Wisconsin Auditions

February 12, 2012

As I said in my last post, this is audition season!  This weekend, I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Theatre Auditions.  I was the only one who went from SMU, so I had myself a little adventure.

It didn’t start out very well.  I had to leave after rehearsal to drive the 2 1/2 hours to a friend’s parents’ house in Waunakee, Wisconsin where I would stay for the night.  Unfortunately, after being on the road for about 45 min-1 hour, I realized that I had forgotten to pack all of my headshots and resumes…the ONE THING you take to EVERY audition, I had forgotten!!!  So, I turned around and got them.  Thankfully, I did not have to drive all the way back because my boyfriend met me part of the way with them.  However, thanks to my little detour, I was running low on gas.  So, I pulled off the interstate to fill up.  Apparently I took the left turn a little too wide, because right before I pulled into the gas station, I got pulled over for the first time in my life.  Thankfully the police officer was very nice.  I only got a warning for unsuccessful left turn and a warning for the light over my rear licence plate being out.  Still, it was just one more thing.  Needless to say, I cried for a bit.  I ended up getting to my friend’s house about 1:30 in the morning, slept for 5 hours, then got up and finished my drive to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for my auditions.

Thankfully, the actual day of auditions went very well.

I checked in at 8 am, then had about 45 minutes to warm up and wake up.  Then, I had an audition with the American Players Theatre.  They are based in Wisconsin and tend to put on more classical shows.  I was pleased with my audition and the auditioner, Kathy I believe, was exceedingly nice and very sweet.

Then, I had nothing to do until my next audition at 2 pm.  So, I moved my car from the metered spot I originally parked in ($3.00 for 2 hours!!) and walked through the bitter cold wind back to where I had auditioned.  To warm up, I got some hot cocoa and then settled down to do some homework.  When you’re a college student, especially in theatre, you learn to do your homework whenever you have some down time.  Time management skills are a must!

The picture on the right shows where I ate lunch on the campus.  For a cold day, sitting doing homework and eating a good burger and fries by the fire was very much appreciated!

Finally, 2 pm rolled around and I was able to go to my next audition.  This one was for the rest of the theatres there that day and was much more of a normal “cattle call” style audition.  The only difference was that we went in groups of about 20-25 and got to see all of the other auditionees in our group perform as well.

I was very pleased to receive a callback from this audition!  I was asked to speak with a group called Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre.  They are a touring children’s company that puts on camps around Minnesota/Wisconsin all summer.  They seemed very nice and I hope to get to follow up with them.

Next, we had the dance auditions.  The choreographer was a lot of fun and his style of teaching the piece made it very easy to pick up.  The style was very Musical Theatre/Hip-Hop with a Latin flair to it, which made sense since he was from Puerto Rico.  He also had his little girl with him there and she was so cute!!

I was very excited to get a callback from the dance auditions.  After only 3 years of dance training, even one callback was a big boost to the morale.  I got called back for Six Flags Great America (in Chicago, I’m pretty sure).  They had me fill out some information about availability and a form that allowed them to run a background check on me, and then read a scene that was very fun.  I was a southern janitor for the sheriff and was teasing him.  Very outlandish.

So, hopefully some kind of summer work comes out of this audition.  But even if it doesn’t, it was a good experience.  I got to meet several very nice people at the auditions and, since this is such a small world of performers, hopefully I will run in to them at another audition and be able to compare notes and experiences some more.