Ok, so I’ve kinda lurked on these forums for a while but I thought I’d finally contribute something. Feel free to talk about your audition below, and hopefully this will help parents and students who are preparing for auditions later this month or next year.
Alright, so I auditioned on January 31 in the afternoon session on campus. We (my father and I) arrived at around 11:45 and chilled out for a while in the waiting room. The atmosphere was fairly tense, and there were already about 20 people there.
I was wearing a blue plaid shirt with a black blazer, leggings, and flats. I decided to dress fairly masculine because both my monologues were sort of gender-ambiguous. I chose Viola’s ring monologue from ‘Twelfth Night’ and Rosencrantz’s box monologue from ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’.
They had us all come up and hand over our headshots and resume’s, fill out a form that included information on our chosen monologues and years of experience in acting, singing, and dancing. Then we wrote our first initial + last names down on a dry erase board and had our photos taken. The students who were organizing the front table were very welcoming and friendly. I remember someone kept playing ‘In the Night’ by the Weeknd haha.
At around 12:30 a man (I forget his name ahh) came in and gave a short speech on what the program would be like. He was funny and certainly helped everyone relax. He said that this would just be an audition–people would come in, do the monologues they’d prepared, and that would be it. No admissions decisions would be given out.
Now, I’ve read on this forum that it’s common for auditionees to be asked to do monologues in silly accents or given adjustments on delivery. This didn’t happen to me at all–is this a change as of this year, like the man mentioned? Or is it a bad sign??
He then introduced a woman called Ms. Makenzie-Wood (hitherto referred to as Barbara) who talked for a while about the merits of a Carnegie Mellon BFA and the advantages of the program, such as the playground week. She explained that she and the other man would be the auditioners, and would take students one at a time into separate rooms. Once you were done your pieces, you were free to go. She was very funny and welcoming–I liked her right off the bat, and hoped that I’d get to audition with her.
Then she left, students began offering tours, and I went back to waiting. My last name begins with a ‘K’ and so I only had to wait about half an hour.
I was taken out into the hall and got to talk with three very friendly students. I’m naturally introverted, so I mostly let the other students auditioning take the lead but the students did a lot to ease my stress, which was really nice.
Then I got called in to audition with Barbara. She told me there was no need to slate unless I wanted to, and that I should take a minute to run around the room or shake it out, and then to begin when I was ready. I was a little surprised by this, and I guess she could tell because she said “I’m an actor too, I understand.” I looked down for a couple seconds, wrung and flapped my hands while she was taking notes, took a few breaths and began my Shakespeare monologue. I felt it went fairly well, she chuckled at a few of the funnier parts and circled a few credits on my resume. Then I asked to grab a chair and started my second monologue. My mouth had gone dry out of nervousness, so I stuttered at two points toward the end, but, because I’m playing the latter part of the monologue as sort of panicked and distressed, I don’t think it was too detrimental. She took notes for most of it, but as I ramped up towards the end she looked up for a while and smiled a little. I felt very good about my performance.
I end the monologue sitting again, and she mentioned that I had a number of singing credits on my resume. notably as a soloist in the Young Artists of America programs production of ‘Children of Eden’ where we’re getting to work with the composer Stephen Schwartz (who, incidentally, went to Carnegie Mellon.)
Barbara asked me to sing a song. I was very surprised–I had prepared a tertiary monologue but hadn’t expected this. I said “Oh gosh, ok”, which may, in retrospect, been a bit of a gaff. I’ve read on here that they like to see how willing people are to play, and I may have appeared reluctant. She said “That won’t put you off too much, will it?” and I replied “No, of course not, I can do that.” As I was putting my chair away, she asked what song I would do and I told her ‘What I Did For Love’ from ‘A Chorus Line.’
She told me she was looking at it from an acting perspective; she wanted to see how well I could act the song. I did the song, which was surprisingly pretty good for having not done it in forever. She stopped me about 28-30 bars in. She said I had a lovely voice and that she ‘could listen to it for hours’. Then we sat and she mentioned that it was surprising I was auditioning for Acting over MT. We talked about what schools I was applying to–the first one I mentioned was Ithaca, and she nodded and said “Good, good choice”. I also mentioned Barnard and she said she knew the lady who used to be dean of theatre there and I told her my mom had gone there. She said I had a good, varied list of schools, and that it was obvious I’d put thought into where I was applying.
Then we shook hands, she told me “excellent job, really excellent”. As we were walking to the door, we made small talk. She asked me where I was from, and if me and my dad had stayed the night, etc. I said my dad and I were driving back home to MD that day and she told me to enjoy the beautiful weather–it was like, 65 degrees in Pittsburgh in January.
Is it a bad sign that I wasn’t sent in to audition for the other man? I didn’t see anyone else get sent back and forth but still.
Now, I know that CMU has the rep of having a super friendly audition process, and I think the atmosphere helped me. But this probably means that they’re this friendly to all 2400 applicants, so it might not mean anything. I know how selective they are, and I know not to get my hopes up. But I felt I had done as well as it was possible for me to do, and I loved the environment of they’re program, the faculty were warm and funny, and the students were super chill. They didn’t seem rude or elitist to me at all! The experience certainly boosted CMU much higher in my list of top schools, and, whatever happens, it was a great note to begin my college auditions on.
So, sorry this was so long, but I hope this helps anyone who’s prepping for their own audition! And, feel free for anyone else who’s auditioning for a spot in the class of 2020 to share their own experience. The waiting game has really started to hit me and we’re all in this together 
I felt like my CMU audition went by so quickly - probably a combination of nerves and the fact that I was 3rd or 4th in my session to go - and that it wasn’t as personal as some other schools I auditioned for. Oh well…it was just for the experience anyway, chances are slim by sheer numbers but I wish they would just come out with the decisions already!!