The Freshman Experiment

The weekend included two college auditions, my very last one being today.

Yesterday was kind of a dud, which was to be expected. Things just weren’t in my favor on Saturday: I was running on 2 hours sleep, the audition was at 9 am, and I was literally the FIRST person to perform. There was nothing wrong with what I did, it was just completely mediocre. I’m about 99% sure that I won’t get in there (I’m not being self-deprecating, I’m just being realistic about my performance), but for some reason, I wasn’t upset at all. It was so confusing: I felt like I should cry, but I just didn’t feel the need to.  Which is a very good thing, I think.

Today, however, was wonderful. I think everything finally came together, and in the most unexpected way. It was my final audition and I arrived at the college this afternoon with no anxiety at all. It wasn’t a school that I particularly wanted to go to, and after all the nerves and work over auditions, I was just ready to be done with it all. But during the info session that the faculty held before the auditions, I realized that out of all the schools I was looking at, this was the perfect fit. It’s an intense conservatory training program, but it’s within a liberal arts college, so I would still get a B.A. They have concentrations in one aspect of theatre, but students are able (and encouraged) to take classes in other concentrations, so I could still playwright and direct. They do about 20 shows a year, which you can start auditioning for as a freshman. And it’s only about 15 mins from PU, so I wouldn’t have to lose my friends. Around the time of this realization, I started getting very nervous. It became very clear that I needed to rock this audition because this school might be the one.

After an unbearable amount of waiting, I went into the audition room where I performed for three faculty members. They absolutely loved my comedic piece and worked with me extensively on my classical monologue, and they seemed to be very impressed with adjustments I made as they gave me direction. Then they sent me into a second room to perform for three other faculty members. While this is one of those audition mysteries that you can never really understand, being sent to a second room is usually a good thing, especially if they are not doing it for everyone. So I performed again and the new teachers asked me some questions about PU and why I wanted to transfer and then I was done. Bear in mind though, the whole process was a nerve-wracking hour of waiting and performing and working.  I took a tour of the campus and the dorms are amazing. The only downside: transfers have to wait until August before they hear about acceptance. There’s no way I can wait that long– I’m already going crazy.

I would just like to share with you all the moral of this story: sometimes when it seems that all your options have been expended, the perfect opportunity arises. A nice little hopeful thought to start off the week. Now we just have to see if it works out. If it doesn’t, they were still really great to work with and I feel like my monologues are much stronger than the were before the audition, which is great.

But, seriously, AUGUST??

An interesting, (5)
Hidden possibility. (7)
Could be exciting. (5)