by Bel | Jun 6, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
It’s surprising how often drama school applicants commiserate with each other when they find out that other people are doing the same Shakespeare speeches as them at an audition. The chances of any new material from a man who has been dead for nearly 400 years is slim, so the likelihood of someone doing the same speech as you is statistically quite high. Securing a place isn’t based on the originality of your choice of speeches but your originality of thought and approach.
When interviewed in Fourth Wall magazine, Oliver Ford Davis talked of how there was no fixed way of performing Shakespeare and gave advice that would stand any drama school applicant in excellent stead: “One of the difficult things is we approach it with preconceptions and labels…I think with the big Shakespeare parts, don’t try and fit into a mould, don’t say, ‘This is how Cleopatra should be, how Rosalind should be.’ The audience don’t come to see Shakespeare’s Rosalind, they come to see your Rosalind. You might as well go for broke and say ‘I’ve got to find as much of Rosalind as I can in me and then I will do my Rosalind, and it will be like nobody else’s. Don’t be frightened of it. It’s a magnificent, magnificent thing to drive, to gain control of but you must bring yourself to it. I think Shakespeare, because he was an actor and because he knew his acting company so well, he actually leaves quite a lot of it to you, sort of saying, ‘I haven’t proscribed how this character should be played.’”
Another common plaintive cry is “I just wish I knew what they were looking for.” In recalls, the audition panel don’t just want to see how you take direction but also how receptive you are to your fellow actors. The improvisation exercises and other games that are played aren’t just what one panel flippantly called “a bit of fun for you all”, but an opportunity for them to scrutinise whether you are capable of doing what Alison Steadman advised all actors this week – “ To look and listen. As an actor, all we are doing is pretending to be other people. Look and listen: always listen. Listen, listen, listen all the time.”
At Audition Doctor, there is thankfully never any opportunity to play someone else’s interpretation of a Shakespeare character as Tilly is meticulous in questioning every single choice you make in your speech. Sessions at Audition Doctor will often entail making sure that your intentions behind every thought is clear by “listening” to the text, which ensures that your performance is truthful. The focus that Audition Doctor places on how your character is trying to affect the person he/she is talking to is invaluable. If you are unsure as to how you are trying to affect a fictional character, the real human beings sitting on the panel will undoubtedly also be left unconvinced.
by Bel | May 30, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
The Times recently dispatched one of its journalists – Richard Morrison – to attend and report back on the increasingly popular intensive courses that RADA offer for people in business. The article was entitled “How RADA helped me find my inner Gordon Gekko”, which leads me to believe that the infamous decision to send a Tower Hamlets councillor on one of the £625 a day courses was made in the spirit of shrewd business acumen, intended on swelling the council’s empty coffers in the face of government cuts instead of what some perceived as gratuitous profligacy.
The commercial courses that this drama school offers attract people from all job sectors – The City, the NHS, the Civil Service, event management, the Home Office and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. The skills that actors require such as the ability to be clearly heard, to hold the attention of an audience and to stand up in front of a group of people while “exuding such an air of friendly but confident ease that all present will feel the impact of [your] charisma” are not exclusive to a career on the stage but also in the boardroom. Edward Kemp, artistic director of RADA, explained the reason for the courses’ success was its focus on voice work coupled with a focus on “status transactions, which we use a lot in drama training.”
“We used to think of status purely in terms of one’s social standing,” Kemp explains. “But there are many other sorts of status. Experts can adjust their status so they are slightly above the person they are hoping to influence, but not so far above as to be frightening. Effective status transactions can be taught, and the skill can be hugely valuable — for lawyers, for example.”
Throughout the course, Morrison is instructed to participate in various exercises designed to boost confidence such as finding your centre of gravity, delivering an anecdote without any “ums” and “ahs” and passing round a Shakespeare sonnet around a circle one iambic pentameter at a time. You get the feeling here that Morrison should stick to his job writing instead of public speaking when he turns to the hapless person on his left and delivers the line “borne on the bier with white and bristly beard” with what he hopes is “a Hammer House of Horror quiver in [his] voice.”
Audition Doctor offers help with effective communication in public speaking without the eye-watering price tag. People from a range of professions have attended Audition Doctor courses and have found that sessions have got rid of the barriers that prevented them from delivering their speeches confidently. Shakespeare monologues or other speeches at Audition Doctor are used as vehicles through which the speaker’s breath and voice are explored and developed.
