A Day Trip To Chicago...

Last Wednesday I took a little trip (3 1/2 hour bus ride) down to Chicago in order to audition for acting graduate school.

The day began with me reciting my monologues one last time in the shower, making sure I knew every last word, every single pause, every slight nuance in my delivery. After breakfast, I made my way to the Van Galder bus for the long journey down to the Windy City. I stopped off at Walgreens first though, to buy some apple juice- it's great for the voice apparently!

I settled myself into a seat on the bus, and listened to my new (though delayed) December 2010 playlist. When I wasn't nodding off and catching a little bit of shut eye, I was going over my lines again and again. There could be nothing worse than fluffing a line in the audition. (Thankfully I didn't pull a Christina Aguilera and shout out the wrong words!)

When I arrived at Union Station in downtown Chicago at 1.30pm, I began a 20minute brisk walk across the city to the Hyatt hotel, where my audition was being held. It had to be a brisk walk not because of time constraints- my audition wasn't until 3- but because of the cold.

It was that snot freezing cold again. Biting. The kind of cold where any exposed skin is going to get chapped almost immediately. The following day when I left for work in the morning it was -12F (-24C)!!

With the wind being funnelled off Lake Michigan and down the criss-cross streets, it certainly was chilly. Nevertheless I had a nice walk across town to the hotel, taking in the sights of downtown Chicago and noting that not much had changed since my last visit with Nicole almost 2 years ago.

I arrived at my audition with plenty of time to spare. I signed in and wandered the narrow hallway where fellow auditionees  were waiting. That's when the nerves began to kick in. I didn't realise (though I should have) that a number of schools would all be auditioning in the same place. So in this narrow hallway on the second floor of the conference center, were Yale, Harvard, NYU, USC, American Conservatory, Stella Adler School and various others, all with little registration desks set up.

And then there were all the people present. All the Thespians eager to get a place. Most of them had done BA and undergraduate degrees in acting and theatre. Some of them had agents, or at least knew a lot about the business. Most people had lengthy looking resumes and full size, glossy colour headshots of themselves, taken of course by professional photographers.

And there was me with my little resume, recently updated to 7 items with my turn in The Mourning Hour, and my snipped up 4x6 walgreens print out photos, taken with my little digital camera (although with Nicole's photographic skills).

Most of the people there had been in Chicago for a couple of days, staying overnight and auditioning on multiple days to multiple different schools. I learnt there was one set of auditions where you go before twenty different schools at once. Nerve-wracking yes, but at least you kill many birds with one stone.

I on the other hand, had chosen to just audition to the one school- Yale School of Drama. Because it sounds awesome. I had really wanted to apply to UCLA, but they weren't open for applications this time around. I should undoubtedly have applied to more, but I was constrained by the financial costs of all the applications. $100 per school severely limited my applications.

So it was that we got briefed on the days events, and waited for our names to be called. I warmed my voice, doing the little exercises I've learned from the few plays I have been in. Before I knew it, it was into the audition room with the Vice Chair of Acting at Yale. We said hello, and then off I went, performing my monologues for him.

I chose to do Shakespeare's Henry V- the spirit rousing battle speech of Henry to his troops, beginning with "once more unto the breach dear friends, once more". I followed it up with a monologue from Up the Road, written by Australian playwright John Harding.

I was certainly very nervous standing in that room, but, despite my mouth getting a little dry, thought I did fairly well. Upon leaving, the auditioner thanked me, and then told me to make sure I check the callback sheet at the end of the hour. This gave me hope that he wanted to make sure I was still here, that he wanted me to audition for his colleague to0, and then perhaps invite me back for end of day call backs. From there I could even get invited to Yale for the final auditions.

Alas, it wasn't to be. Only three names were posted on the call back sheet, and mine wasn't one of them. A little disheartened, but strangely not too disappointing. I decided on a new course of action.

You see all the schools that were auditioning that day had signs up that all said they welcomed walk-ins. This seemed a little strange to me, for what is the point of having the online application process and the closing date, if you then accept walk-ins? I had been speaking to a USC alumni on the set of The Mourning Hour, and as they were just across the way, I decided what a walk-in entailed. After all, I had come all this way to Chicago, what did I stand to lose?

All I needed was a resume and headshot (I had extra) and $40 and then to fill in a short form. Since that was less than half the cost of other schools, I figured, why not! So I printed a resume, went to an ATM and soon found myself waiting for another audition slot. This time however, the nerves weren't really there, and I just relaxed a little and talked with "Sergio" from student admissions and services. He was very friendly.

A short while later I went into another audition, this time with an English professor at USC. She asked me a little about myself, and seemed surprised that I had never had any training in acting, not even an acting coach! (Did this mean most other auditionees did?) We talked about what I wanted from a master's program, and then it was on with the audition.

I felt I performed better the second time around, and got a clap from the auditioner after my Shakespeare piece. After my second piece, she thanked my very much for taking the time to audition, and said that my second monologue was such an interesting piece. Things sounded promising once again.

However, it wasn't to be. I got an email Friday from USC saying, thanks but no thanks. At least I didn't have to fill in all the extra application stuff and financial aid apps. But that's just about the only silver lining on that cloud. For some reason, I thought USC was going to be the one, but it turns out I was wrong. It was hard reading the rejection email, that's for sure. It's like being told you're not even good enough for us to teach you how to act.

But, I guess rejection is all in an actor's life right? There's going to be numerous auditions where I get told I am not suitable, and you just have to deal with that. It would be nice to get some groundwork down, to learn procedures and skills, but I suppose I will just have to wait until next year.

So what's next then? Well that I really don't know. The whole future is ahead of me, but I just don't know what it holds. It's a waiting game for other schools to respond; it's a search for any kind of job, if someone is willing to hire me and pay $4000 in visa fees; it's a search for more and more auditions, in the hope I get a breakthrough somewhere.

It's many options, but just no concrete plans. That sucks, not knowing. But I do know something will work out. I am big believer in things happening for a reason! After all, look where I ended up already! :)