The big challenge of theatre college auditions: Unifieds. Unifieds is the conglomerate of almost all theatre schools coming together in 1-2 buildings in LA, Chicago, and New York and auditioning thousands of students a day. This is where most of your auditions will take place, and for the few days you’re there, you will go through hell. You’ll have to cram anywhere from 5-10 auditions into 2-4 days, and that isn’t including any walk-ins you do. Here’s the lowdown for how to do Unifieds. 

Planning: 

You start scheduling your auditions way sooner than you start planning your trips to either LA, Chicago, and New York, so it’s very important for travel plans that you know how long you’re staying. Some schools are separate from Unifieds but still hold their auditions the same week/weekend for ease of applicants. However, some hold their auditions in the days before or the days after, so if schools you apply to have auditions before and after the days of Unifieds, utilize them!!! Otherwise, you have to start stacking auditions on the Unifieds dates. 

When stacking auditions, keep in mind what you have to accomplish for each school. With some schools, you’ll have to complete dance and panel auditions, so you have to block out twice the time. Other schools will also add information sessions before an audition that are usually around an hour, so you have to account for that. My advice is to keep a spreadsheet of what’s going on each day, and where you have time to fit in other schools. It’s a balancing act, but you will survive, just remember that. Here’s an example of my Unifieds schedule for the New York branch: 

After you’ve planned your days and what you’ll be doing when, now is the time to talk to your parent or guardian that you want to travel with and begin planning your accommodations and flights! 

Tips: 

• When traveling to a different time zone, if you can, give yourself a few days to get accustomed to the jet lag. The last thing you want to do at an audition is fall asleep during an info session, so give yourself a few days to breathe

• Know where you’re going! In both Chicago and New York, auditions are held in up to 3-4 different buildings that are all very close to each other and have similar names, so make sure that you learn from my mistake and check which Ripley Greer you’re going to in New York. If you have time the day before or a few days before, scope out the area and see where you need to go so that way everything will go according to plan on the morning of your audition

• Here’s something I always told myself when I was about to go into my auditions, make a friend on the audition panel! You can’t control whether or not they think you’re a good fit for their program, but you can always form a connection with someone on the other side of the table, it may actually help you in the long run! 

• Have a binder with you at every audition that has your sheet music, printouts of your monologues, headshots and resumes, and anything else schools ask you to bring like paperwork. You never know what you’re going to need, and you never know if you’re going to blank right before your audition, so it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

• DRINK WATER!!! I cannot stress this enough, you will be putting your body through so much stress and strain that water is the one thing you absolutely need to bring everywhere you go. Hydrate before you die-drate. 

• Similar to the last tip, please take care of yourself. Try to eat a good breakfast in the morning with lots of protein that will last you a long time, definitely don’t skip lunch, even if it’s fast food that you pick up on the way to an audition, and dinner afterward should also be high in protein. 

• Don’t try to overload your schedule if you’re at NY Unifieds, and I’m not talking about auditions. It may feel tempting to go out and see a few Broadway shows or spend a night eating dinner at The Stardust, but if you stay out late and don’t get proper rest, you’ll exhaust yourself. There will always be other times to be in New York, this is the time to be focusing on your auditions. Believe me, you’ll thank yourself later. 

• Don’t be afraid to talk to people! It may seem intimidating that you’re going to be waiting outside of an audition with the people you’re competing with to go to that school, but never let that get to you. They’re probably just as absolutely terrified as you are for auditions, and use that as a common ground! You never know who you’ll end up seeing again. I made friends with someone during my audition for Boston University who ended up committing to UNCSA, so I’ll be spending the next four years with her!

• If you're auditioning for Musical Theatre, make sure that the night before your audition, you charge your speaker that you'll use for your tracks. It doesn't matter if you think it has charge or if you charged it the day before, you always plug it in to charge overnight, just to be safe. 

• Always have backup material, sometimes schools will ask you to do more songs or monologues than they originally had you prepare (this happened to me multiple times) so it's always good to have a wide variety of pieces ready when you're prompted.