoboda said. 

Every senior can participate but students can opt out of going if they happen to choose a different path towards their career, yet Kent stresses how important this audition can be. The performers have to perform two pieces four times in one day for four different audiences.

Two main things stick out to Kent as important. 

“One, if a student gets an agent and a good agent is a good fit for them, that can catapult their career like five years to the future because if they are in New York, they have to have a survival job,” Kent said. 

“Second is that they have to be able to go to auditions when they pop up. Getting off work is challenging so for younger people who might go in for a cattle call might wait six, seven hours before they’re seen. An agent will have to make an appointment for you to conserve time greatly.”

John Kraus is a senior at Kent State who stood out at the audition, getting signed by an agency by the name of DGRW (Douglas Gorman Rasika Wilhelm). DGRW is an agency that is in New York representing actors and directors in theater, television and film. 

“It’s been crazy, it feels insane and it hasn’t really hit me yet because I didn’t do as much when I was little, I wasn’t on Broadway and doing all kinds of different stuff but now that I’m here, the little version of me is doing cartwheels because I can’t believe it,” Kraus said.

“The reason that I joined the theater and musical program specifically, is because I know at the end of the four years they were going to have a showcase which is one of the amazing opportunities to be able to be seen by people who can jumpstart my career.”

Leading up to the performance, Kraus and the rest of the performers gave a preview of their performance before leaving for New York. Kraus picked two pieces to perform where he played piano and did a tumbling performance, which he believes is what separates him from his competition because it shows how far his talent can range.

The audition was at Theater Row and Kraus said that the performance was designed to run without an applause in between. He said that yes, people were there to watch, but they’re also taking notes on their response sheets to see who they would want to call back.

Kraus’s biggest way to market himself is through tumbling and dancing because of his ability to do flips and be so flexible.

“I needed to make sure that I was giving everything that I possibly can,” Kraus said. “I can do whatever you need me to do, I can learn things within a week.”

Kraus joined the program in his sophomore year and when he arrived, he realized that he was behind- seeing other students in the class who were better than him. Kraus had to put in the extra work in terms of his dancing skills to put himself in the best position for success where he was specifically honing in on his dancing abilities.

“I packed my schedule with dance classes and I was in the practice room every day freshman year until 2 a.m.,” Kraus said. 

Kraus is Filipino and is aware that he is not the typical white performer. Throughout his four years of being at Kent State, Kraus has been the only Asian male performer since he’s been in the program and he says it means more to him because of the fact that Filipinos aren’t really represented. 

Jennifer Black is an assistant professor who teaches students ballet, tap and jazz. She is also Filipino and has been working with John for the past three years.

“John always had a lot of natural talent and huge skills but he’s had to work really hard to fine tune his skills,” Black said. “He did stay in the lower ballet class but after that he did move on to a higher level class.”

When Black was asked about what made Kraus stand out, she said it was his flexibility and that he had amazing natural abilities. She said he had the strength and could “jump like crazy.” 

Kraus was able to take big steps in his journey as he continued to work on improving his skill set. 

“What I like about John is he always chooses to take the more difficult path. I would give them options of certain versions, in my musical theater classes. I tend to have varying levels and John would always pick the hardest one,” Black said. “He loves to be challenged and he’s always thankful for his corrections.”

Karsen Guldan is a senior at Kent State and Kraus’s best friend, being right by his side living together during their sophomore year and performing in New York. Guldan has been able to see Kraus go through his journey and witnessed the ups and downs.

“John is the type of person who is very good at self correcting and figuring out what he needs to work on,” Guldan said. “He’s very good at looking deep within himself to figure out areas he needs to improve. I rarely have to give him any advice so I’m always there to support him.”

With the success Kraus has had, he admits that the toughest thing he has had to deal with is his mental health. Before talking with doctors, Kraus had been living with undiagnosed depression, anxiety and OCD. He would always feel nervous but in a different type of way and didn’t know why. 

Kraus says he was at his worst when he wouldn’t do much else other than go to school and go to class and would blow it off by telling himself he was just tired. 

“I would say my biggest struggle would be my mental health, I’m able to see where I am now versus where I was even just a year ago, it’s crazy,” Kraus said.

Kraus feels secure with now being signed with an agency and is getting ready to move to New York. Despite having all this success and working with people to get to where he is today, he hopes that the people he encountered know that he is kind.

“I would say that I do my best to be as kind as I can to people and to just help people where I can because I know life sucks sometimes,” Kraus said. 

“The biggest thing that people say if you ask them about me is that I’m a hard worker because I’m kind of a workaholic. I really try my best to be friendly to everybody because I think that’s so important in the world.”

Kyle Kuchta is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].