Alright, buckle up. In many ways, I went through this process completely differently than many other people I saw online. I didn’t use a coaching service. I started researching only (gasp) the summer before senior year. I made some weird material choices. I did pretty much all of the research and scheduling myself, even though my parents offered to help many times. Many, many times. I never had a dream school. Yes, I have regrets, but actually, most of what I have done, I’m pretty happy with. I don’t know how helpful this explanation will be, but I hope it provides maybe a little bit of clarity. If not, well, I am an entertainer at my core, after all.
Like I mentioned above, I started this process in around May of my junior year. I promptly dropped it to focus on the show I was in and didn’t pick it back up until June. I knew that I wanted to be a performer. I would say that I’ve known this all my life, but I actually wanted to be a pastry chef in first grade, so blame little me for ruining a great full-circle moment. I also always knew that I wanted to go to college for this. I know several people in my life who are so insanely talented already that they could have easily skipped college and gone straight for the metaphorical big-leagues (I don’t know if that metaphor made sense. I’m very uncoordinated, and therefore have little knowledge of sports. One time I almost gave myself a concussion. At a choir concert. A holiday choir concert. Yeah.). I am not one of those people. I knew I needed training, the type of intense, round-the-clock training you can get at a college. But I also knew I wanted a college, not a conservatory. I wanted the possibility of double-majoring/minoring and a “typical college experience”. Both of my parents attended a very typical college. Brick streets, ivy, shenanigans involving Frisbees. I wanted that (even the Frisbees, although, as mentioned above, that might end in injury. I don’t know, I’ll update you if that happens). Throughout this whole process, I relied HEAVILY on College Confidential. I hadn’t made an account, but every time I would Google a question, I would add “College Confidential” after it (yes, I know I could have used the AI feature, but I absolutely LOATHE generative AI, so no). This, of course, led me to stumbling across a thread titled “The Process”. In case you haven’t already found it, it’s written in a narrative format, broken into months and “tasks completed” by a parent of a kid going through the process about ten years ago. Now, I loved reading this (multiple times), but I also found parts of it unreliable. For starters, it was ten years old, and a lot has changed since then, especially after the pandemic. The kid also applied (and got accepted/waitlisted at) top universities. As you will see, uh, that’s not exactly my experience. The kid was also a guy, and this process is definitely different if you present more feminine. The parents also did much more research than the kid, and obviously, the narrative is from a parent’s perspective. I wanted to provide a counterpoint to that thread, and I will attempt to do so with this. Hopefully somebody can glean information from this. Anyways, this is my interpretation of “The Process”.
Actually, I feel like before I dive into a month-by-month breakdown, it might be helpful to give you a picture of myself. Obviously not too many identifying details (that would be creepy), but enough. I was a high school senior (I know, shocker), actor first and second, singer third, dancer fifteenth. I’m neither particularly tall nor particularly short, and especially in auditions, I present myself with colorful, girly, vintage-inspired outfits and bubbliness. My technique is not good in dancing, but I certainly have energy and joy! I’ve been taking acting classes consistently for around ten or eleven years (minimum 2 hours a week, sometimes improv or Shakespeare thrown in), private voice for six years (first 4.5 with one teacher, second 1.5 with another) and eight years of choir), and MT jazz for one and a half years (and sporadic hip-hop when I was little. Not enough that it could possibly aid me in any dance audition). I’m a mezzo-soprano, usually an alto in choir, and a horrible singer for most of my life. Off-key, off-rhythm, zero diction. I know you think this is me exaggerating or being humble. This is not. Voice lessons were literal magic for me, but I still didn’t have many skills that you would think a “good singer” would have. I didn’t have a strong mixy/legit voice. I struggled with being on-pitch. My comfortable chest voice only went up to about an A, and I could usually belt up to a B. My vibrato was the least reliable thing in the world. The reason I got into the top choir at my school was because it was the only one that fit in my schedule. All this to say, please do not worry. It may seem like studying musical theater or acting is only for those uber talented kids you see online, but there will be a spot for you. At the end of the day, don’t look at the school name. Look at the course list and the faculty and how you feel when you picture yourself there.
Other than the “triple-threat” attributes, I am usually a character actress. I play loud, brash, screlty roles as well as tortured mentor/mother figure roles. I love Shakespeare and prefer singing Golden Age uptempo (by the way, I will not be listing my audition materials here. Not because I don’t want them to be stolen (always feel free to steal my material if you know me IRL), but because I feel like they would very easily identify me to any college theater program directors who saw me audition, and I prefer to remain anonymous on the Internet). I usually do comedy as opposed to drama, and my special skills tend to be more soft-skills rather than things like juggling or tennis. Academics-wise (and while bad/mediocre grades usually don’t matter as much in this process, good grades certainly do!) I was pretty solid. That is the one thing I’ll brag about, because I did not suffer through AP and dual-enrollment classes to move in silence.
