GSA Final recall

I finished this year's auditions where I started, at GSA, the final recall audition. I think I waffled on a shit load about the vibes at GSA and how I really liked it first time, so I wont go on too much, but just as a quick note, I loved GSA just as much second time round. There seems to be a really nice community atmosphere there which you don't get very much at drama school.

The structure of the final recall day is pretty simple. You go in at the allotted time you are given, so get there a little before hand. In the group there are about 12-15ish people, and the first section of the day, is a simple warm up. Before I get into the ins and outs of the day, its is mega important to say, never fear going to GSA (bars). Before we started the warm up, we were waiting for a load of people to go to the toilet and stuff, and we had a five minute gap of the head of acting say how awkward the silence was, and consequently try and make a load of shit jokes which he then laughed at how bad they were. It is honestly the most friendly laid back school I've been to. Anyway, the warm up mainly consisted of walking around the space and getting to grips with your body and concentration, and doing a lot of vocal exercises to warm up our voices. There was a quick bit of engaging with your character and getting into the mindset, and then after about 15/20 minutes, we stopped, and everyone was asked to sit in two rows on the floor facing each-other, and this marked the beginning of hearing our classical speeches. GSA only ask you to prepare two monologues (one contemporary, one classical) just the same as their first round. The audition worked exactly as it did in the first round too, as we were asked to one by one get up and do our classical speech without announcing it or establishing any sort of order and keep going until everyone was finished. For more details on that you can take a look at my first round GSA post. Once this section was finished, everyone was given a half an hour break before the next bit.

The next section of the day was where we did a bit of physical workshopping. Nothing too strenuous, just a bit of walk around the space stuff and some concentration games. The main one was the pretty standard game of 'stop, go' where you're told to stop and go and hop and clap (or something similar) except the words mean the opposite action. I was surprised to find that after forcing this game upon the kids at the drama group I direct hundreds of times and consequently laughing at how shit they are at it, I was absolute pants at this game. After this we got into the zone of our second character, however instead of actually performing our contemporary in the usual way, we played an improvisation game. This was probably the most challenging bit of the day, because this was our only chance to showcase our second piece and to show a contrast to our classical, yet it required a bit of imagination. Basically, everyone stood in a circle, and two people were in the centre at all times, whom of which had to have a conversation as their contemporary character, yet they could ONLY use the text from their contemporary speech. When you thought it was the right time to jump in you could. Sometimes the tone of the other person's speech could completely change the tone of your own and you would have to adapt to that, and generally it was a way to see if you could think on your feet and break your monologue out of it's original patterns. Again after this section, everyone was given a little break.

The final section was for selective interviews, where the panel asked a few people to stay behind for a little while to possibly see some more monologue work, or maybe just for a chat. This was not a final elimination thing at all, just if the panel wasn't necessarily sure about someone. The student looking after our group assured us this, as he said that in his final recall, no one was asked to stay for an interview, and a lot of them got in. I was asked to stay, and basically they gave an order of who they wanted to see, and we all waited outside the audition room until our turn.

I can honestly say I have never made more of a twat of myself in an interview than I did at GSA. The panel, just wanted to see me for a chat, and ALL they had to ask me was 'why do you want to come to GSA' and I was off. I quite literally waffled for about ten minutes about how I loved the vibes at the school, that I liked the practitioners that they study, and what a contrast they are, how I love ensemble which is one of their key focuses and how I run a lot of ensemble workshops myself... ramble  ramble ramble....and I quite literally stopped breathing. I stopped talking and went 'sorry I think I have stopped breathing, I have just rambled for ten minutes straight without taking a breath' and they all just burst out laughing. As if that wasn't enough I then went on to tell them that I thought I was a bit delirious, because I got up at quarter to four' and they basically looked at each-other, smiled and said 'I think we've heard enough from you eve'. So in my mind I was like fuck, that's that eve, great one. So I got up probably quicker than they were expecting and started to leave, and one of the ladies on the panel started laughing again and said 'oooh she's off again'.............. I  could think of nothing better to do than to CURTSY and said 'thank you for having me' which made them laugh even more, and then I left.

I'm fucking ecstatic to say that clearly GSA love insane people, because I have received a place on their BA Acting course for this year, thus concluding every drama school audition I will ever have to do, not to mention these long ass posts explaining them that not a huge amount of people read.

