Does anyone know a lot about the Illinois Theatre Fest? I’ve been struggling for some time now to find any information online that answers my questions about the event. I am attending the college auditions at the festival, and I am the only person attending from my school this year, so no one at my school knows much about the process either. I’ve read that the callbacks can either consist of offers of admission, scholarship offers, short interviews, or just college representatives talking up their school, but does anyone have more details on the process? I have already applied to three of the schools that are attending (Ball State (accepted), U of I, and DePaul). Only U of I lists Theatre Fest as an official audition date, which I assume means that this audition will count for my official audition for U of I. What does that mean for Ball State and DePaul? Is this basically just a prescreening? If I don’t get called back by these three schools, should I assume that they aren’t interested and cancel the private auditions that I scheduled later in the month? DePaul’s on-campus audition that I signed up for is about four hours, do I assume that, if I don’t get a call back from my 90 second Theatre Fest audition, they won’t accept me into their program and I should drop these three schools from my list? I’m very worried and confused and I could use some guidance as to how this process works. Thank you so much.
Some schools offer admission to theatre Dept after thescon - such as U of I you mentioned above (contingent on university admission I assume). In our experience it is often (not always) smaller programs or more regionally based programs that do this. Many more well known schools, such as DePaul, do not offer admission after a theater festival but may call you back to show interest. If not called back, it does NOT mean you shouldn’t audition for the school if it is already scheduled. In fact we know people who didn’t get called back at a festival for a top program and ended up being admitted after a “real” audition (on campus or Unifieds). Do not assume the worst - use what you learned from the festival to improve your private audition. On the flip side, don’t assume getting a callback means you will be admitted after a private audition either. For schools such as DePaul it really is just them showing some initial interest but doesn’t mean much.
Of schools that do give offers of admission or scholarship, Many schools send out offers after callbacks in the form of a letter or email after the festival. Not necessarily while you are there (although that can happen too). Some callbacks will ask you to do your pieces again or work with you – those are more likely to be the schools that count this as your audition.
Just do your best and still plan on auditioning for DePaul and ball state no matter the outcome at thescon.
Break a leg!
@actingbear I just learned about the fest due to your post, thank you! I’m a parent of a junior, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about the fest once you get past your auditions.