Theater Maker

Hi! I know that I've been silent for a bit but I wanted to chime in with the end of my journey and some learnings for folks who are thinking about applying next year. Congrats to folks on acceptances! I ended up with callbacks at CMU, Northwestern, UTAustin, UCSD, and Virginia Tech. The CMU, Northwestern, UTAustin, and UCSD callbacks were all in the same week, the week of Feb 18. I happened to be doing a two week intensive to remount a show beginning that week so I did Northwestern on Monday, flew home for two days of rehearsal, went to UT Austin on Thursday, UCSD for 4 hours on Fri, and CMU on Sat. I was able to come into Northwestern a day early to explore the campus and see a show, I really wish I could have done that everywhere. Each callback was entirely unique. I don't want to go into too much detail because I think part of the process is navigating all of the different styles of audition and deciding which one you feel most comfortable in- it seems like the callbacks say a lot about the programs. At the end I got offers from CMU and Northwestern. Once the offers came I had a really quick turnaround to make my decision (about a week) and I found myself doing a lot of research really quickly about cities and financial possibilities that I wish I would have done earlier. Both of the offers I got were amazing, I took the offer at CMU- that program is really special, the callback was a blast. I withdrew my application at Virginia Tech, although I think that program is really special too. I think the biggest thing I wish that I had known more about is the timeline-- I would never have chosen to do a show in the middle of Feb if I had known that all of the callbacks would be at that time.

@Eccyclema I’m right there with you re: Yale. I got an email from UT asking me to come to campus for an interview, that will be 3 in one week because I just got an email invite from Northwestern as well. They’re doing 3 more days of interviews and scheduled them in teirs so I’m heading out there next week. UCSD emailed me today to set up a Skype interview.

I hope the Columbia weekend went amazing. Good luck at the Brown interviews @per4mance, I didn't apply there this year. I just got an email from UT Austin setting up a 15 min interview. I'm excited but the waiting game is really getting to me. I'm assuming Northwestern is a no at this point so right now I'm waiting to hear about UCSD (radio silence so far) and Yale's 2nd round.

I got called back at CMU, waiting to hear from Yale (they said mid-Feb), and got an interview at Virginia Tech in March. @Squidpunk congrats on the Northwestern interview! Did they already do first round? Still waiting to hear from Northwestern, UCSD, and UT Austin.

Just finished the Yale interview. Had CMU yesterday. Completely opposite experiences in so many ways. Hope everyone else’s interviews went well.

@per4mance I got it yesterday evening.

Just got the first round interview request from CMU, I know a lot of folks got it already. Heading to New Haven on Thursday. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the Yale interviews, its been helpful to hear about the types of questions they ask.

Got my call from Yale yesterday!

Hi! I am really thankful for this thread, and the ones from past years. I am applying to Yale Northwestern CMU UT Austin UCSD V Tech Nothwestern requires a directing portfolio, but there is very little explanation about what that should be. I'm finding myself translating my website to PDF form, mostly pull quotes from reviews and production photos. Do you all have any advice about what to include? Hope everyone's applications are going well!