Central final recall

I had my very first final recall a few weeks ago, at the central school of speech and drama, something which I thoroughly enjoyed, and which completely changed the opinion I had of the school.When you visit a school for a preliminary audition, it's quite hard to gauge a proper opinion, as you are more often than not, there for a morning, a few hours and sometimes only a few minutes. My opinion of central has always been a little torn, as they provide very little information about their course online, and although the musical theatre and CDT courses seem to be a little more obvious in what the course holds, their BA acting course is a bit less well explained. Because of this, I had trouble in establishing how contemporary the school was, and whether it was the right training for me. I also used to be a bit skeptical of their system in entering every applicant for all of the acting courses even if you don't want to be considered. Now after going through the whole of the central process, it has turned out to be one of my favourite school (maybe because they're one of the only ones that gave me a final recall, but ahhhhh well).
As I have found with the couple of final recalls I have done, the day was a lot less high pressure than I was expecting. There is no doubt that central has a generally friendly atmosphere at all times, but at the finals there seemed to be a little more mutual respect between the panel and auditionees, and I felt pretty comfortable throughout the session. The structure of the final recall day is as follows, there is an opening warm up lead by one of the first year movement coaches, and first year vocal coach. This is  not assessed, and is a really good way of getting in the zone. After the initial warm up, their is an improvisation exercise, and from what I gather, this exercise has been the same for a few years. All of the girls sit in a line facing the boys (there are about 15-20 in a recall session) and everyone is given a bit of paper with a situation on it, which is the basis for a scene. All of the girls have the same thing written, and all of the boys have the same thing written. In our situation, all of the girls were called Amy, and she was late meeting her boyfriend outside the cinema. There were a few basic facts about their relationship, but ultimately it was Amy's intention to try and break up with Steve when she got to meet him. Steve on the other hand has the intention to propose to Amy on the same night. The exercise worked so that two people started in the middle and the scene played out, and when you wanted to take the place of your character, you just said stop. The idea of the exercise wasn't to go in with an idea of what you were going to say, but to feed off of the other person and react to them with your intentions in mind.

After this, the group was split in two. One half had to stay and work on monologues, and the rest left for a break. This lasted for about an hour and forty five minutes, and then the groups swapped. In your workshop, the hardest thing is actually keeping yourself totally focused. Each person is worked on individually and you are asked which classical speeches off of the setlist you have prepared. The panel decide which of the two monologues they would like to hear, and most of the time, you will do it once through to begin with. Then the panel work on developing your speech to bring out a little more of what they didn't think came out, and a bit more subtext. Quite a few people were also asked a lot to do with the play, when in the play the speech takes place, and what characters you are speaking to etc. Even though Central have a setlist, they very much expect you to have read the plays. The exercises developed sometimes involved other people, for example everyone walking around the space to make the character nervous. Others were things to bring out  little more truth in the characters emotional state. One guy who did the King Lear speech 'I heard myself proclaimed' was asked to be chased by all of us up sever flights of stairs in order to find the panic in the opening of the speech. Interestingly there were also a couple of people in my group who spoke fluent French, and in order for them to find the true feelings of the speech, they were asked to so their speeches in French. This meant that in order for an audience who were not fluent to understand, a definitive feeling had to be set through the intonation and tone of voice. Each person was worked on for about 10-15 minutes.

Once each group had finished their monologues, a final few people were taken through to the last round, which is an interview. People not asked to stay for an interview are no longer being considered for a place. Out of my final recall group of about 18, only 6 of us were taken through to the interview. This only lasts for about five minutes and is just a casual chat with one of the tutors to find out a bit about you. I was surprised to find that rather than asking me about theatre and my hobbies etc, the guy was more interested in my home life and personal issues. This seemed to be like a bit of a test on whether or not I could be open about some of the more personal things that have happened to me. I was completely open and talked to the guy about everything he asked and he seemed pretty pleased. He also seemed to analyse my behavior alot, saying how I hold my emotions very much on the surface, or that I had 'reactive skin'. I have no idea whether those were good things or not, but I tried to just be myself. The day lasted about 5 and a half hours, but If you are picked to be in the first monologue set then you will be done significantly earlier.

