@marg928 thanks and good luck to you too!
Anyone here want to chat about something other than Montclair? 
I can confirm that getting a card and being asked to shadow a student does translate into an acceptance at CalArts! My D was accepted yesterday.
So I got my decision from The Theatre School at DePaul today - rejected. But I felt like their audition was one of the most fun, personal ones that I did that I decided to post about it.
I live abroad, so I flew over to LA to do Unifieds there. I auditioned for 5 schools, which might seem like very few, but I applied to the same amount of BA programs because I wasn’t sure which route I wanted to go down at the beginning of senior year. DePaul’s audition was held at the Crowne Plaza Los Angeles airport hotel, so my cousin and I drove down for my 1 PM session. They had two of the Theatre School admissions people there - admin side, not teachers - to handle the checking in and everything. We were separated into two groups for our initial monologue auditions, and they were the people with whom we would be doing the one-hour class with as well. I got Cameron, who is the head of the BFA program and the Shakespeare teacher I believe. The other group got a woman, and I heard them doing lots of vocal stuff during their class session.
I think I was 6th-ish to go do my monologue, since it was in alphabetical order. DePaul only asks you for one, but after I did mine Cameron asked if I had another. This threw me a bit off balance because I had only prepared one to do that day, but luckily I had a couple more up my sleeve from other auditions. I asked if he wanted a classical or another contemporary - because he’s the Shakespeare teacher and you never know, but he asked for a contemp.
During the class, we did some basic stretching and spine roll-downs/roll-ups. Then we walked around the room and Cameron would call out “go to the person with the striped shirt/green Converse/curly hair etc.”. For the last exercise, we got into pairs and had a conversation with only the words “yes” and “no”. I was partners with a girl from a summer program that I did 2 years ago, and all the emotions of seeing each other again got caught up with us somehow, it was sort of amazing. And then came the wait, which seemed to last so so so long, for the list of who was getting called back. I’ve heard on CC of the callback list being posted on a wall, but for my session the admin people read out the list, and my name was first on it. It was such a surprise because I just went in for the experience not expecting anything. It was sad though because the people I had talked to didn’t get called back, and that just put more stress on me during the second part of the audition because I didn’t know anyone else.
On to the second part of the audition…we did our monologues again for 2 different faculty members. I went up to Cameron and asked which of the 2 monologues I should do, and he said the latter one, which was a comedic as opposed to the dramatic one I had presented to him first. After the monologue they gave me some text to read, which was just a passage from a novel. They said not to over-analyze it and just do it like you’re telling a story. Then came a short interview about my background in theatre, and what I felt my greatest weakness was. I wasn’t sure if they were talking about an acting weakness or just in general, but I assumed it was for the first and answered it that way. Maybe I should have clarified? But after the interview was MORE waiting until we were assigned scene partners to do a short, open scene. Again, they aren’t looking for something over the top and smart, they want to see your take your time and respond to what your partner gives. The faculty members then worked a bit with us with the scene, and then it was over.
Something else to keep in mind is that when we were called in to do our monologues, there was a red string on the floor that separated us from the auditors. It’s to prevent “the crawl” that gets you all up in their faces, but don’t let it throw you off! I found it a lot more helpful than at other schools where they just tell you to scoot back and you feel like you’re up against the wall.
So that was my DePaul audition, long story short: it was 5 hours long, a lot of those hours waiting, but I had so much fun during it. They are so nice to everyone and you can ask the admins anything about the school. It became my top choice after the audition, and I was disappointed to be denied but so happy that I got to have the experience!
@avonweasley, I love your attitude! The way you handled this bump in the road says a lot about your ability to stay in this business, which is fraught with setbacks, for the long haul. You are obviously self confident enough to know that DePaul’s decision says nothing about your talent. No doubt it was a difficult choice for them. You’re a class act.
Hi! Quick question for everyone, but @LuvsLabs since you mentioned the importance of booking Palmer House. 1) If Chicago unifieds are Mon-Thursday, book the hotel starting on Sunday? Stay the whole time? 2) My D will be doing mostly straight Acting, is that Palmer House too? Someone said that might be Hyatt?
@FourStars I put a post on the MT thread as well. My D auditioned straight acting last year. She did have 3 auditions outside of the Palmer House (one on campus at CCPA; the other two at another local hotel (Purchase/Guthrie) - I believe the Hyatt but hope someone else will confirm). We arrived Sunday and she finished her auditions on Monday/Tuesday. She was able to move an audition up so we could beat a snow storm out of Chicago. The majority of the schools on my D’s list, and all the schools where she wanted to do a walk-in, were at the Palmer House. Acting auditions tend to be shorter than MT auditions in many (but not all) cases. If Pace is on your list, they like you to block 1/2 day.
@FourStars I think you posted this on the wrong thread you should be on the class of 2022 board
My daughter did her acting audition for Chapman at Palmer House but all others were at Hyatt. Located there were UNSCA, Suny Purchase, Rutgers and Guthrie. Perhaps others as well, those were just the four of which I was award.
But things change from year to year. In 2014 Guthrie was at the Palmer… somlike everything else you have to check each individual school. (Which is the theme of pretty much every part of this process)