My prescreen package was a jazz dance number from a 90s musical (~60 seconds), a few required dances (the ballet one which I stole for schools requiring ballet combos (just Roosevelt)) a folksy contemporary ballad full of longing and a bit of joy (~90 seconds, I also cut the video to ~50 seconds for some schools), a comedic golden-age uptempo that was pretty erratic and had belty bits near the end (~55 seconds), a comedic Shakespeare that felt more grounded in reality (again, I love Shakespeare, and used this for as many schools as possible, ~90 and 60 second versions), a contemporary comedic monologue (this was a zany monologue and made an impression on everyone I did it for, ~60 and 80 second versions), a contemporary dramatic monologue that had betrayal and anger and grief in it (this was actually a Frankenstein of a bunch of short monologues and lines that happened to be interrupted by another character who didn’t really add anything, ~60 and 90 second versions), and a wildcard (this was wild and just full of joy. I found that a successful wildcard is just pure, unadulterated YOU, not what you think the college wants from you. Feel free to be weird). For in-person, I alternated between all three monologues as well as a dramatic Shakespeare that I never used (very high stakes), a Golden Age power ballad (that I used literally once, more jazzy and bitter), a pop/rock song (that I never used, a very well recognized Meghan Trainor song), and a contemporary waltz-y ballad that was a bit higher and more mix-y and pleading (this with the prior Golden Age uptempo was my go-to, although this song was my second choice because ballads SCARE ME. Pro-tip: choose songs you love. Not what you think they want to hear, choose songs you love. Look up characters you loved playing or would love to play and find audition songs for them. Look up “Prescreen” on YouTube and find somebody with a similar acting style/voice type to you and STEAL THEIR MATERIAL. Be a little weird. The only thing is obviously don’t play a character that doesn’t share your background and would be offensive for you to play. I don’t think I’m the best person to explain this, but if you want more information, there’s a lot of resources online)! The songs were shot full body and then cropped if needed, the monologues were shot close up and then full body, and cropped for anything else. I got a ring light and background, but honestly, I shot many of them in front of a sheet hung on a wall in my house. Whatever floats your boat. The most important thing is sound quality, so I just waited for lawnmowers and stuff to be quiet and used my phone’s mic and a separate speaker attached to a separate device with my cued up audio tracks. If you can find a piano-only track online, great, that will hit everything, BUT if you can pay a friend/accompanist to play piano with you and record that, it will be amazing for your prescreens/tracks in-person. Just find a track that makes you feel good, and read audition/prescreen requirements carefully to see if there’s a ban on karaoke tracks (piano tracks will always be fine. Just make sure to pretend it was custom made for you if the school requires it, wink-wink). If you use a track on YouTube PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SCREEN RECORD IT. INTERNET IS NEVER GUARANTEED. SAME GOES FOR CUSTOM TRACKS IF NOT DOWNLOADED TO YOUR PHONE.
Okay. I think house-keeping stuff is done. There will be more sprinkled in later, but now is time for me to narrate the wild, crazy adventure of COLLEGE AUDITION SEASON (spoiler: it had a lot less horror and a lot more joy than I thought).
MAY: I opened Google Sheets and titled it College Musical Theater Auditions. I immediately realized I only have a cursory knowledge of Google Sheets and why am I doing this on here and why the hell are all of my words getting cut off. Note to self: look up a Google Sheets tutorial. I transfer to Google Slides and start making a slide per school and writing out audition requirements (singing, acting, dancing). I’m beginning to realize this is WAY too much work and I’m in a show for Christ’s sake! Why am I doing this backstage?
Lessons Learned: You don’t need to start in May. You really don’t. Enjoy the peace without the pressure of college applications. Also, Google Sheets is SO HARD.
JUNE: Alright, time to actually get started. I decided not to do a show this summer, so instead, I continue with weekly half-hour voice lessons, and I’m in a theater camp every night. I live near an arts center/theater, which is a huge plus. The biggest advantage I have, no exaggeration. I return to my Google Slides. I am immediately disappointed in the amount of work I’ve done, and really confused on where to start. I add a few schools to the list that I’ve heard people talk about, and then start Google searching. I’m not really adding information now (hey, I’ve just finished junior year. My brain hurts), but just the school names, one per slide. Later, I add pretty school colors (I like color-coding things). I look up things like “Best MT schools” and “Easiest MT schools to get into”. I fall down rabbit holes on College Confidential and Reddit and write down any schools that pique my interest. My Little Pony: FIM plays in the background. The main thing I’m looking for is an ability to double-major or minor. Theater’s an unstable career, and what can I say, I’m practical. I end up with way too many schools. Everywhere I look says to shoot for 20-30, but I have 100.