Why are actors – professionals concerned with the arts – increasingly looked to as the go-to group to improve things in the commercial arena? As Edward Kemp says: “It’s about effective communication. And don’t forget that as actors we are chiefly concerned with conveying truth.” Furthermore, with the skills that you learn at Audition Doctor, delivering your presentation or speech to a room of besuited colleagues will not feel, as Morrison concedes, like a “recurring teenage nightmare”.
by Bel | May 23, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
People deliberating over whether to apply for drama school will wonder whether the tuition fees and length of time spent training will be worth it. This is a profession that deifies youth, where the possibility of steady gainful employment is largely non-existent and which has a reputation for being elitist.
This is why it was so refreshing when this week in the Guardian, Anne-Marie Duff described the profession as a “sublimely egalitarian world”. Her working-class background that was untinged with “entitlement” meant that her ambition was in no way neutered: “”I knew if I wanted to do this for a living, I really had to pursue it.” However, she did mention: “When I was auditioning for drama schools, the girls around me were from very different backgrounds. I remember thinking, ‘Should I lie about my family?’” Without wanting to sound trite and melodramatic, being anything other than who you are is a waste of time as it will be your specific experiences and upbringing that will be your most valuable resource.
Duff remembers her drama school training as a “masochistic” but “exciting” time. “It put me through my paces. I toughened up. I was by no means the star of the year. It taught me to be resourceful, to go away and do the work myself. Invaluable.”
There is no substitute for consistent and rigorous daily training; since reparatory theatre no longer gives actors the opportunity to learn on the job, drama school is one of the last places where the actor can learn her/his vocation. Talent can only take you so far and no matter how young and talented you are, there will be someone else who is younger, just as talented and who will have the technique and skills developed over three years. Although drama school training doesn’t necessarily put you in the fast track when you enter the profession, it is proof that you take yourself seriously as an actor and have put in the effort to improve and nurture your potential.
When interviewed by Erica Wagner of the Times about Complicite, Wagner noted how Simon McBurney sees himself “almost as an instrument through which others may find the means to express themselves. Curiosity drives him: curiosity about his fellow human beings, about literature and art, about the world.” This is why Audition Doctor sessions are so valuable; your curiosity about the character and the play is encouraged and pushed further. Analysing the myriad of possible psychological impulses that prompted a character to say or do something means that you have a wide range of artistic choices at your disposal. At a drama school audition, the work you do at Audition Doctor is constantly drawn upon and being redirected is neither surprising nor difficult because you will have explored so many alternatives with Tilly during your lessons.
When one journalist asked to sit in on an audition for a piece on the “secretive world of casting directors”, one casting director opined: “Asking an actor if they mind someone sitting in is a bit like asking a woman if she minds someone watching her gynaecological examination.” Attending Audition Doctor sessions guarantees that your drama school auditions will be as exposing as having your legs in stirrups – but in the good sort of way. Exposing your unique vulnerability and openness is something that Audition Doctor sessions foster and a quality that drama schools prize above all else. This is why Audition Doctor lessons are so essential. They give you the unique opportunity to come closer to fulfilling Laurence Olivier’s credence – that “ The actor should be able to create a universe in the palm of his hand.”
by Bel | May 16, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
While Adrian Lester has been getting rave reviews in Othello at the National, it seems that someone else in the public eye is also looking to tackle one of the greatest roles in British theatrical history. Mike Tyson has announced that he is temporarily foregoing his main preoccupations of boxing, raping and cannibalism to try his hand at Othello – or in his words “that black guy”. He articulately predicts that the experience will be simply “awesome”.
“My career as an actor has blossomed,” he said. “I never considered myself a comedian or actor, even though I was in movies and shows helping out friends … a lot of my friends are actors and directors and they say: ‘Mike, we need you to concentrate and take it seriously.’ They say my skills are horrible, but I have the natural timings for it. I am working on my skills.”
Mike’s friends are right. Even though you have all the natural timing in the world, skills need to be sharpened and developed if you want to be taken seriously as an actor. Appearing in Passion Play, Zoe Wanamaker says that returning to the West End is “nerve-racking”; the hardest part is the challenge of trying to attain perfection for six nights a week and two matinees. “You want people to love you and think you’re marvellous and that kind of stuff.”
