LAMDA Audition 2016

I said last year that LAMDA was my favorite drama school, as the general atmosphere was really friendly. This was very much the case this year, and I found myself chatting for a long time to all of their current students. Maybe it's just because they are expected to do that, but hey it felt real guys.

LAMDA, are very similar to RADA in the sense that you are given a time slot for your audition, along with another group of people, and once you have done your audition, you are free to go. Unlike RADA however, LAMDA has a monologue session where you simply perform your two speeches, and then you move to another room where you are interviewed. My whole audition lasted about 40 minutes.

My time slot to audition was 3:15, (which was beautiful because I could have a bit more of a lay in). I arrived at ten to three, and in the time between, you are taken to a room to wait. At about twenty past three my group was taken to wait in the common room where you are then taken off individually to audition for a panel. On my panel there was a woman and a man, and the audition took place in quite a big hall. I found this last year with LAMDA: that the rooms the auditions take place in are so big, that it can be quite hard to find yourself. I have no idea if that makes sense, but I have found it hard in both of my auditions at LAMDA to properly get into character. Even so, I feel like my monologues were to a decent standard, although I have found out all too often that that's not always enough. As for the panel, I have found both years that the people don't give too much away at all, not much smiling going on. The only things they asked me were what speeches I was doing for them when I came into the room, and after I was finished and I was walking out, they asked me how old I was. In saying this they were pretty friendly and told me to take my time and to have a good day etc, so they weren't in any way mean, just very panelly.
Anything that I may have lacked in my acting I can only hope I made up for in my interview. I was pleased to see that both of the people interviewing me were young ex graduates, and were really nice to chat to. The whole things felt a lot less like an interview and more of a friendly conversation, which I always take as a good sign. I was also very lucky to find that the guy was from the same area as me, and it turned out that we had both belonged to the same theatre group, and we talked for ages about the directors there and mutual friends etc. I know for a fact that LAMDA have a bit of a soft spot for good old Norwich, which is great because its very rare that any places ever know where Norwich is, or what the art scene is like. I also just let myself enjoy the interview and really be proud of what I have achieved in the last year. I certainly hope that this all worked in my favour, but you can really never be sure.

Either way, I really enjoyed my time at LAMDA the same as I did last year, and I can only hope that that I proceed further in the audition process.

RADA Audition 2016

This week I auditioned at RADA for the second time, and as I am beginning to find with auditions that I have done before, it was very much the same atmosphere as last year. To find more intricate details on RADA, you might want to look at the post from last years audition. In saying this, there was still a slight difference in my audition which is to be expected with different panels and different speeches.
The structure of the day/session is very quick and simple. You are given a time for your audition, this year mine was 1.30, along with about 15 other people, and at the designated time, your group is taken to a room to fill out speech forms. This is just a chance for you to calm down, and just like last year, the staff dealing with us were really nice, and reassured us if we were nervous. After about 20 minutes in this room, you are then taken off in groups of four to wait outside a panel room where you go in alternately. Each audition is only about ten minutes long, and after that you are free to go. It's a pretty quick and underwhelming process for such a high profile school.

My audition was again pretty similar to last year. When I entered the room, the two people on the panel, a man and woman, were very welcoming and both shook my hand. I remember being totally surprised last year when I sat down to have my interview, as it was a bit more of a friendly chat, and that was even more so this year. The woman joked to me about having ginger hair as she did too, and they really only asked me one question which was 'what are you doing on your gap year'. This question just allowed me to ramble on about my year and we had more of a flowing conversation than a series of questions. They also inquired about any shows that I'd been to see that I either loved or hated, and once again that spurred another chat. This year I have worked on being a lot calmer, and have actually tried to enjoy my auditions, as I genuinely love yapping on about my gap year. After a pretty good chat, I was then asked to stand quite far back in the room, and begin my speeches when i'm ready.
Once I finished my speeches I was invited to sit down again and talk about them. This seems to be the structure of the interview, in the sense that the second chat is more directed at your speeches. This year rather than asking me anything about the plot of the play or things about my characters, the woman focused on why I chose characters which were a lot older than me, as my two listed classicals were 'Paulina' from 'The Winter's Tale' and 'Queen Margaret' from 'Henry VI part two'. I understand that doing speeches like this are a risk, especially Paulina which I performed, as she is at least in her sixties. I just replied that I found a lot of power in Paulina, as shes a servant that is not afraid to say what she thinks, and the general fact that older characters have a lot of back story. She seemed fine with my justification, yet I'm not sure she agreed it was right for someone as young and frail looking as me (which is what I am told my cast type is). She told me that people as young as me tend not to understand how older characters might conduct themselves, and seemed to suggest that a calmer apparition might be more appropriate in comparison to the anger filled performance that I gave. Rather than giving me a chance to do the speech in this way however, (as RADA tend not to redirect), I was left with that pointer and was told I was free to go. Although the woman was still perfectly nice, this bit of advice kind of left the audition on a question mark as to whether they liked me. I can only hope they did, but that's just the emotion trauma that is drama school auditions.

Love and Money - Denis Kelley, Norwich Theatre royal Youth company

I'm very happy to have been part of this wonderful production with the Norwich Theatre Royal Youth company. The part of 'Jess' in Dennis Kelly's 'Love and Money' has been a very big part to be trusted with, and in the process of this show I have gained a lot of confidence, been pushed out of my comfort zone, and broken a lot of emotional barriers. I urge anyone to join new groups, expand your circles and try new things!

