#SOBLESSED: the Annoying Actor Friend's Guide to Werking in Show Business (4 page)

Seriously, NYU? Would holding a proper dance audition
put you guys under financially? You’re asking kids to break into tap-less
time-steps during “Giants in the Sky” or bust out some martial arts in the middle
of “Hello, Young Lovers”? As ridiculous as the multitude of awkward images
crossing my brain at this very moment may be, and how incredibly lame, lazy,
and flat out emotionally scarring it is to put all prospective Tisch music
theatre majors through this, I like…kinda wanna see that shit! I think
adjudicating an artistic review for the New School on Broadway has just moved
to the top of my bucket list. #CelebrateYou.

What Are My Odds of Getting Into BoCo and Tisch?

Back in the days when the cow from the 2002
Into
the Woods
revival was a student, there really was a prestige associated
with BoCo. Now, with a desired class size of around sixty, BoCo could be
accepting over one hundred students a year to meet that quota. Your odds of
getting in are better, but how does that translate to the classroom?

You’re going to get strict, solid training at BoCo,
but potentially at the cost of being surrounded by two hundred and fifty
theatre divas. If you want to trap yourself in a studio with that many
non-equity delights, you could just wait until March, and spend a weekend at
NETCs. If you’re someone who benefits more from individual attention, BoCo
might not be the school for you. If my education is costing a quarter of a
million dollars, I don’t just want good training, I want the faculty doing my
effing laundry.

It’s a similar situation at NYU. At any given moment,
there are over a thousand drama students. I just don’t see how it’s possible
for one establishment to handle that many anger and tears monologues. NYU
differs from BoCo in that it will always skew in favor of grades over talent. If
you actually read the books assigned in English class instead of skimming
sparknotes.com, but you sing on the legal limit of the pitch, you may want to
try NYU. If you can kick your face and screlt an E especially well, but you pronounce
that word, “expecially,” then maybe go for BoCo.

Who Are the Notable Alumni from BoCo and Tisch?

BoCo: Karen Cartwright.

NYU: A shit ton of people who’ve won Academy Awards,
Tonys, and Emmys, and a shit ton of other people who are like, “Ugh. That
person? Really? Of
all
the people in our class?”

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY: DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE AND
DANCE

What is Texas State’s Nickname?

Texas State MOO-niversity! – Nobody’s calling
it that. I just decided to because it’s in Texas and they have cows and NOT
because half the classes of ’16 and ’17 attended the MOO-nifieds discussed
earlier.

How Smart Do I Have to Be to Attend Texas State?

Slater. Any Slater will do. They’ll take the Slater
that wanted to date Tori or the one that allegedly requested that Larry in the
A
Chorus Line
revival wear sleeves.

How Many Weeks on Broadway Will My Education from
Texas State Cost?

This school is so great with scholarships that you
might actually get away with one year on a tiered Production Contract tour and
a summer at the Goodspeed Opera House.

What Did You Learn About Texas State?

The musical theatre department was taken over by actress
Kaitlin Hopkins, in 2009. Since then, the school has featured a faculty
primarily of working New York actors who I may not recognize, but for some
reason really have their shit together when it comes to developing a solid
program. The website, however, is straight out of 1998. I think it was made on
GeoCities.

What is the Audition Process at Texas State Like?

WARNING: There is a prescreen! Texas State asks that
you submit a video that includes one contemporary monologue, and two
contrasting songs no longer than thirty-two bars each. They also suggest that
if you have dance experience to add that in at the end – but it isn’t
required. Um... Why the hell is it NOT required? This is genius. Unlike NYU,
where they ask that you incorporate movement into your vocal artistic review,
Texas State requests that you present an entirely separate piece dedicated to
dance. It can be a one-minute number, or you could just present random dance
moves! The exact dance moves listed include, but are not limited to: leaps,
jumps, battements and/or turns (I guess you can do those two at the same time
if you want), buffalo, Irish, clog, and other technical elements like jazz
square and isolations. I suppose the jazz square and isolations means they are
auditioning you to be in the graduating class of 1986.

What Are My Odds of Getting Into Texas State?

Since Texas State is considered an up and coming
contender that is so affordable, kids have been known to turn down CMU, CCM,
and Michigan to attend. It’s safe to say that in about ten years, Texas will be
the new Michigan. They are all about diversity and making the best unique
version of you, so their class sizes are not much more than twelve. The
competition is dense because the price point is so low. You may get turned off
by the fact it is just some school out in Texas, but I urge you to factor cost
chiefly into your college decision making. Remember, you are pursuing a degree
in musical theatre. Say it with me, “I am going to pursue a college degree in
MUSICAL. THEATRE.” #broadway. #tonys. #dreamsbeforelogic.

Who Are the Notable Alumni from Texas State?

All those fresh and earnest assholes you see showing
up at auditions around June. Wide-eyed recently graduated theatre majors are
the crabgrass of Broadway.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN:
SCHOOL OF MUSIC, THEATRE & DANCE

What is Michigan’s Nickname?

Michigan: The New CCM.

How Smart Do I Have to Be to Attend Michigan?

A sensible Screech – or Jessie before she got
hopped up on caffeine pills.

How Many Weeks on Broadway Will My Education from
Michigan Cost?

57 weeks in-state and 115 weeks out-of-state. I
wouldn’t sweat it. You’re résumé will say, “University of Michigan.”

What Did You Learn About Michigan?

Remember that time when all the envious MTs of the
world dogged on CCM for being the
elite-cookie-cutter-triple-threat-we-hate-you-because-you-go-there-and-we-don’t-school?
I’m not exactly sure when this program “crossed over” and became the Crown Jewel
of BFAs, but I’m guessing it had something to do with YouTube.

