Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Lida Rose, I'm Home Again, Rose

After leaving this blog dark for more than a year, I'm making my penitent return.

Yes, I'm flaky.
Yes, I'm lazy.
Yes, I have been busy this past year!

At the end of July 2011, I moved back down to Santa Maria. As I think I mentioned before, being almost halfway between Los Angeles and the Bay Area felt like an extremely convenient option for the sake of auditioning in both locales, and I was on-point with that. I haven't made it to nearly as many auditions as I'd have liked to, but I think I've been finding a decent balance between my muggle life and my actor life so far! I have a really fun job at a beautiful (and yummy!) winery, where they are VERY flexible with my schedule, and I also spend a couple days a week babysitting one of my former Acting teachers' daughter, Gabby. On a related note, in November, I went ahead and invested in a subscription with Backstage. For those who don't know, Backstage is a huge, weekly publication with tons of articles and advice from various perspectives in the entertainment industry (mostly pertaining to performers), which also includes hundreds of audition notices from all over the country. Backstage also has a full website, which is updated daily with these same audition notices. Backstage.com has made it infinitely simpler for me to seek out auditions, submit for auditions, and even send in video auditions for out-of-state companies.

I have been very fortunate this summer to once again be acting professionally with PCPA Theaterfest, my current theatrical homebase. I was originally hired to play the role of Enid Hoopes and to understudy the role of Vivienne Kensington in Legally Blonde: The Musical, and I also wound up being contracted as the Female Swing for their remount production of Little Women, which was an unexpected and very educational opportunity for me. Legally Blonde closes on August 19th, and I'm trying hard not to lose my momentum as the show nears it's end. For the past few months, the one other thing I have been focusing very closely on is school research. I'm pretty sure I previously talked about trying to forego an undergraduate degree in favor of moving straight into a Master's program, but in my research, it became evident pretty quickly that my options were going to be so limited by that goal that I wasn't certain I would wind up with the kind of quality education I really need in order to grow into the type of experienced actor and educator I'm hoping to become. I therefore refocused my school search primarily on BFA programs, and after researching literally HUNDREDS of schools, I have, at this point, narrowed my list to 19 schools. To get to this point in my hunt for the "right program", I have a set list of priorities, and the 19 schools still standing meet at least a few of the my preferences, based on the following:

Good Location
Style of training (Liberal Arts-based versus Convservatory-style) 
Affiliations with Professional Companies
American Sign Language/Deaf Studies/Hearing and Deafness minor 
Showcase 
Study abroad options 

Once I have narrowed down my top 4-6 choices, I will be able to start taking financial matters into consideration, but until I have been accepted, I won't know what types of financial aid (namely scholarships and grants) may be available to me for each program. The programs I'm still considering are: 

The Boston Conservatory (Boston, MA) 
Cornish (Seattle, WA) 
Penn State (University Park, PA) 
Columbia College Chicago (Chicago, IL) 
University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music (Cincinnati, OH) 
University of Hartford (Hartford, CT) 
Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL) 
Roosevelt University/Chicago College of the Performing Arts (Chicago, IL) 
Boston University (Boston, MA) 
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI) 
Minnesota State University, Mankato (Mankato, MN) 
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (St. Paul, MN) 
Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ) 
Purchase College (Purchase, NY) 
University of North Carolina, Greensboro (Greensboro, NC) 
Ohio University (Athens, OH) 
Texas State University, San Marcos (San Marcos, TX) 
Southern Utah University (Cedar City, UT) 
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI) 

 and, since I'm getting down to the really challenging decisionmaking, I would love any information or opinions people have about any of these schools, so please, by all means, share! I'm going to try to post on here more frequently, so as not to have to cram 14 months into a single entry again. Trying.

2 comments:

  1. Having friends at Columbia, I would not recommend their program. They do not have any sort of campus life as the buildings are scattered throughout the city. Advising is very helter-skelter and there's something funky about accreditation (though I haven't quite figured out what, mainly because I don't go there). Not sure if any of that matters, but I figured I'd pass on the information.

    Northern Illinois University is not really worth the time. It's in the middle of nowhere and there are much better schools in Illinois. Also, it's not known for its arts program - don't let the website fool you. (I'm from north of there).

    I have friends who went to Montclair who are both very good and it's a cool part of the country. Purchase is good... Roosevelt is good....

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  2. Thanks!!! That's all really helpful!

    ReplyDelete