Central school of speech and drama - 2016 audition and 1st recall

My audition at central was my first time auditioning at a school for the second time, and somehow, this was even more nerve racking than going to a place for the first time. There was something completely weird about going there, and being taken into the same room and doing the exact same thing a whole year later, yet knowing that you are in the exact same position, with the exact same lack of power. 

For anyone that is still yet to audition I will explain a bit about how the day works (this is also written on my post from central 2015 in a little more detail). Central audition around 100 or more people in a day, and in the morning, you are all herded into a big hall to wait. From my knowledge their auditions always start at nine, so be sure to have mega good sleeps. The structure of the day is as follows: The large group are split into smaller groups of about ten, and these groups depend on which of the acting courses you have put first on your application. At central, rather than applying for just BA Acting or Musical theatre, you do one audition and are considered for all three acting courses, central also do an 'Acting Collaborative devised theatre' course. This is where I learned a little more about the audition process, as I thought that everyone auditioning did the same workshop and same monologue session no matter what you had chosen. Last year I was put into a group with all musical theatre people and in my workshop I had to sing, despite the fact I hate musical theatre. This year I put Acting CDT as my first choice and my workshop was totally different. Choose wisely because if you put musical theatre as your second choice even if you don't like musical theatre, you could be considered to sing. 

The day works on a rotational system and you will have a monologue session, a movement/singing workshop (depending on your decisions) and a tour of the school; these can go in any order. I had my monologue session first and then moved on to my workshop before going on a tour. The monologue workshop is a very simple session. Everyone in your group is in the room while you perform, and the atmosphere is about as calm as it could be in a situation like this. Without going into unnecessary detail, you almost always perform two monologues, one of which is a classical speech from the list which Central provide, and the second, a contemporary of your choice. Central are very strict on their timings and will stop you if your contemporary speech exceeds two minutes, this is not a personal thing if they stop you, just a timing thing. 

My acting CDT workshop was very different to my workshop last year, and if you are a straight acting or musical theatre applicant, it would be more useful to read my post from last year's central audition to get a feel for the other type of workshop you could be asked to do. During the workshop, we did some pretty simple beginning exercises to warm up, for example passing a clap around the circle, passing and receiving clicks, adding noises and exaggerating these movements etc. This seemed to be to gaige the enthusiasm of the group and to see how quick and alert people could be. Next we were asked to walk around the space and to do the quite general stop and go, fill the space sort of exercises, which you will come across in many workshops of this nature. This was then developed into an exercise which involved moving to a different space in the room and acknowledging that space, then we had to move to different levels or move at different paces and explore our movements. We then begun our monologues, and were asked to keep what we were doing, but let the words affect how you move. If you were angry or frantic you might run, or a calmer more sinister character might crouch down and barely move at all. We did ,many exercises like this which involved your body, and letting that tell the story and affect your words. The exercise which took up a bulk of the time was one where we pretty much had to depict plastic bags with our bodies. The exercise began by one of the ladies running the workshop telling us to totally let go of the tension in our bodies, and to adopt a sort of lightness. Then she told us to imagine we were plastic bags with no muscles or limbs and to embody that state of lightness. This meant most of us had flopped to the floor by now and slowly the exercise developed so that we were all pretty much flat out on the floor as light plastic bags. We were then told to imagine there is a weight pulling you up, like a breeze which pulls certain parts of your body up, yet also the occasional pull of gravity which pulls you straight down again. We then did this for a little while exploring at what speed our limbs were pulled up and down and how often this occurred, we were told to take risks and be confident with our bodies and allow parts that aren't necessarily as easily controlled to be pulled up. This then went even further, and we had to perform our monologues in this state yet we had to let our bodies bring the words, not the other way round (basically you perform a monologue as a bag...) I think a lot of the workshop revolved around finding out how you can connect your body to your words and also your confidence in doing that. A final exercise involved the same idea of light and heavy. Instead of now embodying these states, we just had to find a way of a lightness or heaviness becoming present in our monologues, that didn't necessarily mean being heavy footed or having an angry facial expression. It just had to be subtly there, and we worked on walking across the room and delivering our monologue while walking and making that transition from heavy to light. 

After all of your morning sessions, you are gathered in the hall to find out if you will progress onto the second part of the day which acts as a sort of recall. If you are sent home, it is very likely your application had now been rejected. If however you are asked to stay, it may be for one, two or three of the acting courses central offer. I was very excited to find out that I would be progressing into the second half of the day, whereas last year I didn't (YES PROGRESS). 

I found that I had been recalled just for acting. This meant that the workshop I did for CDT, hadn't been successful. Some people are recalled for all three of the courses, so if you don't do a workshop that is specifically tailored to CDT applicants, it doesn't necessarily mean you will not be considered for it. Because of this, it means that some people have a very full afternoon and go on to do three workshops similar to the mornings sessions. After waiting nearly two hours, I went for my acting recall and was surprised to find that it was much like the first round. Me and a group pf about eight people went into a room and each of us had to perform the classical monologue that we did not perform in the morning. I only got about half way through when I was stopped and was redirected in another way. I was told to hold back my anger and try and perform the monologue in a way that suggested i didnt want to hurt him, but that I cant help but say the words (Paulina, 'The Winter's Tale). After about four or five lines I was told that was enough. Obviously whatever I did was enough for them to see that I either could or couldn't take redirection, I really hope it's the first.

Central do all of their first round auditions before they decide on final recalls and therefore I believe I will find out in at least another week. In total there are three rounds including the two on the initial audition day, and I can't wait to see if I am to do a final recall! :))