This is also when I meet with somebody from my local arts center. I am about to head to my first day of theater camp, one running in the evenings, and I’m so excited. It’s summer! I’m going to do theater with my friends. I’m going to be an MT major! Yes, I was absolutely married to MT. I didn’t even entertain the idea of acting. Why would I? I wanted to do everything, so I needed music and dance. I go to the meeting with the arts center director, somebody who has seen kids go through this process before, enough so that the arts center offers private lessons with their acting teachers, and this somebody who I have known since I’ve learned how to read. They have seen me at every stage of being an artist. And I’m ready. I’m READY. I have my slideshow (not done yet, but it will be)! I have a little notebook filled with my cramped handwriting, detailing how many songs I will need (twelve should be enough). But then, they sit me down in a lobby I’ve sat down in hundreds of times, laughing with friends, grabbing a quick lunch in between rehearsals and classes (tomato soup, grilled cheese, smoothie), pulling on jazz shoes, and they told me that while I should audition for MT if that’s what I wanted, acting schools are going to be the ones that really want me. I. Was. Devastated. In retrospect, I am positive that they did not mean I was a bad MT performer. Literally none of their behavior, past or present, would lead to that. They are one of the kindest people I have ever met. But all I could hear was that I wasn’t a strong enough singer or dancer for MT, and let’s be honest, I already knew my dancing skills weren’t up to par, so it had to be my singing. It just had to be. I have friends who are singers-first, and therefore I know that not every MT performer feels like this, but for me, my voice is my biggest insecurity. At times, it feels like a siren’s song, except I’m just drowning myself in waves of anxiety. My first lead role in a play, I acted my heart out every night and bowed smiling. My first lead role in a musical, I cried backstage in between my songs. I want to be a singer so badly, but I always feel behind. It certainly doesn’t help that I’m a part of a geographic area with a very unusually high amount of incredible singers (not just my perception, you would understand if I shared my location). That’s the biggest thing I have to work through. Seeing acting acceptances as a positive, not a negative about my singing. I know, I know. It’s a pretty big mental block. Now’s a good time to mention that it’s important to have a good support system during this process. Yes, of course, artistic people in your life, but also family, friends, therapists, and counselors. Even if they don’t understand completely, you need to hold on to the relationships around you and find time to connect outside of this theater echo chamber.
Okay, back to June. I begrudgingly added the acting counterpart to every MT program on my list, bemoaning the amount of extra work. It is here that I tell you that if you want to do both, you can do both. There are plenty of programs out there for you. But be honest with yourself. Don’t just audition for both if getting into one or the other is going to hurt. One program certainly isn’t more “respectable” than the other, but it’s a tall order to try to dig out deeply ingrained insecurities AND get your prescreens in on time. I finish out June with research. I will not try to find out how many hours total spent on this slideshow, because honestly? I don’t want to know. For each school, I put a back-up plan (BA program), double-major/minor options (there was a hot minute where I wanted to study Classics as a back-up. This passion quickly went away and has not been seen before or since. I think the spirit of Euripides possessed me), due dates, and requirements. Do you think I typed that all out? Haha, no. I get lazy in the eleventh hour. I screenshotted anything on the college’s website, application portal, and Acceptd portal that could possibly be helpful and slapped them on as images. Then immediately proceeded to lose all faith in myself and ignore those images in favor of looking up the information again because WHAT IF THINGS HAD CHANGED??? My college slideshow has ended at a staggering 243 slides. I went through a LOT of colleges. At first, I thought calmly and carefully and weighed the benefits of each program. The end was done purely on vibes. I was merciless about cutting schools, and yet I ended up with 20 MT schools (of those, 16 which also offered an acting degree), and 8 non-audition safety schools (which is TOO MANY. Since most colleges offer you admission even without artistic admission, you really just need one or two. Which is what I almost ended up with, but then one of those (OU) stopped being a safety, and, well, it’s hard to resist the temptation of walk-ins at Unifieds). June ended.
Lessons Learned: The research is a lot, but you really don’t need to start until the summer before your senior year. Enjoy junior year stress-free. Have back-up plans. My Little Pony is great company for research. Eventually, kill your darlings and narrow down the list. You cannot physically audition for 243 schools, so don’t spend a lot of time researching 243 schools. Trust your instincts.
JULY: Sleep-away camp month! My first time ever. It was a summer conservatory arts camp twenty-five minutes from home. And no, it was not particularly prestigious or audition-in only. Here is my biggest hot take: you don’t need the fancy camps. Or the fancy audition coaching services. They won’t actively harm you and will have some benefits, but truly, I don’t think they are worth it. I do think not having one can also benefit you. You aren’t getting the same advice as everybody else, so you will naturally differ from that mold and stick out to the audition panel. You’ll feel happier and more secure in your material choices, and have the pride of doing this yourself. Which, yeah, I’m going to brag, HELL YEAH I DID A LOT OF THIS MYSELF! That’s my biggest pride point and advice. If you are a teen reading this, please do the research yourself. I know it’s boring and can be not fun, but being involved in the process will make auditioning and decisions so much easier. Also, schools like you to take initiative AND you will be in a new space, becoming a young adult next year. You should be the person who cares the most about your college journey.
