Hey JR! Good question: YES, you can audition via video!  In fact, you can even submit your video via YouTube.  Here’s some guidelines: 

• If you can’t come to campus, you can submit your audition through SLIDEROOM. (You’re gonna have to do this anyway, since that’s how your department chair ranks your performance.) You can put your YouTube video link in there.
• The whole body should be featured on the recording. Use the best quality video and audio recording devices as possible. 
• Say your WHOLE name and the date at the beginning of the recording.
• You can do your audition either before or after (or during, whatever) the application paperwork itself. We don’t care!

Depending on what specific theatre branch you want to audition for, the content of the audition is going to change a little bit. If you want to go into musical theatre, you need to sing, basically. You can find out the nitty gritty on the audition right here, so that I don’t overwhelm you with information. If you need any clarification on that stuff, message me again, and I can hook you up to have a private chat with some enrollment peeps who know this stuff like the back of their hand.

In terms of tips: We actually had one of our alumni record a video about this!  OH MAH GAAAH IT’S SO LONG but seriously watch it, because it’s got some good stuff. But it basically boils down to: STOP FREAKING OUT. My favorite line from the video is that we’re on your side. Seriously!  We want you to do this!  We WANT you as a student, because you probably rock, and you’re probably going to be killer in our theatre program.  Just stop freaking out, square your shoulders, and do it.  You’re gonna rock it.  Break a leg.  :)

WELL THANKS :3  Come back soon, plz? 

HI CECILIA! I assume you’ve had a glance at what’s actually required for your Creative Writing portfolio, so I’m not going to go into that.  (Though that’s all very important!  Don’t ignore that link!)  Whenever I talk to Dana Levin - she’s the co-chair of the CW department - about what she looks for when she reads porfolios, here’s what she tells me:

• Don’t freak out. Stop freaking out. Stop it. I can’t tell you how many people don’t finish their applications because they’re so worried that they’re not going to get in. This is a terrible idea.  YOU ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.  
• When we ask you to put together a submission of your “best work,” this isn’t necessarily always what you got the best grades on. Sometimes it’s the piece that shows who you really are - the one you were afraid to show your teacher, or the one that’s a little weird and isn’t quite standard stuff. One of the faculty members in the photo dept. once told me a story about how a photography student showed him a technically perfect portfolio, but it was really boring - and then he was like, “Okay, but REALLY, what do you love to do,” and she ran out to her car and brought in a bunch of art she’d made on old pizza boxes. Equally: don’t worry about not being the weirdest, most out-there applicant, either. Just be yourself.
• If you aren’t technically perfect, don’t freak out. That misplaced semicolon isn’t going to be the end of you getting into school. Just do your best and try to make things look professional and cared for.
• Sometimes showing us who you are means showing us what you WANT to be. That can be hard, when all you have is examples of who you’ve been in the past.  That’s where the personal statement comes in really handy. We just want a peek behind the big red theatre curtain at how your brain works.
• Remember: you’re coming to school for a reason. If you were perfect, you wouldn’t WANT to come to school.  (Also, you’d be a liar - no one’s perfect.) We don’t expect you to be the next Plath or Hemingway or Chabon or whoever it is you admire at this point in your life - we just want you to strive, and we want to see you reaching.

I hope that helps?  Maybe it’s a little esoteric. If you want to talk to somebody on the phone about it, drop me another ask and I can get you in touch (privately) with an enrollment advisor, okay?  Dana also chats with people on the phone from time to time, and I’m sure she’d love to talk to you.  

But most of all: GOOD LUCK!