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.