Anyway, tough-love aside, this was the month when I began to pick my audition songs. I had so many golden-age and so many uptempo and not a lot of everything else. I printed out the sheet music (I’m not condoning this, but some websites have free pdfs for you to download, like pdfcoffee), and labeled everything, and it was so nice and neat, but I immediately felt overwhelmed. I had eleven? Twelve songs? Too many. My plan was to learn them all, work them during the private voice lessons at camp, and then choose. Girl, what were you thinking? No. Stop it! Step away from the colored washi tape sticky tabs. I found myself drawn to this one song an older kid had used in a cabaret performance when I was younger, and I started to learn it. Except…I couldn’t hit the notes. At least, not in the way I wanted them. I felt breathy and weak when I wanted to feel exciting and powerful. But nevermind about that, I’m off to camp! I was so nervous that first day, partially because AP scores came out and I am nothing if not a nerdy perfectionist, but also because what if I didn’t like it? What if I realized I hated doing this much theater everyday? It’s important to note that my “major” in this camp was straight acting, and I added on vocal lessons and a college prep seminar.
The first day, we had a scavenger hunt. And I. LOVED IT THERE! It felt like a wonderland that I never wanted to leave. I had friends who were so passionate about their art! I had walks around the campus and freedom to explore the town! I had intensive acting training and a polished monologue (that I didn’t end up using. Oops) and nighttime activities and cool counselors and I was in love with everything about it. I knew that I wanted to pursue theater. I knew it with every fiber of my soul and I was finally ready to really dive in. One week was far too short, but hey! At the end of it, my mom showed me that she had researched the past theater seasons for every school on my list and added them to the slideshow for extra information. The next week I did a beginner MT jazz bootcamp daycamp. And I started on my Google Sheet. Yes, I finally learned how to use it. I expect you to be applauding at your screen right now. It only took me ten years of using a computer. Doing approximately two schools a night (~1 hour of work), I would add the following information to every school: Application Open Date, Prescreen Open Date, Application Due Date, Prescreen Due Date, Application Location, Prescreen Location, Application Requirements (essays, scores, etc.), Prescreen Requirements, Application Fees, Prescreen Fees, Does the Prescreen Need to Be Continuous?, What Type of Backing Track is Allowed?, Separate Slate Video?, When Does Scheduling Start?, Audition Dates, Virtual Audition Option?, Accompanist Available, and If So, Free or Fee?, Dance Call?, Audition Rough Length, Location, Audition Requirements, Unique Features About the School/Program (incredible for essays/interviews. Write this stuff down now!), Sticker Price, and Net Price (using College Board’s price calculator. Be wary of these. They are usually wrong. Always expect a higher price).
I began to narrow down my audition materials and eventually chose a contrasting song for prescreens that my vocal teacher had suggested. It was from a show that had recently closed its revival on Broadway, and I know you’re supposed to stay away from recent Broadway shows, but I was fed up at this point of searching through YouTube for materials, so I called it a day. Speaking of which, a little tip (that I think I mentioned earlier) is to look up other people’s audition prescreen packages on YouTube and note songs and monologues that you think would fit you. With that in mind, finding monologues is absolute hell. Honestly, if you have anybody in your life who might know about monologues from full-length plays, just ask them for help. Many schools often have different restrictions on monologues (after the year 2000, published play, full-length, etc.), so try to choose material that fits the harshest restrictions. With a vague idea of songs and no idea on monologues, I was set up for a session for audition coaching with a former director/current acting teacher at my local arts center who had gone through the process less than ten years earlier.
Lessons Learned: Be organized with research. Use YouTube, message boards, friends, coaches, mentors, anybody to find material. Make sure you know that you want to do this. Also (I know it’s hard), but try to enjoy summer at least a little bit.
