College Auditions

College Auditions: Part 1

I am a firm believer in following your dreams, and picking a career path that you love and find interesting. For me, that’s acting. I am currently a senior in high school, and am planning on auditioning for multiple BFA Acting programs in these upcoming winter months. If you’re like me, the idea of auditioning for colleges is more daunting than the word “daunting” can actually describe. Applying to college is stressful enough, but auditioning for your post-high school education? I get nervous just writing about it.
    Because I think it’s important to learn from experiences--both your own, and those of others--I’m going to chronicle my experiences with the college audition process this year! Whether you plan on auditioning for an acting program, or are just interested in what goes into the process, I hope you find this informative! This is going to be the first of a few college audition posts, so keep an eye out for the rest of them during the new few months.

(Note: I plan on auditioning solely for straight acting programs, not musical theatre. Because of this, some aspects of the auditions and the preparations that go into them will be different, but I hope this is helpful for the acting part of musical theatre auditions too!

Preparation
At this point, I’ve only been doing things to prepare for the auditions, and haven’t actually auditioned anywhere yet, so this is what’s gone into that so far!

1. Look at Schools
This one is one that every person who wants to go to college has to go through! Looking at colleges is so fun! It’s important to know what you’re looking for, specifically your “Must Haves” and your “Don’t Wants”. For example, I know that I definitely want an urban campus, but I know that conservatory style programs probably aren’t what I’m looking for. There are millions of different ways to find schools online, and there’s so much to learn about each of them! If you can’t go visit a campus, most schools now have a “virtual tour” option on their website or on YouTube, so that you can get a basic look at the school and the environment!

2. Look at Audition Dates and Requirements
I recommend looking at audition dates earlier than you think you should. I started looking about halfway through my Junior year, because schools keep their audition dates usually around the same time each year, so you can pretty much figure out when you’ll have to be ready! Also: depending on the schools you’re looking at, they may have auditions in other cities besides the one in which they are located. For example, a few of the schools I’m looking at that are located in Manhattan have regional auditions in Chicago (and Los Angeles, usually), meaning that they will be able to view your audition in that city, hopefully making it more convenient for you to audition.
Audition requirements are another huge thing. Although many of them are similar, and you will most likely be able to use the same monologues for multiple auditions, it is BEYOND important that you make sure you know how many/what kind of monologues you need to audition with.

Audition Coaching
    Recently, I’ve started working with a monologue coach for my college auditions, and it’s so helpful! If this isn’t a possibility because of finances, it is not the end of the world. However, I think in my case, it will definitely bring my audition to the next level. College audition coaches will help you find and work on your monologues (and songs/dances if you’re doing MT). There are numerous ways to find a coach, and to meet with them. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to find an audition coach, because I wanted to find one close by, since I didn’t think skype coaching would be best for me. I ended up finding mine by talking to a friend in a BFA Acting program. Talking to voice/theatre teachers and theatre friends is so helpful in this process! If a coach isn’t available to you close by, there are a lot of coaches and organizations that do Skype Coaching, meaning you can do the lessons from your own home, in front of your computer!

At this point in my process, I’ve been focusing a lot on actually planning and figuring out the auditions, but the next posts in the series will be more focused on the actual audition processes. Let me know if you have any experiences/tips/questions with college auditions!

Alex Bosworth
Twitter: @alex_bozzie
Instagram: alex_boz