URTA | Events

The URTA Auditions & Interviews are not the same as the “Unified Auditions” for undergraduate programs. Only URTA-member MFA programs and qualified guest institutions take part in the URTAs.

Nope! No additional applications or fees are required for you to attend the URTAs. However, many schools may require you to complete their university’s application process before they can formally consider you for their program, or make you an official offer. Each school has a different procedure, and we strongly urge you to check with the schools you are most interested in and see what they require.

In some cases, a school may ask you to submit a formal application during your interview in order to establish your interest. This is not an offer for a place at their school; they may simply need to have your completed application in order to consider you for a spot in their program.

Once you fill out the application on Acceptd, you will be directed to a page where you can pay. If you have any difficulty with payment please feel free to contact Acceptd’s customer support at 1-888-725-2122 x2.

The auditions will take place in a theater space, or in a large hotel conference room.

Portfolio reviews for candidates in design and technology are held in a large ballroom or exhibit hall at the URTA hotel.

Interviews for directors, stage managers, and arts leadership candidates, as well as callback interviews for actors, take place on site at the URTA hotel, either in conference rooms or guest rooms.

Providing a safe and positive environment for both candidates and recruiters is of the utmost importance to URTA. As such, no one-on-one interviews may take place in private rooms. Additionally, URTA has established a Code of Professional Conduct, included in the Candidate Handbook, which all URTA participants (candidates and recruiters) must abide by. Please be sure to review the Code of Professional Conduct prior to the event.

The Satellite Auditions are an additional audition open to URTA acting candidates for a small fee. These auditions are attended by non-URTA member institutions.

A candidate must be registered for the URTA Auditions to take part in the Satellite Auditions. You can register for the Satellite Auditions on your initial URTA registration, or add them later on. You may also be able to participate as a walk-in, if there are spots available.

Candidates attend their URTA Audition (and any resulting callback interviews) on their assigned day. The Satellite Audition will take place on either the previous day, or the following day. It is not possible to do both auditions on the same day. The audition process is very similar, and you may perform the same material, if you like.

URTA’s Satellite Auditions are open to producing theatres that may wish to recruit for their summer companies, and past guest institutions have included Actors Theatre of Louisville, PCPA Theatrefest, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Blue Man Group, Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival, the Glimmerglass Festival, and others. However, most years our recruiters are made up primarily of MFA programs seeking graduate students.

Scroll up this page to see what institutions are registered to attend for the current year.

Absolutely! While many URTA candidates are just completing their undergraduate degree, all ages are welcome to participate. Most MFA programs seek to recruit graduate students of varied ages and backgrounds to provide a more diverse program for all involved. Training programs are very interested in experienced candidates – people who have spent some time pursuing their craft professionally.

Most candidates pursuing graduate-level training are focused on a particular area of study–acting, design, directing, etc. If you’re unsure where your interests and strengths lie, consider speaking with a trusted professor or mentor to weigh all your options.

If you’re truly serious about multiple fields, you may register in two areas without paying an additional registration fee. Please realize though, that a given graduate program will likely only consider you in a single area.

Candidates in design and technology may select two areas of focus on their registration (e.g. costume, scenic, sound, etc.).

If you’re a candidate registering in directing, stage management or arts leadership, you will need to prepare a “common packet” of materials, which you will submit through Acceptd. The Candidate Handbook details what materials are required in the “common packet”.

After you have submitted your application on Acceptd, URTA will send you a packet containing the list of schools recruiting in your discipline, contact information for the recruiters, and any additional materials they may want to see. You will need to send personalized letters to each program that you are interested in by December 2nd. These letters, and all required materials, must be received by December 2nd in order for the program to consider you for an URTA interview.

You will receive your URTA interview schedule by December 20th. We encourage you to wait until you’ve received this schedule before making any travel arrangements.

If you are a candidate in directing, stage management, or theatre management, you do need letters of recommendation, as part of your “common packet”. Keep in mind, these are not formal, sealed letters that you may have requested for college applications in the past.

Candidates in other areas do not need recommendation letters to register for the URTAs, however you may need formal letters of recommendation later down the line, if you are asked to complete school applications or if you are made a formal offer.

Unfortunately no, you cannot choose your date. If you have a conflict with a specific date, please indicate it in the “Schedule Conflicts” box on your registration, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Please don’t simply request, “I must audition on Tuesday.”  We need to know what your conflict is, in order to try and accommodate it.

The value of the URTA Auditions & Interviews are that they preclude the need for individual auditions. Some of our members only recruit via the URTAs. However, we always suggest that you be your own best advocate. If you have keen interest in a particular school, you should feel free to send them your headshot/resume, or a link to your design portfolio, along with a note expressing your interest to that particular program. You can do this weeks in advance of the URTAs. If a school knows you are interested, they may seek you out the day of your audition or portfolio review. By reaching out, you’ve indicated that you’re a motivated candidate, who has done their research.