AUGUST: First session with my new acting coach. She’s incredible. She brought a bunch of printed monologues (classical, contemporary, dramatic, comedic, pedestrian, heightened) and had me read them aloud for first impressions. We set up more sessions to be able to work on the material (roughly once a week until prescreens? Once every two weeks sometimes?), and I kept practicing material. This is also when the Common App opened. I had written my essay in a burst of inspiration, and the final draft I used differed very little from this initial writing session. I also had copy and pasted every essay prompt from every school into a separate document so I could work through writing every essay. This is great, do this! You can reuse essays as many times as you want, even if you change them slightly to better fit the prompt. Nobody cares. I also realized that I needed to have extensive notes taken on every single extracurricular activity I ever did, every award I ever won, every hour I volunteered (and I volunteer very irregular hours, so this was daunting and required sifting through emails and text messages). If you are reading this and are not yet an incoming senior, this is something you can start doing early. Luckily, my junior English teacher made us all document the start and end dates of our different clubs, because (for some reason) this is information you need to know. My best advice for academic applications is break it into chunks. For me, I applied to 28 different schools (although some were added later, but we’ll get to that) and tried to get all of my applications in by the end of October at the latest, doing about 2 a day (many offstage during fall play rehearsals!). I also (based on some advice) tried to apply to as many schools as possible through their direct website application, rather than the Common App, choosing to save those slots for last-minute additions and schools without a direct application. Yes, this takes longer, but you don’t want to be standing in your hotel room after a Unified walk-in, unable to actually academically apply to the school because all of your Common App slots are full.
I also finally nailed down my prescreen materials. Three monologues, two songs, and one dance cut. I figured this out by writing down all of the audition requirements from the different schools on my spreadsheet and then erasing any overlap. In addition, I made sure all of the essays for all of the different schools were completed by copy-pasting the prompts into my “Essay” document and crashing through them in one delirious night. That way, everything I needed was at my fingertips for many tedious days of clicking “submit” (yes, this does tend to lose its thrill after a while. But bonus! You get to relax about academic applications long before everybody else starts theirs). This is also the point when you want to send your SAT/ACT scores and dual enrollment/high school transcripts ONLY IF THEY ARE REQUIRED (THIS COSTS MONEY!!!). Choose strategically if your score will help you get into a school/receive more scholarship money, and only send official transcripts for college credit or high school credit if asked. Unofficial transcripts often work instead, and I got these for free from my school counselor by sending an email! Shout-out my high school guidance counselor for being amazing and supportive during this process and handling all of my official transcript send requests so incredibly fast. Anyway, this month was a blur of academic applications, as well as meeting with a piano accompanist (friend of a friend of my father’s) to record backing tracks (used these sooooo much) and PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Woo-hoo, yay! I also started brainstorming my prescreen video. School started, and I had two auditions for fall plays, and started preparing for a third play audition in September. I’m somebody who likes to cram in as many shows as possible, and if this is you, you can definitely do this, especially during prescreen season, with the right planning. If this isn’t you, this year is probably not a good time to start. Know your own limits, and know they won’t be the same as the other people around you.
Lessons Learned: Alright, I’m busy packing for college while writing this, so apologies, but I will no longer be putting lessons learned. The rest is mostly anecdotal anyways.
SEPTEMBER: Guess who got the lead in their senior show at their high school? Haha, not me. I actually played a character with twelve lines who didn’t show up until after intermission. When I found out, I was devastated. In retrospect, my high school senior year play in no way makes or breaks my viability as a professional actor, but at the time, it felt like the world was ending. In fact, many times that I thought the sky was falling during this process, it was just a soon-to-be-forgotten acorn, and I was standing under an oak tree, thick in the brambles of this weird, insular world. Do not be like me. It’s very difficult, and lord knows I didn’t have the strength or wisdom to do it, but you have to fight to recognize that one audition will never define you. So what if I bombed one of my last high school auditions and wasn’t quite good enough to land a starring role? I promise, not a single person in any audition cared whether I bowed first or last during curtain call. In other news, I began rehearsing for two other shows and beginning to prep for filming prescreens. Hot tip: get yourself a king size sheet for a backdrop. Iron or steam it, and badabing badaboom. You have a continuous, not distracting set you can hang from command hooks and film full-body shots with.
OCTOBER: Woo-wee, what a month. So, you might have noticed that I did not talk about filming prescreens yet. That’s because I did them all this month. And you know what? Yes, I was stressed out, but I’d probably do it again. The one thing I’d change was doing less takes of each song (I got a little obsessive), and focusing on deadlines so I didn’t (ahem) skip school one of the last days of October “just in case” to finish all of the videos. For songs, I got one good full-body take as well as a slate that I could cut down and crop and edit together, and for monologues, I filmed them with my coach, making sure I hit the different time requirements and body shots, ending up with a full-body and close-up shot (one 90 and one 60 seconds for each) for all three monologues (2 contemporary, 1 classical). I filmed every dance, introduction, and weird slate required, as well as my one dance prescreen (that I ended up subbing out with a random required dance call I liked better for half of the prescreens) and my wildcard.
Oh, boy. Have fun with your wildcard. Let loose. They know you’re talented, and honestly? At this point, they probably know a bit of your personality, too. I would caution against info-dumping about yourself. A lot of it can be repetitive with your essay and resumes. Instead, make this your passion project. Do it for you. Get wild and unique and do that out-there thing you’ve always kinda wanted to do.
