<p>I'm back! And glad to be. </p>
<p>I had a flight early Sunday morning for the unifieds, checking into the Palmer House that afternoon. I went by myself (and was glad that I did for various reasons; including but not limited to that it cost nearly half the price) but by a matter of crazy and sheer coincidence, a friend of mine was auditioning for grad programs there and her flight landed about twenty minutes before mine (we were leaving and arriving at the same time, from the same place and to the same place, but were somehow on different flights) and so we took the L train together to the hotel (which she wasn't staying at but wanted to explore to find her audition places--it was probably also so I wouldn't get lost, but she was kind enough to not throw that one out there). I had planned on taking a shuttle (it was either $30 one way or $15 one way, I can't remember) but when I saw that the train was $2.25 my decision was definitely made. :)</p>
<p>The hotel was so nice. And enormous. And I won't lie, the very first thing I noticed was, "They have a Starbucks in here!" I dragged my huge suitcase and overflowing backpack to the check-in desk, stripping all the while (I had dressed for freezing weather, which was fine outside but that hotel was constantly hot) and got my key to the 18th floor. I followed the signs, managing to get confused (so I'm not good with numbers) and burst out laughing when I realized that I had a corner room, the furthest away from the elevator that you can possibly get. I was, however, slightly secluded (as secluded as you could be in a hotel, I suppose), which came in handy when doing my warm-up sirens and practicing my songs. </p>
<p>Went to Second City that night with my friend. I'd never really heard of it before (and apparently I'm the only person in the world who can claim that), but it was fantastic! We saw the America: All Better revue. Definitely recommend it!</p>
<p>Penn State: I went down about 45 minutes early to hang out at my Penn State audition. Met some very nice people, and a transfer had some advice to calm me down (you're auditioning them as much as they're auditioning you). I heard a guy tell another kid, "It went fine, but I didn't get a dance callback." Whoooa. What? Yes, Penn State had a dance callback that night. That also made me less nervous: at least I'd know immediately if I was still in the running (which I assume meant you'd get a callback; I don't know for sure though!)</p>
<p>The audition went very well. I did my songs and then my monologue, and then they asked me to do my monologue again trying something different. The music director took me threw some exercises and had me do one of the songs again, thinking about something different with my voice. They interviewed me, and my most terrible answer was to the question, "What besides musical theatre do you do?" Pretty sure I mentioned watching TV and listening to musicals. And then started talking about how much I love musical theatre. Really?</p>
<p>I got a callback, though, and was so excited that I got one that I didn't pay attention to what time they said and had to ask the very nice girl outside. I went up to my hotel room for no reason at all and then came back down to the exact same place because my Hartt audition was right across the hall. It went fine. I didn't feel quite as on as I had for Penn State, though. I don't have much to say about Hartt! It's one of my favorite schools (obviously, since I applied there), but the audition was nothing much to talk about. </p>
<p>At the dance call, there were eighteen of us (an even number of guys and girls: coincidence? I wasn't sure). We did a ballet combination to Look to the Rainbow and a jazz to Ease on Down the Road. Both were fun, both I felt I did well at. Some of the kids were amazing at dance, and I was certainly in a different league from them, but I still felt good about it. The faculty was wonderful. I really enjoyed the audition because the atmosphere was so nice. They were laid-back, it was non-pressure...I loved it. </p>
<p>Michigan: The dance was okay--these kids were even better than the ones at Penn State, though! 8 boys, 7 girls, and it seemed like every one had been taking ballet since they were 3. Except for, of course, me. I got the combination alright, but then they also put me in a group of four with the three best dancers, so, while I'm sure the faculty stared at me a lot while doing the dance, I'm not sure that was the best thing!</p>
<p>My singing audition didn't go very well. It was morning, so my voice wasn't awesome, and I messed up my second song. I do a 16 bar cut of it and a 32 bar cut, and the 16 bar one has random measures cut out of it (well, not RANDOM, but you know what I mean). I got confused and forgot to skip over a measure, and then was totally off from the music and stopped. "Sorry," I apologized stupidly. No problem! We'll just start again! And then I DID THE SAME THING AGAIN. I finished this time, but it was not so good. She also continued on in my book (that was my fault; I should have been clear that it ended on that page), which was the same song only with the 32 bar cut; so I basically screwed it up and then did a longer repeat but did it well. How very confusing.) They were nice as can be, and let me do my monologue (I'm not going to lie, I half-expected them to say, "Thank you," as soon as I was done with my song) and piano placement (I don't play piano but I managed to kind of plunk it out). </p>
<p>Otterbein: Otterbein was another audition that I felt went very well. They spent a lot of time with me, which was really nice. I met Dr. John and he was wonderful of course-and I'm not just saying that because I told him what my username on this site was. ;) After I did my songs, they went through my book and had me do a couple more. Dr. John gave me a tip on one of the songs that made it enormously better and will seriously change the way I perform that song now. We talked more and they were wonderful; it was another audition that was no stress and just really fun. </p>
<p>I thought about doing walk-ins but decided not to. After all, I already applied for the schools that I REALLY want to go to. </p>
<p>The first night I went to "Italian Village" for no other reason than I could see it from my hotel room and kind of wanted deep-dish pizza. The tragedy when I got there was that they had only thin-crust. I got some pasta cheese thing (I have no idea what it was called) with soup and it was delicious, so the night wasn't completely ruined. ;)</p>
<p>After my last audition on the second day, I went shopping (completely irrelevant to this post). It was kind of nice to see girls my age without immediately knowing that they were participating in the unifieds.</p>
<p>Let's talk about clothes, shall we?</p>
<p>The uniform I saw most often on girls was a high-waisted black skirt with a tucked-in colored top (usually in a jewel tone). Exchange the high-waisted black skirt with a regular black skirt or black slacks, and you covered about 70% of the girls. Also common were the dresses with a wide band under the bust and a deep V-neck. Most girls also curled their hair. Most of these girls looked very nice, I'm not trying to say anything besides that's what I saw a lot.
What I saw that looked bad, though...
Skirts that were too short. Dresses as well (I definitely saw one that was supposed to be a tunic).
Uggs with dresses!!! Noooo!!!
Homecoming dresses. I only saw one, but it definitely took the cake for worst outfit. It was very, very clearly a homecoming dress.
The girl I saw who looked the nicest (in my opinion)? A black and white dress that gave the illusion of a high-waisted black skirt with a white top tucked in. It was tight and came just above her knee. She curled her hair as well. It didn't hurt that she was breathtakingly beautiful, but I definitely thought her outfit won!</p>
<p>Guys...I didn't notice as much about the guys, though I saw a couple guys who wore suit jackets-you know, the whole shebang. Some people probably thought that was too formal, but I thought they looked the most put-together.</p>
<p>Girls brought their moms, guys brought their dads. Just a general pattern (that of course I know there were exceptions to) that I thought was interesting.</p>
<p>I made a list of all the songs I heard (for no reason at all; I was really bored on the plane back), but the only one I heard more than once was Anthem from Chess, and also one girl sang A Cockeyed Optimist and another sang A Wonderful Guy. </p>
<p>I was overwhelmed by the talent there. It was one of those, "I thought I was talented but I'm not so sure anymore" experiences. I don't expect one acceptance from those auditions, even though I felt I did well and I did my best (expect for screwing up Michigan). We'll see what happens, I suppose!</p>