But the audience can only think you’re marvellous if they trust in your artistic abilities and if you, as an actor, are confident in your proficiency. Drama school is where you acquire the technique which will allow you to begin to master the craft. Although some actors who haven’t been to drama school say that not going has given them the gift of childish amateurism, the verbal, physical and emotional dexterity that actors practice seemingly effortlessly onstage is, in reality, the result of in-depth professional training. Audition Doctor sessions are invaluable in that they give you concentrated blocks of time to focus just on you. Whether you have problems with accessing a particular emotion or are unsure of the emotional journey of the character, Audition Doctor allows you to tackle your own specific queries.
Aside from helping people with public speaking and drama school applicants, Audition Doctor also works with professional actors for auditions. Carey Mulligan spoke about her “crazy” audition for The Great Gatsby in The Telegraph – “It was in a loft somewhere in New York and usually auditions are just a camera, you and the casting director, or whatever. This was at least three cameras, one 3-D camera, one guy walking around with a camera and Baz had a hand-held one. Then there were were two photographers taking pictures of the whole process.”
Auditions can be nerve-wracking and unpredictable which is why coming to Audition Doctor will ensure that you enter the audition space feeling as calm and clear-headed as you can possibly be in the circumstances. As a result, you will not squander your audition no matter how many cameras and eyes are focused on you.
by Bel | May 8, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Watching Christoph Waltz, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman, Nicholas Cage, Peter Starsgaard and Stanley Tucci debate over whether acting can be defined as art was a lesson in not only how differently actors themselves view their profession, but also how directors and producers perceive an actor’s job and their place in the creative process.
As Firth casually swills his wine, he says: “It’s an evaluation that people put on it, I mean, I’ve seen acting that is definitely not art.” The others – bar Cage who looks like he’s just sucked a lemon wedge – laugh knowingly. Morgan asserts that an actor is more craftsman than artist because an actor is dependent on a writer. Though an actor uses his body, voice and imagination as his instruments, ultimately he is an interpreter of words.
Here, Cage adopts a tone that betrays just a hint of a dissatisfied whine:
Cage: “Isn’t there a music within you that compels you to speak the words in a certain way?”
Freeman: “Absolutely”
Cage: (pleading):“Could that not be art?”
Freeman: “No.”
By this point everyone else is visibly relaxing into the debate and the standard “There is no right or wrong” consensus is hauled out to diffuse any trace of awkward disagreement. Cage, however, with all the false equanimity that he can muster, announces sulkily: “I’m not trying to be right or wrong, I’m just trying to learn something.” Anyone who has seen the infamous youtube video “Nicholas Cage Losing His Shit” will tense at this point but he seems to be in control of himself on this occasion and calmly uses Hilary Hahn playing Bach as an example of true artistry. (He does unfortunately go onto negate this point later by saying: “I’m not going to denigrate acting…your whole instrument is your mind and your body, we’re not hiding behind guitars here” but ah well.)
Lyn Gardner moved the debate on further by asserting that far from being an artist, let alone an interpreter, actors were increasingly viewed as being merely part of the set – “The increasing trend – one borrowed from the US – in which the “cast” and “creatives” are listed separately in theatre programmes, suggests a rise in the idea that actors play no role in the creative process. They are simply puppets.”
However, at the National Theatre Platform this week, Peter Brook insisted that actors were far from being just moving props: “An actor is not an object, or a robot. An actor is evolving as an artist, and separately as a human being, both through his obligation and his political convictions. It is part of the actor’s job to feel and sense, without analysing, the world that they’re living in.”
Ultimately, it isn’t either or – it’s both. This is why acting is deceptively difficult and despite the proliferation of reality television giving the false impression that “anyone can do it”, being both craftsman and artist requires endless inquiry, exploration and training; this is what Audition Doctor offers.
Whichever drama school you apply for or whichever acting job you want, you have to have the technique to back up your “art” or “interpretation” or whatever it is you choose to call what you bring to a performance. Audition Doctor gives you the space and time to enter what Peter Brook calls the third stage of acting which is the “rarest level of all – incarnation. That is when the great role actually enters every fibre of the flesh; it only happens once in a generation.”
Alternatively, if you feel like you would like to back up your Audition Doctor sessions with reading up on the subject of acting, Wikipedia cites that “In February 2011, Cage claimed to have created a new method of acting he calls “Nouveau Shamanic”. He claims to have used the acting style throughout his career and one day plans to write a book about the method.” Undoubtedly something to pre-order on Amazon.
by Bel | May 2, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
The one thing journalists love to ask actors is why they got into the profession. This week Hugh Dancy confessed: “I would never have thought of doing this if I hadn’t been forced into it, partly because of boarding [school] and partly because I was unhappy,” he says. “They had such wonderful facilities at the school … every time I say that, it sounds like I’m talking about the toilets.” Roger Allam talked of how he “became obsessed with drama, stomping around London and paying 10p for standing tickets in the gods, and reading a Great Acting book that he found in the school library. He haunted stage doors and watched actors walking into pubs.” People become actors for various reasons – escapism, “for the girls”, therapy or for the excitement of having the chance to experience lives that are so distinctive from your own. Whatever the reason, Derek Jacobi is of the firm belief that actors are born and not made and that drama schools can only nurture the nascent talent that the student already possesses.