Also, I finished my college applications this month. I broke it down to a few a day and did them during *~ *rehearsal*~* when I wasn’t being used. I also submitted all of my prescreens on both Acceptd and university portals. I can’t really give you advice to make this more efficient. Title your downloaded and uploaded videos well so you can easily find every version of them, have your google sheet with all of the deadlines and requirements ready, and put on a good show. Sorry, this is a bit of a trudge.
NOVEMBER: I hated this month. Worst month ever. Ew, yuck, I like to forget it exists. This is where prescreen results usually come out, and they usually come out at the worst possible times. This is where I got rejected the most. This is probably where you will be rejected the most. Don’t take it personally. I know it sounds hollow, but you’ll understand after this process: this is such a toss-up. Literally means nothing. Also, side-note, I would usually only pass for acting, not MT, and as you can read above, I was working through some…complicated feelings on that. Frankly? I felt like a failure, hated this process, and was generally in a funk. Yay, November!
DECEMBER: Thanksgiving break was a bit of a reprieve, but then, in mid-December on a Saturday, I had my UNH virtual audition. Yikes. Second live audition (we don’t talk about the massive disappointment of getting rejected and waitlisted from my first right before the winter choir concert), and I was so nervous. But then, something weird happened. For the first time, I got feedback from the other side of the table. And it was…more positive than I expected? And I kind of liked the experience? Wow, okay. At the very least, live auditions will feel like such a load off from over-analyzing videos of yourself for pixel-perfect precision. You finally get a human connection, and at least for me, that’s one of the biggest reasons why I do theater: connection. December also started off my winter break, and as a celebrator of Christmas, I used that as my marker for when to get serious. I relaxed until then, and then locked in on filming a few new videos for video submitted auditions (I felt like I had settled enough into the songs to warrant an update) and applied to so. Many. Scholarships. DO THIS! PLEASE! SCHOLARSHIPS ARE GREAT! MY FIRST YEAR AT COLLEGE IS SO CHEAP BECAUSE OF SCHOLARSHIPS! Not just school scholarships/honors college applications (which I suggest doing at the same time as you submit the application, if you are interested in these opportunities), but anything you can find. Hail-marys on the internet, community facebook groups, your guidance counselor. Utilize all of your resources and don’t back away from any opportunities. This is your one break to get this stuff done before it’s too late, so don’t waste it (it also feels incredible to go back to school knowing all you have left is auditioning and the paperwork is done).
JANUARY: New year, new me. Actually, no, I barely noticed the New Year and this whole school year was a blur, but it’s okay because here is where it gets fun! My dad volunteered to drive me to every on-campus audition, and for the next few weeks until mid-February, we drove almost every weekend to a new city and a new campus to audition. And I can wax poetic about how much fun this part is and how many people I met and how confident I grew, but I think I’ll let you feel that joy yourself. Also, I am writing this a couple weeks before I begin college and I haven’t packed yet, so September-now will be heavily truncated. Basically, throughout this process, focus on the people. Make friends, make connections, and try to show up authentically as yourself. This will really help your chances of getting in (nobody wants a hollow persona) and also will help you know if you click with a school or not. Also, send thank you notes. To everybody. It’s great to show appreciation (because this process isn’t easy on either us or them), but also, it forces you to be in the moment, tallying both names and things you’re grateful for, and putting out positivity into the world can make you feel less anxious.
FEBRUARY: Unifieds, AKA my favorite week ever. Just so much fun. So, so much (this isn’t sarcasm). I went with my mom and walked in for several schools and wandered the halls in the afternoons and explored and it was incredible. Side note: everyone sings in their rooms and the stairways, so don’t feel awkward, but make sure not to do so too late in the night. Everyone needs their sleep, including you. Try to walk through the Unifieds set-up before your auditions start so you roughly know where everything is, and as much as I hate to admit it, staying at Palmer is amazing. It makes the actual process of getting to certain places within the hotel so much easier and there’s truly nothing like being in a building where you can pretty much guarantee that behind every corner is someone you have something in common with who understands and empathizes with very specific triumphs and struggles you might have.
I loved this week, because of the people (including a friend since preschool who was also auditioning!), but also because of the stakes. Because guess what happens if you blow an audition? You can walk twenty feet to a table full of flyers for walk-ins happening all week, and you never run out of chances to to absolutely crush an audition. It’s the weirdest thing ever, but so fun, and I highly recommend going if you have the resources to. It’s definitely not necessary, but like bungee jumping, it’s a wild experience that you will remember for a long time. Also, as a proud public school student, I had to make sure to turn in my absence excuse paperwork and ask for the next week’s assignments in advance, which I firmly believe is the best way to go about this. Don’t leave it until you get back. You’ll probably have post-Unifieds auditions, so you want to work on as much schoolwork as possible during your down-time at Unifieds or before auditions so you can come back to less stress. Anyway, I returned triumphantly from Unifieds, partly because I had gotten a yes from a January audition, and partly because of the self-fulfillment of doing something scary and new and not backing away. The rest of February brought two more on-campus auditions at SRU and Fredonia, the latter of which included a sight-reading singing test (so be prepared if you go there, even though it wasn’t that bad). And then, I was done. It was so strange. I was in the midst of a firework show, so loud I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, and suddenly, the sound cut off. Now I was in the quiet again, and even though not all of my decisions had arrived, I was done.
