#second city conservatory

[iheartvelma]

Chicago peeps!

Come see me do sketches-in-progress with my Grad Revue 1 crew!

Tickets here

[thepicketlinecomedy]

We’re happy to announce that Joe, Lisa and Leenie (The Picket Line) have graduated from the Second City Conservatory Program. Check us out at the Atlantic Bar and Grill on February 6th at 8pm!!!

[princealoneinthestudio]

Second City Conservatory Auditions: A User's Guide

I know there are a bunch of you out there who are on their way to auditioning for the Conservatory, and having just done it, I wanted to walk you through the whole process while it's still fresh in my mind. I'm currently waiting to hear back about my own Conservatory audition, so I figured that this would be more productive than refreshing my email 6,000 times a minute.

1. Signing up. The signups usually open at midnight. Treat the signups page like a Ticketmaster page for a really popular event. Be there by 11:00 and refreshing. My friends and I were determined to audition together at 2:00. My computer glitched out for 15 seconds and by the time it was working again 2:00 was full and I had to settle for 2:30. If you're not there at midnight, you become one of the lonely waitlisted souls who has to spend an entire afternoon sitting outside the Skybox and hoping someone doesn't show. Don't be that person. You don't need to pay anything until you get in, so don't worry about signing up for the audition if you don't have your money right yet. Just do it. I can't stress this enough.

2. Requirements. One important thing I didn't know until late in the game: In addition to completion of the first year of Second City classes and/or equivalent program elsewhere, YOU ALSO NEED A THEATER CLASS FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE. In my case, I luckily had taken a class at the Neo Futurist theater that counted. Almost everything counts, so just do yourself a favor and take an extra class somewhere else now. 

3. The Audition Format. Basically how it works is: at your preregistered audition time someone with a clipboard comes out and calls out your time and then a list of names. Ideally, your name will be on that list and you'll go inside. You'll get on stage (Donny's Skybox Theater, which you probably had a C, D, or E show in. If you haven't go to a show there, you might want to go to check out the layout of the stage, it's quirky) and be put in a line against the back wall (Freeze-style) in the order that you appear on the list. 

First, you're asked, one at a time, to step to the front of the stage and say your name. Make sure you project and don't do anything remotely schtick-y, would be my advice on that one. Also, as a sidenote, dudes: how come you can't dress yourself? I mean, seriously, I'm not James Dean or anything, but I felt like I was surrounded by mouthbreathers and telemarketers. Start shopping for clothes at stores other than Target. 75% of the dudes in my audition group had some kind of ugly, ill-fitting Merona dress shirt half tucked into their dad jeans. I understand that part of being involved in comedy means outsider status of some sort, and that includes some sort of weird relationship to the style world, but HOLY SHIT MAYBE GETTING TEASED THROUGHOUT ELEMENTARY/MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL SHOULD HAVE MADE YOU STEP UP YOUR GAME A LITTLE BIT. /rant over

Anyway, after your introductions come the three person scenes! This is the proverbial bread-and-butter of the whole thing. Basically, they go down the line by threes, and you do a roughly-two-minute scene based on a suggestion that the auditors give you. This is probably the thing that you get judged the most on. The best thing you can do to make the scene successful is to check in with the other improvisors and make emotional relationships with them early. Also, practice three person scenes a bunch with your cohorts (also, get some cohorts.) The more times you practice three person scenes, the better you get at figuring out the balance between talking too much and too little relative to the others in the scene. You want to be involved but you don't want to step on anyone else either.

Finally, after the three person scenes, comes Freeze (here's a breakdown on freeze, for the uninitiated). Freeze is usually a clusterfuck because everyone's trying to get out there to say their best one liner. I wouldn't go out more than twice. It would be a good time to do a character, if you have one, because you can demonstrate some kind of range while at the same time you don't have to worry about maintaining it because these scenes last 5 lines maximum. Also, important: when freeze is called, they switch out both people rather than one, so make sure you're listening/paying attention to the others calling "freeze" as well.

That's it. A final piece of advice: don't be inside your own head. Just treat it like class or rehearsal. The best thing you can do is present the auditors with a reasonably close version of yourself. You may not get in the first time (and, of course, insert famous story about Tina Fey needing three auditions here), but it'll just get you that much closer to getting in the next time.

In the meantime, fingers crossed for me.

[blanchecomedy-blog]

Congrats to our very own Stephanie Renee Kauffman (pictured, right) on graduating from The Second City Conservatory last night! So proud of you, lady!