Michigan was always a reputable program and there were
notable alumni before the dawn of Twerking By The Cakes, but there was
something about the way Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Jake Wilson latched onto the
Internet’s new way of delivering original content that helped set the school
apart from everybody else and bring its relevance into the homes of high
schoolers everywhere. They were somewhat pioneers in their own way. Michigan’s
ability to be the first program to find a way to mass-market to the
Wicked
Generation is probably why their students are so successful today and NOT AT
ALL because of any alumni who might be involved with casting.

What is the Audition Process at Michigan Like?

PRESCREEN! It’s pretty much the same rigmarole as
Texas State, except it’s articulated on the website better because it’s
Michigan and they’re so perfect I think I’ll just kill myself. They require two
monologues, two sixteen bar cuts, and WATCH OUT because here comes that solo choreographed
dance again! I still want to see the singer-who-moves (and by, “moves” I mean,
“can walk”) prescreens from these schools. We live in a cynical world, and I am
not accusing any of these schools of playfully making fun of a #hotmess
prescreen, but if we think they aren’t at some point, we’re kidding ourselves.
I dare you to find me an agent or casting director who hasn’t at least once
emailed an actor’s submitted headshot to their friends because it’s too
ridiculous not to share. If you can find me someone in this business that is
truly professional enough to have treated other people’s lives and dreams with
respect 100% of their entire career, I will quit the business and become a
paleontologist.

If you are truly #blessed enough, you’ll receive a
live audition appointment that pretty much consists of presenting the same
material from your prescreen – with the exception of a group dance class in
substitution of the at-home
Flashdance
-esque choreographed requirement.
I wish every prospective Michigan student, including the budding Sancho Panzas
of the world, gave these mandatory videoed dance requirements a big fat #blowme
and just did three minutes of “What a Feeling.”

After you attempt to prove you are a triple threat,
they throw a piano/sight reading test in there just to fuck with you.
#HolyToneDeafProblems! I would have been up-shit-creek at these auditions! The
only thing I knew about solfège when I was seventeen was whatever Maria von
Trapp taught me. (If you rolled your eyes at that reference it means I’m doing
a good job!) The only thing I remember from my college sight-reading/piano
classes is something about Charlie Goes Down And Eats Big Fat Cock.

On the drama end of the Michigan spectrum, there is
no need for a prescreen. Michigan don’t give a shit about acting, so you can
just walk right off the street and do two monologues about as easily as a
Michigan grad can take their cap and gown off and walk right onto a Broadway
stage. You may, however, be asked to participate in a bit of old-fashioned
improv. Not so much “Scenes from a Hat,” improv and more like “Sing a Folk
Song” or “Relate a Childhood Experience” kind of improv. What bad luck must it
be for the kid who has to follow some girl’s rendition of “This Land is Your
Land” with a childhood memory about how they went as a Ninja Turtle for
Halloween three years in a row or the time their stepfather touched them? Auditions
are hard, y’all.

What Are My Odds of Getting Into Michigan?

The class sizes are around twenty and the faculty is
extremely selective. If you are a talented and easily moldable student with
limited diversity and personality, you could potentially have a better chance
than someone else. I’m not saying that you need to have been manufactured in a
laboratory, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt your chances!

Who Are the Notable Alumni from Michigan?

Neil Patrick Harris’ partner, Kyle Bishop, one of the
Fosters, everyone who has probably ever played Olive or Coneybear in
Spelling
Bee
, someone from
Glee
, and the class of 2007.

DO YOU NEED A BFA TO BE #SOBLESSED?

It’s all a crapshoot, and while choosing which
college to attend is truly one of life’s most monumental decisions that will
forever dictate your future, it will certainly not be the last one like it. I
would not be where I am today if I had chosen a different school, and who’s to
say I’d be better or worse off than I am now? Who knows? If I got into my first
choice, maybe I’d have been knifed on the way to jazz class in the dark
alleyways of Cincinnati (or Ann Arbor, Boston, Pittsburgh, etc. – because
I’m not telling you where I did or didn’t go! #sorrynotsorry). Everything
happens for a reason, and if you don’t get what you want in life, it’s a good
idea to go right on thinking that whatever you wanted would have eventually
killed you. That is what I tell myself whenever my agent gives me feedback
like, “They went another direction.”

Make a decision and trust that it’s the right one. Go
to college for a solid reason, not because you think it’s what you’re supposed
to do. Go to college for a degree. Go to college for training. Go to college to
make connections. Don’t go to college under the assumption it will
automatically get you anywhere in life. Don’t go to college under the
assumption that a true triple threat still exists. Learn one thing and learn
how to do it better than anyone else. Be the best singer or the best actor or
the best dancer or the best looking. If you can’t be the best at one of those
attributes, then be the best networker. That skill could take you further than
anything you might learn in a practice room.

I just booked a film role AND a voiceover gig from 2
different companies without an
audition
! Why? Cuz God is my
homegirl. #grateful

*

Congratulations! You have either officially graduated
from college, completely blew off college, or left college for a job that just finished!
You are ready to move to New York City. This is where the fun really begins.
You are moving to the greatest city in the world. If you can make it here,
you’ll make it anywhere – except Los Angeles because those cold bitches
are lethal.

MOVING TO NEW YORK CITY

Moving to New York City is expensive. I understand
this because I still have a Bank of America credit card bill that is laughing
at me uncontrollably. Seriously, don’t move here until you have a healthy
buffer in your checking account provided by your parents. If your parents can
spot your rent for a year or two, that’s even better! If you have the kind of
parents that just dump your Sallie Mae loans in your lap without so much as a
two weeks notice, then I suggest saving those summer stock nickels until you
have a minimum of three months of survival readily available on the off chance
you don’t book jobs as quickly as your friends.