Who is this gorgeous lady, you ask? And why is she being featured on the Acceptance Project blog?
Welllllll....Brittany and I met at the Juilliard Auditions/Callbacks on January 28, 2012. And she and I hit it off like popcorn and soda!
(Turns out she had actually read the blog prior to her Juilliard audition. She found it with Google... by searching for MFA audition experiences, or something like that. -- LOL! Isn't that CrAZy? -- Anyhoo....We didn't talk about the blog AT the audition, but she "friended" me on FB later and she discovered through a mutual friend that I was the "blogger" that she'd read and then met at the Juilliard Auditions/Callbacks.)
And Ms. Brittany V. Green was invited to THE FINAL CALLBACK WEEKEND AT NYU this year!
CONGRATULATIONS BRITTANY!!!!!
So, naturally, I was soooooooo excited for her and asked her if she wouldn't mind writing a guest post for the blog! And she AGREED!!!!
So the following are her thoughts and musings and experiences during the 2012 NYU GRAD ACTING CALLBACK WEEKEND.
And here are her thoughts on callbacks: DAY ONE...
Pre-Callback Preparation
by Brittany V. Green
March 9th, 2012
So today I got the schedule for my NYU Callback... I'm nervous and excited. I washed my clothes and set up my outfit for tomorrow. After talking with a former NYU grad student (who is now on Broadway) about callbacks she emphasized how I need to just be myself, so I picked an outfit that best expressed who I am. I picked an outfit I would wear to class if I were actually chosen to be a part of the next NYU grad class. Which was a hot pink tank top, black leggings, a purple shawl, cherry earrings, a silver ring, a purple biblical bracelet, form fitting nike running shoes and a cute black and grey patterned scarf. It looks artsy and poetic and they're definitely movement clothes.
(Here's the outfit!...HOTT!!!)
Later on I plan on going over my two anchor monologue pieces and the piece that they asked me to do from my back up list. ( I have 8 monologues prepared in total, gonna run the other 5 quickly too...just in case.) I met with my coach two days ago to refine the adjustments that I got from prior auditions to make my pieces better for call backs.
Other than having my pieces prepared, knowing the back-stories to my monologues and being able to elaborate on the statement I wrote there's really no other preparation other than to be myself. I also thought about the big question ..."Why grad school?"... and also what I have been doing since graduating undergrad [University of Connecticut]. Knowing the answers to those basic questions and a few others are also good prep.
My goal is to be the best version of my artistic self tomorrow bringing charm, bringing creativity, bringing spontaneity and bringing my best talent. I think my biggest obstacle tomorrow would have to be the need to impress. But honestly, I think the worst is over and it's just a matter of forming the right class with the right chemistry and not really a matter of whether or not we all impressed them, because to get this far in the process means we already have. Preparation and relaxation time... Talk to you soon!
And here are her thoughts on callbacks: DAY ONE...
NYU Callback Weekend - Day One
by Brittany V. Green
March 10th, 2012
I am home…and just got done with doing a happy dance to Chris Brown’s “Turn up the Music.” For some reason I got a wave of happiness despite my fatigue from the day and had to dance it out.
Now… callbacks... lol…I ditched the cherry earrings, went with some simple silver buds and headed on over to NYU. (My faux-hawk was enough statement I thought the cherry earrings might have been over-kill.) On the way I listened to Silva Relax, an iPhone app I downloaded and loooove. Then went over my monologues in my head as I transferred from the A train to the N/R.
When I arrived there were a few people there for the callback waiting in the lobby. I was early and we couldn’t go upstairs yet so I stayed and chatted. Finally around 8:30am we went up and one by one people started rolling in and we all chatted it up. They handed us a sheet of paper with an article about a historical figure and his epic and rather depressing life’s tale. I read it over and over, for some reason I couldn’t concentrate, probably because I was approaching the reading like a project for History and decided to just talk about it with the surrounding actors. I asked questions and added what I thought about it and got a better understanding from it.
