Hey! Remember the crazy girl applying to 24 colleges for musical theatre? Well, it’s me, but luckily, I cut a few schools off my list. If you haven’t read the first part, you can click here to read it.

I officially finished applying to all of my schools in December and since then, I’ve been waiting to hear back from schools to see if my prescreen submissions would get me an audition/a callback. Now, since I can’t travel to all of the schools I applied to, I scheduled auditions/callbacks at the National Unified auditions in Chicago. There, dozens of programs set up base in downtown Chicago, where over a thousand students stay for a week and show their desired schools what they’ve got! While most schools met at the Palmer House hotel (where I stayed), some took place at adjacent hotels around downtown Chicago.

Basically, I missed a week of school (as a captain during Red and Gold season) to go audition for colleges—we’ve already established that I’m crazy. Here’s how it went:

Sunday

At the ghastly hour of 4 a.m., my mom, brother, and I zipped up our bags and headed to LAX. We landed in Chicago around 1 p.m. that day, checked into our hotel, and set out to explore the city. As an avid “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” fan, I was determined to visit the Art Institute of Chicago, which you may know as the museum from the film. It was everything I hoped for and more. Having taken my fair share of art classes in elementary school, I freaked out at just about every painting.

After encountering about three Monet’s, two Van Gogh’s, and a handful of Picasso’s, we decided to find some deep-dish Chicago pizza. I think this image sums up my thoughts perfectly. Afterwards, I had a short meeting with my college audition coaches and my fellow students to mentally prepare for the chaos that would be Chicago Unifieds, then I headed to bed.

Monday

I woke up around 7 a.m. to take a shower and get ready for the day. After putting on my makeup and probably waking up the entire Palmer House hotel with my Revlon One-step hair dryer, I ate half of a Starbucks Impossible breakfast sandwich and headed to my College Audition Coaches’ room.

There, we had a warm-up session, which was pretty much just 15 minutes of  singing and my coaches Russ and Drew hyping me up before my audition.

My first audition was for Missouri State University at 10:10 a.m., which was in a different hotel— a 15 minute walk away. 15 minutes doesn’t sound too bad, but it’s rough if you’re walking in 40 degree weather in a summer wrap dress and heels with nothing but a jacket. Clearly, I know how to dress in cold weather.

The audition went well, and I ate the rest of my breakfast sandwich on my way to my next audition, a singing/acting audition for Temple University at 12:12 p.m. Following that, I went to the Temple University dance call at 1:00 p.m., and attempted pirouttes on carpeted floor.

Later that day, my mom and I scoured the Chicago T.J. Maxx in search of warm clothes on a budget and accidentally discovered gorgeous green pants that I decided to use as an audition outfit the next day. I bought the most delicious vegan dumplings at a local resturaunt and hopped into bed for the night.

Tuesday

Sleeping in a little more than the day before, I attended a 11:00 a.m. warmup session before my 11:45 audition for Nazareth College singing/acting audition. Because I had nothing else scheduled that day, I decided to do a walk-in audition for a conservatory called the Institute of American Musical Theatre. Some schools have the option to walk into their room and request an audition for any time, so I met the moderator and auditioned right then and there— the guy was so friendly and it was cool to see what a spontaneous audition was like.

That evening, I met up with all of my college audition coaches’ students again and saw some old friends! The resturaunt was so fancy that they charged seven dollars for two palm-sized biscuits, which we thought was funny. After eating some pasta (which name I couldn’t pronounce), my friends Aubrie, Emily, and I walked to a sorbet shop and ended the night with an hour of sorbet-tasting and catching up, before heading to bed for the night.

Wednesday

Wednesday.

The day I was most nervous for—a day packed with auditions. I woke up bright and early to attend my 8:00 a.m. Nazareth College dance call. My favorite part was when the professors asked me to show off any ‘special dancing skills’ and after watching people split, tap, and jump, I said that my special skill was the fact that I’ve never taken a dance class before. Needless to say, I made an impression.

My mom, brother, and I walked over to Goddess Café (reccomended by alumnae Grace Horeczko ’22) and bought a scrumptious breakfast. Seriously, I still dream about it today.

At 12:15 p.m., I attended my last warm-up of the week and walked to the Hyatt Centric hotel for my Pace University callback. The audition began at 1:30 with a dance call, where I met some really nice people and (again,) danced on carpeted floor. Shortly after, I changed into my audition dress and sat in the waiting room before my singing/acting audition. It was my favorite performance of mine at Unifieds, so I walked out of the room with confidence and excitement. I was so excited that I decided to do another walk-in at Dean College to finish off the night.

Wait…. that’s not a whole week… where’s the rest of your week, Layla? Well, this article is so long that I had to chop it in half. You’ll get the rest of what happened very soon. Until then, stay tuned for part three of my college audition journey. We’re so close to the end, Royals!