Chicago... Baby, What a Big Surprise...

Well, very little blogging to be done today. Review of applications for the Chicago site has taken a nasty turn. Historically, we get 40-50 applications for that site, and we accept 30. (A 60-75% acceptance rate.) Right now I'm staring down 104 applications for Chicago. And I get to pick 30. (A 29% acceptance rate.) There’s no way to avoid that some people who would ordinarily get an audition won’t get passed through this year.

In case you’re wondering, we have to pick our cities, reserve our audition spaces, and make flight arrangements long before the applications are in. We use the number of applications submitted in previous years as a guide to how many days we should spend in any given city. Chicago’s numbers have never been like this before. We’re flying in the night before (from Seattle), and we have to leave the night of the auditions to get to Cincinnati, so there's no option to extend.

The blog takes a back seat. See you tomorrow.

(I’m showing my age with today’s title. “Baby what a big surprise… right before my very eyes….” 1976? 1977? Where were you?)