Next we all went into a big room and it was dance time! For 45 minutes I had such a fun time. We learned a fairly simple step/strut. We did it to different types of music with slight alterations to the steps. Country style, jazz style, old school rap style, diva style (as I would call it... lol …fake 5-inch high-heels and all), etc… We focused on the action "to seduce" and "to celebrate," then it kind-of went to our own personal strut. I personally loved the action “to seduce” it’s an essence I revel in with my acting, and I had a blast doing the step in the fake high heels, considering that I go out a lot with my friends and I loooove heels! They were more interested in what we brought to the step than the step itself though, all the while, we were being observed by faculty. But not in a scary intimidating way, the faculty laughed, clapped and swayed to the music themselves.
Next we got separated into two different groups. One group would play games and do some movement work, while the other would do breath work and movement/text exercises.
I went in the games group first. All of the things we did were what a typical acting class would ask for…to play, to explore, and to discover. We warmed up our bodies and had fun. Some of the activities were, spinning around on our butts in a full 360 without using our hands, making up a karate routine using parts of our body that weren’t threatening at all…like an eyebrow,... lol... reading text while learning the correct way to breath. I enjoyed myself and enjoyed watching other people.
My entire callback group, luckily was lively and energetic, I loved my group. After that, we got split up into four groups and that’s when the article came into play. We had to, in 15 minutes create a movement piece with an objective specific to the story we read. I had great training with Lecoq work in my undergrad so this was right up my alley (I’ve had to transpose an entire movie on a 4 by 6 platform with five other people!). I took on somewhat of a leadership position in my group, but made sure to not be bossy or dominant. Everyone contributed great ideas and everyone seemed pleased with the final product.
Next we presented them to the entire group and to faculty. Then Mark Wing-Davey gave feedback and adjustments, just like what would happen if we were presenting something in class. We all did the adjustments and learned a lot from it in that small amount of time. We all got great feedback and I really felt my group was really going in the right direction with our ideas.
Then came lunch! They gave us pizza, and snacks and we all chatted with the prospective students and faculty. The faculty got up one by one and introduced themselves.
The next phase was showing them our audition pieces again. I did one of my anchor pieces and then they asked me to do one of my backup pieces instead of my Shakespeare. The backup piece I did isn’t a well known play, but it’s soooooo good! I think the language was different and interesting. I made sure to do any adjustments they gave me from my initial audition. Afterwards they said “Thank you” smiled and I left.
When I was done I chatted it up with alumni and prospective students. As I was in mid-conversation with two of the current students I was approached by the Associate Chair to go back into the room. They asked me if I had anything else, I had 8 monologues prepared in total and began to list them off, they stopped me at one they REAAALLLLY wanted to see and so I did it for them. I was thrown off-guard a bit doing this because most of the people before me only had to do two…I wasn’t expecting to do my other pieces that day and I felt my first run of it was good, but not my best. They gave me adjustments, I took a deep breath and did as I was told. That time I felt it went very well.
After that we had a talk back with alumni. We got to ask questions about the program and the experience WITHOUT the faculty in the room. This way we were able to ask ANYTHING and the alumni could answer honestly. I appreciated this a lot. Because of this I found out that some of the very things I questioned or wanted to know were also questioned by the ones who went there. I got great answers and by the end... it only solidified my decision that NYU is the number one school for me.
After the talk back we got to see Free Play performances. This is a project that third year students get to do. You can create ANYTHING you desire. I LOVE creating my own work and doing my own thing. So seeing this had a major impact on me. I saw films created by THE ACTORS. Plays written and presented by the actors and more. It was such brilliant work! I thought about all my short stories and poems/spoken word pieces that I’ve been writing since childhood and how badly I’d love to come up with a one woman show. I began to imagine all the possibilities for my third year Free Play project.
I had an amazing day, met amazing people and was POOPED! But because I felt in my heart just how well the day went, I had to go home and do a happy dance. I praised God and prayed and thanked Him for everything. I was excited to go to bed and wake up for day two!
Thank you, Brittany!!! It's so generous of you to share your experience with us. Soooooo happy that it went so well for you and you felt great about it. Cannot wait to read about DAY TWO! Whoooooo hooooooo!!!!
Loves,
Virginia
P.S. The "V" in Brittany V. Green is for VIRGINIA. LOL! Isn't that awesome?! Hee, hee. Virginia's are awesome.
Great post! Did Brittany make it to the final callbacks at Juilliard too?
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