Overall I was pretty chuffed with the way my first final recall went, and I was filled with a lot of confidence going into my other finals. I am very happy to say that I am holding a place on central's reserve list for their BA acting course, and although I don't have a definitive place there, it is certainly reassuring to know I am good enough to be on the course.

Guildhall audition - 2016

Second year auditioning at Guildhall, pretty much the same shit.
Guildhall hold their auditions in their student union bar, and although the actual school just down the road is absolutely gorgeous, there are weird vibes at the audition which I have felt two years in a row. The room you are asked to wait in is a pretty dark and dingy underground space with no windows, a bar, pool tables, and big leather sofas. It has literally no reflection on the school, but i can't help but feel like the whole place is a little scary mary. None the less, the audition at Guildhall is pretty standard, and pretty good for your money.

Once everyone has arrived, you are hoarded into a little side room with a big table and chairs. There are usually about 12-20 people auditioning on any one day, and the beginning is just a chat to reassure everyone, to fill in speeches forms, and also to be given a number label. After about 15 minutes, you are taken into another room just off from the bar where a beginning physical workshop takes place. Guildhall assure you this isn't assessed, but judging from the type of exercises you are asked to do, I find it hard to believe their isn't a tiny bit of perusing going on. Rather than just warming up, there are actual games, like two people have to run around, and without any signal, they have to stop at the same time and deliver the first line of their speech to each other. Or walking around the space and everyone stopping at once, various team games etc. I think they must at least like to see how confident you are in your body and how you can work within a group. I dunno if its true or what, but I find it weird that they call it a workshop, rather than a warm up, if its not assessed. Also, I did a similar workshop last year, and i'm almost sure they didn't say it wasn't assessed then, but I cant be positive. Either way, as always with an audition, I just tried to throw myself into everything as you only can do. A lot of the exercise seemed to be about truthfulness, and finding a way to arrive at your line, rather than knowing where you're going with it. This is a big philosophy at Guildhall, as is ensemble work, and the workshop seemed to echo that perfectly. Trying to adhere to both of these things in the morning workshop is the best way to tackle it. It's also important to say that this workshop was lead by two reaaally nice guys, both of which were older graduates of Guildhall.

The workshop lasted about half an hour, and then we were taken back into the room to be told a running order for the afternoon. The person who is first goes in about five minutes after the workshop has ended, but if you are nearing the end of the list, you have a couple of hours to wait in which you are free to go out for a bit. Each person has an individual audition for about ten minutes. For this you are asked to prepare three speeches: a classical, modern, and other of your choice, and a short unaccompanied song.
When I entered the room ready for my audition, I was asked which speech  wanted to do first, this is a given at Guildhall, so make sure you do the one you really want them to see. I got through my whole speech (Paulina 'The Winters tale') without being interrupted. Also, they are pretty big on eye contact, and if you have a speech directed at a person, they will ask you to use a student, who will give you expressions to play off. I remember being totally thrown off by this last year as I had my speech set a certain way, so when the student reacted in a way that I hadn't envisaged my character would, I had to break the tone of the piece which didn't really flow. This year however, I was totally prepared, and its a good thing to go in with a piece which isn't worked into the ground, so that you are free to do it in different ways. Then I was told which speech they wanted me to do next, and luckily they chose my favourite contemporary. This time I was stopped a little more. Once again I was asked to use eye contact, and seeing as this piece is directed at the audience i used the panel to look at too. The piece I was doing (Jess from 'Love and Money'), is quite a conflicted speech about life, and whether or not there is a higher power. It has very natural speech patterns, and quite often she cuts herself off or tries to find the right word for what she means. Because of this I was doing a lot of acting in between the lines and the panel asked me to tone that right down and just let the words come to me without 'trying too hard'. They asked me to just direct it at the student again and to just say it to him and let him affect me. I was stopped a couple of times, but I did what I thought they were asking of me and then they said it was enough. I wasn't asked for my song, or any more speeches, and to finish there was a five minute interview about me and what I was up to, blah blah, and that was it.

Once everyone has been auditioned, you all gather back in the room with the table and the panel come out to say who has been successful and they would like to see for a recall. This takes place something like the following week, and in my experience, only about 1-5 people out of each group ever get recalled, and sometimes none. Both years at Guildhall I have been rejected straight up. THEIR LOSS I GUESS.

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! :))