In an interview in The Times, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen talked of how they saw themselves in the acting profession: “McKellen casts himself as an actor who has had to labour at his craft, improving on the job over time until he reached his peak in his fifties and beyond. By contrast, he saw the young Jacobi as a natural. “Derek knew instinctively about the blank-verse line at an age when other people were having to learn about it. He was always able to speak Shakespeare. You’ve never thought about it, have you, in the way that Gielgud never had to think about it.”
Jacobi concurs, yet he thinks McKellen’s description of himself as a toiling yeoman, rather than a man with a gift, is disingenuous. “I don’t think a drama school can teach you how to act. That’s something you carry in you, to be honed and developed. And I don’t believe you, Ian, when you say you had to learn it all. I think you were a born actor, but you didn’t know it. I knew I was.”
Though McKellen is synonymous with the craft and has been knighted for his contribution to theatre, it is worthy to note that he still works at improving his craft. Whether he was born an actor or not, there is a constant hard graft to better himself as an artist even at the age of 76. This is the reason as to why Audition Doctor’s students are by no means purely drama school applicants but also working actors. The need to stay fresh and constantly sharpen and develop your skills requires discipline. Working with Audition Doctor means you can feel like if you were called for an audition tomorrow, you wouldn’t feel stale or daunted if you haven’t worked in a while.
There are no guarantees in this business, with Allam conceding that as a young actor: “I assumed in my grandiosity that in the fullness of time the good people of British television and the good people of Hollywood would of course hear of, or see, my brilliance and invite me to be in one of their marvellous films.”
Hugh Dancy is also proof that drama school isn’t for everyone, nor does it preclude you from the frustrations that come with being an actor: “Drama school might have given him a strong sense of purpose, he says, but he also worries that he might have felt that the world owed him a living…When you jump into this business when you’re 22, and you have that feeling, you could be in for a good kicking because it doesn’t always come so easily. I was lucky.”
Even the best in the business are unsure of what or when their next job will be; and if you are born with an “acting gene”, it will be useless if not trained. Whether you choose to go to drama school or not, acting is a vocation which requires practice, effort and of course – luck. Audition Doctor sessions ensure that you are constantly challenged to go to the edge of your limits. Like any muscle, the more you work it, the further the goalposts move and you find yourself being able to go the distant places in your psyche and physicality that you previously thought were out of reach.
by Bel | Apr 28, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
The Guardian have introduced a new series called ‘The Secret Actor’ in which a well-known actor reveals the varied experiences of the process of auditioning. The first column was a sobering reminder of how “there is no other profession in which, to nail the offered employment, you are called upon to replicate the talent qualifying you as an applicant in microcosm, and in a positively hostile atmosphere: the antithesis of the environment in which you will be working, should you get the part. Science and meritocracy have no place in this world.” It’s what prospective actors have heard countless times before – the fact that luck plays a far larger part in the lottery that is the actor’s life than talent and the fact that auditioning is often at best dispiriting, and at worse demeaning.
Listening to Ruby Wax describe her drama school auditioning experience was significantly more cheering. She is a testament to how you can succeed in the Industry despite auditioning badly. “I didn’t get into any drama school. I was appalling, I had never seen a play. I thought I’d be an actress because it would keep me out of America and my parents understood that English drama schools were better…I never saw Shakespeare…I knew it was the death scene [in Romeo and Juliet], I had a wimple on…and I stood on stage and I went “my dog is dead, my dog is dead” and that would make me cry but I said it out loud and then I went (Wax’s twangy American switches suddenly to a breathy theatrical plumminess) “Alack alack, is it not like that I, what with loathsome smells, And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth…” and then at the end when she beats herself over the head with Tybalt’s bone, I thought better to bring something visual so I brought a turkey leg. Didn’t get into RADA strangely.”
