2013/2014 Audition day review

cheeseheadmike
Sat, 08 Mar 2014 22:05:39 +0000

Oklahoma City University

This was my first trip with D to attend an on campus audition; my wife had been with her on the previous 5 trips.

D and I traveled Thursday 3/6 from Madison WI to OKC without a hitch. Checked in to the Hampton in the Bricktown section of downtown and drove off to find the school and some dinner. OCU is about 10 minutes from downtown and is located in an older residential neighborhood. The campus was well lit and quite pretty at night, and smaller than I had expected. You could drive the whole thing in 5 minutes.

We went back to Bricktown in search of food. Downtown OKC took me by surprise. The Bricktown section is a block away from the modern downtown area and the arena where the OKC Thunder play, but it looks to be 100 years in the past. Old industrial buildings have been turned into restaurants and nightclubs, with a river coursing through it. It was a tough choice, but we settled on Kevin Durant’s Southern Kitchen. It was a good choice - fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, mac-n-cheese, red beans & rice, and collard greens. All while watching the OKC Thunder beat Arizona on the big screen. The waitress said that the team comes to the restaurant after home games.

Audition day was well organized and moved smoothly thanks to the extremely helpful and friendly OCU students. The dean of the school of fine arts took us on a tour of the 225,000 sq ft music building, and it was amazing. Three theaters, multiple music libraries, dozens of sound-isolated practice rooms, a top-notch facility.

The day began with a presentation by the Director of Opera and Music Theater, Dr. David Herendeen. He’s a big burly guy with more energy that most of the kids. He spoke of the school’s approach to teaching theatre and preparing the kids for their professional careers. He also urged the kids to reflect on all of the people who had helped to get them to this point in their lives, and to express gratitude to those people. It was a good presentation.

The dance call from 10:00-11:30 was one of the most rigorous that D has had. Her monologue was at 12:30, and her vocal performance was at 1:30. D felt pretty good about her day and was done by 2:00. This made us both very happy, since many of the kids wouldn’t be done until 6:00.

Our outbound flight wasn’t until 6:38, so went went off in search of…anyone? anyone?..lunch. Where else but back to Bricktown? We found a place at the end of an alley called Chelino’s. D and I both love Mexican food, so we were in heaven. Fresh chips, salsa, guacamole - life doesn’t get much better. And boy, can that kid eat. Must be all the dancing.

Flights back to Madison went well. All in all it was a long 30 hours, but I really enjoyed spending time alone with D. She’s a confident, mature, polite, and level-headed young lady.

We both could see her attending OCU. The school has everything that she’s looking for. Besides, there are a lot more restaurants for us to try.