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.

forgive the blurred picture-camera was being dumb!

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.

We auditioned in a beautiful ballroom!

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 GOT A CALLBACK!

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.

This was our waiting spot!

The second day, the other two actors and I had our “screening audition”.  For this, we performed our two monologues for a pair of judges who decided if we should go on to the final auditions for all of the graduate schools.  Unfortunately, none of us were passed on.  However, we were still able to audition for some of the schools thanks to U/RTA’s “open call”.  Instead of three minutes for all of the schools, we got one minute for some of the schools.  But it was still a very good opportunity because each of us got between 4 and 8 callback/interviews.  :)

Now, we just have to follow up with schools and figure out what would be the right fit for each of us.  We shall see what the future holds…

But in the meantime…

since we were in Chicago, thought it only right that we should do a little sight seeing.

We went for a walk around the Loop.

We took the tourist shot of ourselves in the bean.

The days after a show closes are so weird! I always feel like I should be doing something or else I just want to lay around and be lazy. The problem is, right now the two feelings are combined so I’m sitting around watching tv on my computer and giggling and chattering like a maniac while my roommate tries to ignore me and be “studious” . It’s the week before break, so I don’t have that much to do. I have a few things to work on for a Friday class, but Friday is SOOOO far away.

One of my other housemates just got home and she is helping to contribute to my weirdness like any good person would. I know there are things that I COULD do, but there is nothing that I HAVE to do for tomorrow. Perhaps I will work on a little bit, but since nothing is due tomorrow, I won’t push myself too hard. I feel the best thing for me, for at least a day or two, is to rest up and catch up on the sleep I have missed over the last six weeks that were taken up with rehearsals. A little bit of easy work and an early bed sound like the best thing to do to recover from school-rehearsal period.

By the way, Fox’s new show “New Girl” is AMAZING!!! I highly approve.

I went to a small, private elementary school called Faith Academy across the river in Muscatine, Iowa.  My mother works over there as a computer systems analyst, so we would often ride to work with her in the morning and simply wait for school to start at the babysitter’s or a fellow classmate’s.  Faith Academy was a very small school that got smaller the longer it was around it seemed like.  I went from having a class of about 20 in kindergarten to a class of 3 in fifth grade.  Unfortunately, Faith Academy’s numbers became so low, that it shut down after my sixth grade year.

After fifth grade, I decided that I wanted to try and go to public school.  So, I started my sixth grade year getting on a yellow school bus for the first time in my life (an hour long commute btw!) and going to public school.  The public school (Westmer Secondary School) was the same high school that my dad had attended and the same building that my grandpa had attended.  I even had some of the same teachers that had had my dad!!  These included my junior high math teacher, history teacher, p.e. teacher, and one of my junior high english teachers, and they all deffinitely remembered him.   I started sixth grade with a class of about 60 students (we were a very big class!).  At the end of my senior year, I graduated as Valedictorian of my class of 27 students.

I did a lot of stuff in high school.  I was in band, choir, basketball, track and field, volleyball for a summer, scholastic bowl, flag squad captain, swing choir, art exhibits…in a small school, its very easy to be involved in just about everything.  However, the thing I always enjoyed the most was the musical we put on with the neighboring high school every fall.  Those were the best times I had!  When I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life, my dad told me that I should do something I was passionate about; something I would enjoy getting up every day to do.  At the time, the only thing I could see that I enjoyed going to every single night was the rehearsals for the musicals.  So, I decided that I wanted to be an actress!