<p>Hello all!</p>
<p>I'm currently in a BA theatre program in the midwest, and I'm not sure how satisfied I am with it. I really feel I belong in a BFA Acting program, so I've been doing some research on schools to potentially audition and transfer. University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Acting has really piqued my interest, so much so that I'm disgusted I didn't look into this program my senior year of high school. (Although I was foolish enough to only audition for one school.)</p>
<p>Although I have one question. I'm hearing some great things about their audition process; they seem very invested in discovering each auditioner's identity as an artist. I hear most people say they were asked to perform something off of their resume or one of their credits or past companies was discussed in detail. In general, the audition seems to be more resume focused than any other I've heard of. However, I feel like this may contradict their interest in raw talent and passion over polish. I suppose they're looking reflective actors who can analyze their own artistic experiences?</p>
<p>In general, my credits are less than impressive. They aren't a lot of great roles; they aren't a lot of great companies. I got serious about acting at such a late age (freshman year of high school) that I knew I had a lot of learning and catching up todo, and so I spent most of my time training. So the training section of my resume is extensive and impressive, but if they were to look at my previous credits, I don't even know what role they could ask me to perform something from.</p>
<p>Should I be prepared to whip out something from anything on my resume? By that I mean re-memorize at least something from each role?</p>
<p>And this is a bit off-topic, but when I took a movement for the actor class, I played Antigone in a condensed version of Antigone performed silently, entirely with movement based on Chekhov's dynamics. I feel like it's an interesting acting experience that definitely had an impact on the way I view material; I was forced to interpret abstractly. I think it's an important experience to relate somewhere on my resume, but how do I even phrase that? Which section does that belong under? How do I clarify that it wasn't conventional, dialogue Antigone?</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, and sorry for bombarding you all with questions! I'm new here! :)</p>
<p>My D auditioned for Guthrie and didn’t get in–Her experience was that they didn’t ask for anything off her resume. They did ask her to re-do a monologue, this time with direction. Actually, the monologue was the one she’d chosen as “something you’d really want and would never get cast for.” That was it. They interviewed her, but we didn’t plan things well and it was her first interview and she wasn’t prepared at all for any questions. They asked what other colleges she’d applied to and ‘why Guthrie’? The ‘why Guthrie’ she was prepared for of course, but not the ‘what other colleges’ She was very nervous and forgot some colleges and babbled a bit. They also asked her grades, which was kind of weird, since she sent them her grades. This was just her own impression, but the day we went the panel was sort of strange–both panelists seemed sort of sour and in bad moods (to me). The girls waiting to audition (they were all girls) were cool and interesting and my D clicked with them right away. </p>
<p>The Antigone experience you had sounds wonderful. YOu should list it on your resume as ‘educational theatre’ and when you have the interview, talk about it just as you talk about it here. Explain how it has impacted you and in what way. When you say it impacted the way you view material, explain how. </p>
<p>As far as the overall acting resume–I think the fact that you’re transferring and know more what you want can be a strong point. I wouldn’t worry overmuch about less experience–after all, you’re going to learn. THe critical thing would be strong recommendations from theatre teachers in your current school. Can you get that? Also, is there any way you can get a coach or a professor at your school to help you with the audition pieces?</p>
<p>Be sure to put all this stuff on your resume. All of the credits you do have, together with all of the classes and training you have.</p>
<p>There are a lot of plays with the title “Antigone”–plays by Sophocles, Euripides (now lost), Anouilh, Cocteau, Robert Garnier, and Berthold Brecht. Plus an opera by Orff. (Thanks to Wikipedia’s disambiguation page!) Since it doesn’t sound like it was any of these that you performed, you probably want to list the name of the writer or creator of the piece you performed to avoid ambiguity. If you created the piece yourself, you may just want to list “Antigone, by [GuidanceWelcome].”</p>
<p>Other folks might leave off any clarification, hoping that by keeping their resume vague they can trick folks into thinking they have done things they really haven’t. Personally, I think that is quite unprofessional, and I am upset when I catch people trying to do trick me this way with an intentionally “vague” resume.</p>
<p>I think you will be working hard enough (at least you should be!) on the monologues they have asked for, together with possibly one or two backups. I don’t think you should take time away from this to work up other monologues from your resume. But you might want to consider using monologues from your resume for your audition, since we know that the Guthrie seems to like this.</p>
<p>KEVP</p>