The bulk of this post revolves around how my National Youth theatre annual casting audition went this year, but as an introduction I will explain a little bit about being a member of NYT if you don't already know.
You can audition for NYT at any age between 14 and 21, and once you are a member, you stay one until you are 26. I wont go too much into the details of the audition process, as that's a whole post in itself, but once you have undertaken a 2 week or 4 week acting intake course, you are then able to utilise everything NYT offer you. You are given a log in to their members website, which has a whole page external professional industry castings which aren't always advertised to the public. Then there is a page dedicated to everything NYT are offering across the year, for example audition technique master classes, research projects, free tickets to shows etc. To get a part in one of the shows NYT put on for each year, you have to do a day-long annual casting audition, which I am writing about in this post. If you get cast, it is very like on a big stage to an audience of industry professionals, and therefore this annual audition can be majorly important.
The group gets split into two at the beginning of the day. Half of you get to perform your monologues first, and the other half get to do a physical workshop and vocal workshop. If you are lucky you get to do all of the physical and vocal stuff first, which I always feel gets you in the mindset to perform your monologue. As with anything with NYT, the day was very friendly and informal. At the end of the day, they know you are already capable, and just want you to do your best. At no point in the day, did I ever feel like I was being judged, as everyone who works at NYT is totally chill and friendly.
I was one of the lucky ones who got to do the physical bits first, starting with a movement workshop. This consisted of a few ensemble games, for example passing the clap around the circle, and walk around the space concentration stuff (we've all been there). Then we had to get into partners, and work on making our body passive, semi passive and active. This was all to do with control and the confidence to trust and work with another person using your body. In this exercise, your partner had to mold you into different shapes, and if you were passive, you have to let all of your muscles flop and you would fall to the ground if your partner wasn't there to catch you. Semi passive meant you were slightly tensed and you could help your partner slightly, and active was physically moving yourself, trying to get away from your partner. It was mainly experimental and was a good way of seeing people's flexibility, but also their willingness to let their body be manipulated. This exercise was developed further, as we were put into groups, and given a situation which we had to act out using the ideas of passive, semi passive and active. My group was given 'first dance at the school disco' and we all had to explore and decide how you would act if you were in this situation: you might be active and run away because you are scared, or faint of embarrassment which would be passive. We then performed these to the group. The other main section of the workshop was to see how physically able we all were. Kayne, one of the main choreographers at NYT who lead the workshop always puts on really loud fun music, and then demonstrates movements that he wants us to do across the room. These consists of jumps, leaps and kicks, all things which allow him to pick out dancers and really see people's confidence in their bodies. If you're not a dancer, there is no need to be scared about this however! NYT always make a strong point of reassuring everyone that its not a test of your dancing or singing skills or anything like that, it's just to see how free and confident people are with their bodies. I always really enjoy these workshops, and I think that's a good key to doing a strong audition, because it shows your willingness, and that ultimately, you love what you do, no matter if you're balls at dancing.
The second half of the morning was a vocal workshop which was similarly structured: a few warm ups, like scales, humming and facial stretches, as well as a song circle kind of thing. This was a way of letting everyone have their opportunity to sing a couple of lines of a song while everyone else clapped and laid down beats to keep it moving. Once again, some people who weren't very confident did a bit of spoken word, or rapped happy birthday or something, but once again as long as you were confident in what you were doing, it really didn't matter. On a personal level, I was really pleased we did that, as it put me under pressure to sing on my own, which I don't often do, and I felt really good for it. After this we did some singing in sections, e.g altos, sopranos and bases, exploring rounds and choral sort of singing. We then finally were sent off into groups of about five, and we were all asked to put together a musical arrangement of any kind. As always with NYT, there were lots of different things ut together, and people who play instruments were invited to play in theirs. As for my group, none of us played any instruments and a couple of people weren't entirely confident singers, so we did a totally lame yet obviously outstanding mashup rendition of Justin Bieber's baby. Once again we enjoyed it and were confident and I think if you try your best to show everything you can do, then you've done well.
After the morning sessions, there is an hour lunch break and the two groups swap over. The monologue section is a lot slower moving, as each person is taken individually to audition, and if your nearing the end (as I always am) then you could have well over two hours to wait and prepare. I always take this time to meet some new people and have a good chat, as you never know what you might learn. For someone like me who doesn't live in London, it's great to make the most of the time to hear about plays that people have seen, or workshops or drama school auditions and all things like that, as its a whole hub of experience. Then when it's nearing my time to go into the audition room, I go through my monologue a little to prepare and do some meditation and stretchy related stuff to get me going. My audition this year was soooo much more relaxed than last year, as I felt so much calmer. Over the last year since I have done more shows and workshops with NYT I have come to realise that its a lot more of a friendly conversational place, where staff only want you to succeed. I therefore went into the room excited to chat to the facilitators about everything i've been up to this year. If you show them friendly confidence, they will give it straight back. I then performed my monologue: Paulina from 'The Winter's Tale' which is quite contrasting to my happy self, and generally l felt preeeety good. They just simply chatted to me about my gap year, where I work, what shows I'm in at the minute and just about any skills I have like dancing or singing etc, and that was it. It was just before six when I finished the whole day audition which started at ten. If your monologue is at the beginning of the afternoon however you could only be there until three.
All in all, this year's casting was one of the most enjoyable auditions i've done to date, and I cant wait to hear if i've been successful in this years season of shows :))
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