Chicago, Illinois is one of the country's greatest theater cities.
The city of Chicago is one of the U.S.'s great theater meccas, trailing only New York and Los Angeles, perhaps, when it comes to musical theater acting opportunities. The Windy City is home to some of the country's most culturally significant theater companies, including Second City and Steppenwolf. If you're a musical theatre actor based out of Chicago, there are several ways you can search out auditions.
Theatre Companies
One of the oldest but tried and true ways of finding musical theater auditions is to do your research on the theater companies that interest you, check The League of Chicago Theatres where you'll find audition notices and specific information for each theatre company in the Chicago area. If you go out of your way to identify the companies creating theatre that inspires you, you'll be more likely to get in the door at an audition since you'll be able to articulate your passion to them. There are hundreds of theater companies in the Chicago area, a great many of which produce musicals and frequently hold auditions. You'll find a company for any artistic taste; if you're into racially diverse theater, look into the Pegasus Players, while if avant garde musical theatre is more your style, consider The Lookingglass Theatre Company.
The biggest resource for actors in Chicago is Performink. While audition notices do get posted on the newspaper's website, there's far more detailed information to be found in the hard copy. Performink is a biweekly trade newspaper for actors and theatre artists in Chicago that prints auditions, interviews, actor resources, classes and news articles. You can get Performink delivered to you twice a week by getting an annual subscription. Purchasing a copy of An Actor's Guide to Chicago, another resource put out by Performink, will also help you find musical theatre auditions.
Websites
If you're someone who prefers to do research online, look no farther than theater websites to search out musical theater auditions in Chicago. Theatre In Chicago (theatreinchicago.com) is a website that prints theater news and information, but also countless auditions happening around the city on any given day. Searching audition listings is free and you're able to search by Equity or non-Equity auditions. Playbill (playbill.com) is another website that's very popular with theater artists. You can search the site by city, so type in Chicago and the website, which is updated several times daily, will sort auditions for you in the area.
Summer Stock
Summer stock theater happens all over the country, all summer long. Summer stock companies produce several shows a season in one location with a resident acting company that's employed for the whole summer. Illinois Theatre Association (iltheassoc.org) is one company that holds yearly auditions in March for summer stock opportunities in the Chicago area. Perhaps the largest summer stock audition is Straw Hat (strawhat-auditions.com). Auditions are held in several cities across the country to recruit actors to come to Chicago and participate in summer stock theaters.