Bottom line: If you have great interest in a certain school, contact them. Nothing can be lost by opening a dialogue.

For acting and design/technology, you will receive an email though Acceptd detailing your assigned day and time, station number and additional important information within two weeks.

Keep in mind that the later your application is submitted, the longer the processing time.

You will have a log-in to your Acceptd account and can log in and out to make updates prior to submission. Once your application has been fully submitted, any changes must be requested by contacting URTA though Acceptd emails, or at theurtas@urta.com. Please keep in mind, applications close on January 6th, and no changes can be made after that date.

On the day of your URTA Audition, you will need to show up early to check in and attend the mandatory orientation. Please refer to the Candidate Handbook for sample schedules and timing based on your discipline.

Please keep in mind, the URTAs are a full day commitment, therefore we ask that you make no other plans for the day of your URTA Auditions & Interviews. Additionally, since we don’t know in advance how many callback interviews you may have, we cannot tell you how long you must stay. Some interviews go into the evening. Depending on where you need to travel back to, you may want to plan to spend another night.

Acting auditions are two minutes in length. Timing starts when you begin your first piece.

We strongly advise you to choose two contrasting pieces, such as a contemporary piece paired with a Shakespeare monologue, but you aren’t required to. There are some limitations, and these details are covered in the Candidate Handbook, so please give it a read!

Interviews are 15 minutes long. Interview styles vary, but usually the recruiter is trying to get a sense of who you are and what you are looking for in a grad program, while at the same time telling you about the program they represent. Candidates can greatly increase the productivity of this time by doing some advance research. That way, instead of the recruiter talking generally about their school, they can jump right in with details important to you and how you will fit into their program. Scroll up this page for some great information on interview preparation from students who have been through the process.

There may be power available, but it might not be near your station. Power strips and hotel-provided extension cords will be arranged throughout the room but please bring your own extension cord to connect to those power strips provided.

We have arranged for Wi-Fi to be included with your sleeping room, if you are staying at the URTA hotel. But Wi-Fi will probably not be available in the room where the portfolio reviews take place. You should make sure that any digital materials are downloaded and available to be viewed without an internet connection.

We ask you to provide us a link to your online portfolio so we can make it available to recruiters ahead of time. Hopefully, by the time they sit down with you they’ve already become familiar with some of your work online.

First, continue to research programs that you’re interested in, and that expressed interest in you. Follow up with thank you notes or emails.

You may be asked to submit a formal application to the university, along with their application fee. Please note that the fee you paid to URTA was for your attendance at the URTAs – not an application fee for a particular school or schools.

You might be invited to visit the campus for a required callback audition, and sometimes the school will offer to defray your travel costs. It might also be a good idea to contact current students, or alumni of the program, to hear their thoughts.

You should be sure to read the URTA Offer/Acceptance Policy (in the Candidate Handbook) regarding how and when offers might start to come in, but be aware that once the three-week period is over, an offer could come at any time, and an answer could be required fairly quickly. Make sure you know what you want, where you want to go, who you want to study with, and more.

After the URTAs, recruiters may contact candidates. Take such correspondence as an indication of “interest,” but it should not be interpreted as an official offer. When an official offer is made, it will be clearly stated as such, and accompanied by something in writing.

The process is a two-way street. You are free to inquire whether you’re on a recruiter’s “short list,” or not. And later in the spring, if you don’t get into a program, you can always follow up with an email to see if spots have opened up that you would be perfect to fill.

Please note: The artist-teacher who serves as a recruiter normally does not have a great deal of support staff assisting them.  They may not have time to write the “thank you” email to the many candidates they met, and may not have the time to let you know you are NOT in the running for an official offer. This is not an excuse for poor manners, only an explanation of why you might not hear back.

Candidates may cancel attendance at any time simply by emailing URTA, however it is our policy that we cannot offer refunds for registration fees or admission to continuing education events.

Should you encounter a conflict with work, school, or a performance, URTA will change your date and/or site, if possible. Changes are not guaranteed, as space is limited in some areas, and a fee may be charged if URTA is able to accommodate the request. All change requests must be emailed to theurtas@urta.com. Include your name, and the site and day/time, that you were assigned.

Attendance Deferral

If severe weather or a significant health issue will prevent you from attending on your scheduled day, the easiest option is to change to another day at the same site. If that’s not possible, moving to another site may be an option.

Be sure to read the Candidate Handbook, which is full of useful information about the process. If you still have questions, please send an email to: TheUrtas@urta.com. All emails are replied to in a timely fashion.