MARCH: I rehearsed for my last high school show. I received new decisions every day. Of all of them, only two really hurt. One was a school I really loved from Unifieds, but I quickly got over it when they also sent along a financial aid package for my academic acceptance and it was truly an absurd amount of money to attend. The second was actually in February, and it was Slippery Rock. I was notified a couple days after my audition that I was no longer in consideration for MT. And I knew I was meant to be an MT major, so I felt the weight of a full rejection and got over it, even though I would jokingly refer to it as my bittersweet lost love. The dream of SRU was dead in the water.
APRIL: That is, until I got a call. Two weeks until I was about to perform the hardest role I had ever played, requiring me to stretch both my vocals and acting skills, and I was a nervous wreck. I came home from one particularly bad rehearsal, and I got a call. I didn’t recognize the number, but I decided to answer anyway. It was Slippery Rock with an offer to their acting program. In a movie, I would begin to cry happy tears and be immediately revitalized, full of joy at the prospect of my darling dream coming back to life. Instead, after I got off the call, I said aloud, “well, I wish I could go there, but I’m going to college for musical theater.” I had been accepted to Fredonia, and I was pretty set on attending. But in the coming days, I couldn’t get SRU off my mind. I LOVED the school when I visited and felt an immediate sense of belonging. But it was acting, not MT. Still, I added it to my final four list of schools, along with Fredonia, Nazareth (mostly because I loved the faculty I got to meet), and Wright State (because of their flexibility within the programs). I then proceeded to visit three schools (all but SRU) over Easter weekend and the weekend before, the rare pocket of time I had outside of rehearsals.
Wright State was first, and while I loved the program so much (to the point I still think about it), I knew the campus vibe didn’t quite fit me. Nazareth was next and perfect on paper, but something just felt wrong. Then, since we were in New York anyway, we stopped at the Fredonia campus to walk around. And since Fredonia was my top choice, I kept waiting and waiting for a spark of something, but I just felt nothing. And I remembered sitting in the basement of Stoner at SRU and feeling like I would sit in that same room hundreds of times in the future, and that’s when I realized that maybe even though an acting degree was never my plan, maybe plans can and should change, and your gut instinct is worth a lot more than any arbitrary markers of correctness are. I got home and committed to Slippery Rock, feeling happier at that future than I had when I pictured myself at any other school. And it suddenly made sense why I was always thinking about how it was a definite possibility that I would want to transfer from MT to acting in the future, and it made sense that I couldn’t get SRU out of my mind, and it made sense that you really can just go with your gut.
I took myself off of every waitlist, notified every other college that I would not be attending, and sent an email to the head of the SRU theater program. His response was near-immediate, and was filled with genuine excitement in a way that made me sure I had chosen the right place. Thinking about this decision I made, when I realized I wanted to act more than anything, and choosing to act was not “settling because I couldn’t hack it in MT”, I am reminded of a blog post I came across during this time. I will paste the link down below, but it made me realize that even though everybody studying MT is extremely talented, studying acting doesn’t make you any less talented. It’s simply choosing a different aspect of the art form to focus on. You wouldn’t say a ceramicist is “settling because they couldn’t make it in painting”. I know this probably seems obvious, but I had a lot of stupid, elitist ideas completely unfounded in reality. I will definitely own up to that because it’s important to not pretend like I knew everything was always going to work out, because I didn’t.
SUMMER: As I sit typing this, I just closed my first ever professional show. I am about to attend a stage combat class before going out with some new theater friends, and I leave for college in two weeks. I feel so happy. I can’t believe all that has happened in a year, and I can’t believe how much love I feel. I am so grateful. I am so grateful for everything, every triumph and every defeat, and I cannot believe that there was another side to it. It’s even crazier that I’m now on that other side. I know it can seem like so much, and it is. But please. Trust yourself. You can get through this. If you have the strength to want to pursue a career in this industry, you can make it through this audition season. Keep your eye on the prize, but also know that the prize will never be any acceptance or external validation. It will be the love and joy you feel, the very marrow of life that makes everything brighter and your days feel full to the bursting. Always and forever, break a leg.
EPILOGUE:
Alright, here’s the final stats. I encourage you to put on your favorite end credit song, as you imagine the text scrolling down over a montage of cute images of theater stuff.
