Please note, we will not be accepting walk-ins for any of our in-person auditions.
NYC Auditions In-Person
Deadline to apply and register for in-person auditions: January 3rd, 2023
In-Person Audition Dates:
Friday, January 13th
Saturday, January 14th
Thursday, January 19th
Friday, January 20th
Sunday, January 22nd
Monday, January 23rd
Audition Tour Dates
Chicago: January 31st & February 1st, 9am - 6pm
San Francisco: February 4th & 5th, 9am - 6pm
Final Callback Weekend: March 4, 5, 6 & 7
Audition dates and times are subject to change and will be available to select when you submit your application.
Please be prepared to hold the full day for your first day of auditions. We may run late, so it is best to expect that. Please keep your schedule open on the day that you register for.
Proof of vaccination is required for all in-person auditions. Must provide proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and boosted (if eligible, based on CDC criteria) with an FDA-authorized or WHO-listed vaccine.
Documentation must include:
- Name
- Birthdate
- Dates of doses
- Vaccine manufacture for each dose
- Documentation must be in English
Note: If the documentation proof you provide does not meet these requirements, you will not be allowed access to NYU settings and NYU-sponsored activities, including those that take place off campus.
What You Have to Prepare
1. Your audition.
Four monologues and approximately 16 bars of a song. Monologues should be classical and contemporary, both comedic and dramatic, two being in verse (rhymed or unrhymed).
Specific Requirements:
Two contemporary pieces (1919 to Present).
Two classical pieces (2500 BCE to c.1918).
No piece should be longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Advice on Selection & Preparation:
- Examples of classical authors include: Anonymous, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, Aphra Behn, Bhasa, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Pierre Corneille, Euripides, Kalidasa, Jesús Lara, Federico García Lorca, Ben Jonson, Lope de Vega, John Webster, and William Shakespeare. Examples of verse translators/ adaptors might include: Christopher Hampton, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, José Rivera, Richard Wilbur, David Ives, Nilo Cruz, Ezra Pound, Tony Harrison, Ranjit Bolt, Caryl Churchill, Adrian Mitchell, Anne Carson, Derek Walcott, and Jo Carson among others.
- Please avoid selecting multiple pieces by the same author (Shakespeare excepted).
- Regarding pieces in verse (whether contemporary or classical) — we’re looking for you to “lift the verse off the page.” By that we mean, how do you take these words and make them feel like they spring from your own thoughts? We are not concerned about you speaking Shakespeare or Lorca or Tupac or Eminem ‘correctly’. Rather than only a poetic recitation of the verse, we hope to feel a sense of your imagined scene partner or circumstances.
2. A full-face photograph (headshot).
3. A detailed résumé listing your prior acting experience.
4. A personal statement in essay form (approximately 500 words or two pages, typed and double-spaced). Write freely and personally about yourself and your acting. It will not be seen as a sample of your literacy, or as a test of your character. Tell us why you are applying here to NYU’s Grad Acting Program (as opposed to a general interest in graduate school), what you expect the experience to be like, and what you would like to accomplish. Write about your life, past and present; how you get along with people, the world; likes, dislikes (in theatre, literature, golf, anything). The personal statement will be instrumental in helping the auditors make a final decision about your professional abilities. It will be read only by the chair and designated faculty in strict confidence.
Callbacks
Approximately 60 applicants from the first round of global auditions will be asked to come to New York for two of three available days in March 2023 for the final callback round. The entering class of 16 students will be selected from the March callback.
If you are called back, you will be given specific instructions as to how to prepare for your callback “weekend.”