Applied:
Baldwin Wallace University (BM Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Ohio Northern University (BFA Musical Theater)
SMTD University of Michigan (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Wright State University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Western Carolina University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Coastal Carolina University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Montclair State University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Roosevelt University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
SUNY Fredonia (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Syracuse University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting, Actor-Singer Track)
Carnegie Mellon University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Manhattanville University (BFA Musical Theater)
Marymount Manhattan University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Long Island University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Wagner College (BA Theater Performance)
Ithaca University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
University of New Hampshire (BA Musical Theater)
Ohio University (BA Theater (Non-Audition), BFA Musical Theater)
Columbia College Chicago (BA Musical Theater (Non-Audition))
University of Hartford (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Actor Training)
Nazareth University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Slippery Rock University (BFA Musical Theater)
SUNY Buffalo State (This was a mistake. I meant to apply to the BFA MT at U of Buffalo and messed up. Do not make this same mistake)
Wilkes University (BFA Musical Theater AUDITION WAS CANCELED)
Southern Illinois University Carbondale (BFA Musical Theater)
Drake University (BFA Musical Theater)
Viterbo University (BFA Musical Theater)
Prescreen Passed:
Ohio Northern University (BFA Musical Theater)
Western Carolina University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Coastal Carolina University (BFA Acting)
Montclair State University? (IDK if this was a prescreen or supplemental materials. BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Roosevelt University (BFA Acting)
SUNY Fredonia (BFA Acting, BFA Musical Theater)
Syracuse University (BFA Acting)
University of Hartford (BFA Musical Theater)
Nazareth University (BFA Acting)
Slippery Rock University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Prescreen Rejected:
SMTD University of Michigan (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Coastal Carolina University (BFA Musical Theater)
Roosevelt University (BFA Musical Theater)
Syracuse University (BFA Musical Theater, Actor-Singer Track)
Carnegie Mellon University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Ithaca University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
University of Hartford (BFA Actor Training)
Nazareth University (BFA Musical Theater)
Video Auditions:
Manhattanville University (BFA Musical Theater)
Wagner College (BA Theater Performance)
Live Virtual Auditions:
Wright State University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Western Carolina University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Marymount Manhattan University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
University of New Hampshire (BA Musical Theater)
Chicago Unified Auditions (Scheduled):
University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Coastal Carolina University (BFA Acting)
Montclair State University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Roosevelt University (Technically On-Campus) (BFA Acting)
Syracuse University (BFA Acting)
Long Island University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
University of Hartford (BFA Musical Theater)
Nazareth University (BFA Acting)
Chicago Unified Auditions (Walk-In):
Ohio University (BFA Musical Theater)
Southern Illinois University Carbondale (BFA Musical Theater)
Drake University (BFA Musical Theater)
Viterbo University (BFA Musical Theater)
On-Campus Auditions:
Baldwin Wallace University (BM Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Ohio Northern University (BFA Musical Theater)
SUNY Fredonia (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Slippery Rock University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Rejected from Audition:
Baldwin Wallace University (BM Musical Theater)
University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point (BFA Musical Theater)
Wright State University (BFA Musical Theater)
Coastal Carolina University (BFA Acting)
Montclair State University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
SUNY Fredonia (BFA Acting)
Marymount Manhattan University (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Acting)
Long Island University (BFA Acting)
Wagner College (BA Theater Performance)
Ohio University (BFA Musical Theater)
University of Hartford (BFA Musical Theater)
Slippery Rock University (BFA Musical Theater)
Viterbo University (BFA Musical Theater)
Waitlisted from Audition:
Baldwin Wallace University (BFA Acting)
Western Carolina University (BFA Musical Theater)
Manhattanville University (BFA Musical Theater)
Accepted from Audition:
Ohio Northern University (BFA Musical Theater)
University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point (BFA Acting)
Wright State University (BFA Acting)
Western Carolina University (BFA Acting)
Roosevelt University (BFA Acting)
SUNY Fredonia (BFA Musical Theater, BFA Dance)
Syracuse University (BFA Acting)
Long Island University (BFA Acting)
University of New Hampshire (BA Musical Theater)
Ohio University (BFA Acting)
Nazareth University (BFA Acting)
Slippery Rock University (BFA Acting)
Southern Illinois University Carbondale (BFA Musical Theater)
Drake University (BFA Musical Theater)
(14/25 Audition-Based School Acceptances)
Top 5:
-
Slippery Rock University (BFA Acting w/ Concentration in Acting)
-
SUNY Fredonia (BFA Musical Theater and BFA Dance Double Major)
-
Wright State University (BFA Acting)
-
Nazareth University (BFA Acting for Stage and Screen)
-
Ohio Northern University (BFA Musical Theater)
Final Choice:
Slippery Rock University BFA Acting w/ Concentration in Acting with a Vocal Performance Minor.
I was accepted to all non-audition programs.