The first thing to say is that Audition Doctor would never advocate relying on either cold cuts or Elizabethan headwear in a drama school audition. Books on the process of auditioning so often advise applicants to distinguish themselves from other candidates by wearing something “outrageous”. If you have any acting ability at all, you should be able to be able to get into character and take direction in leggings and a t-shirt. Sporting a fanciful ruff and elaborately designed codpiece will not guarantee you a recall and the panel will more than likely find you tiresome. Audition Doctor ensures that you are remembered not for your choice of clothing but for your acting.
Audition Doctor sessions are chances to explore the character’s emotional journey and to “get there” without having to robotically intone “my dog is dead” aloud. As soon as the panel says “in your own time”, you only have the length of your speech (never more than 3 minutes) to show them that you are capable of delivering what they are looking for – the truthful portrayal of another person. A mixture of discussion and experimentation means that Audition Doctor gives you the luxury of being specific in your performance instead of playing the piece on one general note. For people who have never auditioned before, lessons at Audition Doctor mean that you are given the opportunity to audition your own audition, so to speak, so you can critique how you come across and have the benefit of Tilly’s direction to ensure that you don’t repeat Wax’s mistakes. Presumably you are auditioning because you want to bolster your talent as an artist with professional training and not because you want to “keep [yourself] out of America”, so there is too much at stake to waste your three minutes.
by Bel | Apr 17, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Acting on stage requires a startling amount of both physical and mental exertion. To be a stage actor is to run a nightly marathon. As Ian McKellen attests: “I’m increasingly feeling that theatre is a young person’s game, it takes a lot of energy and concentration – two, three hours on stage – and that’s physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting.” Or maybe it’s because there is something oddly primal about an actor standing on stage and the audience are subconsciously reminded of the age-old history of entertainment, from Music hall right back to Elizabethan England and beyond. There were no green screens or special effects to beguile the viewer then; it was the words you uttered and how you spoke them that captivated. Only when you have stood on stage can you truly call yourself an entertainer – the actor’s fundamental job description.
There have been a string of interviews this week with actors acknowledging theatre’s utmost importance in the development of the actor. On the Andrew Marr Show, Patricia Hodge said: “Theatre is the real learning ground and you bring that to the screen”, while Lesley Manville in the Guardian spoke of the stage being “the ultimate test; I like watching established screen actors on stage to see if they can really do it.”
It isn’t just the simple fact of treading the boards that lends gravitas to the actor; acting in a Shakespeare play appears to be the ultimate test. It is only when an actor has cut their teeth on the Bard that they truly cut the mustard. Lenny Henry’s Othello in 2011 was the defining moment when he proved that he could entertain as a different kind of performer.
Othello is at the National again with two actors who have stellar film and TV careers – Rory Kinnear and Adrian Lester. However, in an interview for the Guardian, they spoke of how acting for theatre requires hard graft and how it continuously exercises the performer’s acting muscles – both literally and metaphorically – which can grow weak if not used.
“I get antsy if a year goes by without doing a play,” says Kinnear, who emphasises the sheer physical effort of stage acting. “I don’t go to the gym, so this is my way of trying to live longer.”
“If you’re doing nothing but film,” says Lester, “part of you gets soft – your speed of thinking, the amount you have to learn, your physicality, your voice, your diaphragm. When I step back on stage I have to re-engage all those muscles, especially with Shakespeare. You have to make the audience believe this is a real person speaking, not someone standing there reciting poetry. It’s quite an ask.”
The Guardian journalist questioned the actors whether they could offer anything new to a play that has been seen recently and countless times. Lester replied: “People’s preconceptions are based on generalities, our job is to be very specific, and in that specificity to make it real, to make it live again.”
This is what Audition Doctor excels at – making a character live. Drama schools and casting directors aren’t interested in “performances”, they want to see you transform into a wholly believable other being.
Shakespeare forms the basis of many acting courses and to “not do Shakespeare” puts you at a huge disadvantage if you want to go to drama school. Audition Doctor sessions give you the space to unlock the language where Tilly ensures that it becomes a springboard instead of a barrier in your acting. Audition Doctor gives you the gift of making you realise that Ian McKellen was right: “The verse is about giving instructions to the actor as to how to say the part and if you know how to say it then you’ll probably know how to feel it.”
by Bel | Apr 4, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
A lot of actors find it hard to talk about what they do when interviewed. Many worry about sounding pretentious and nebulous when journalists witheringly ask them to comment on “their art”. While some actors firmly leave their characters in the rehearsal room at the end of the day, others understandably cannot – Daniel Day-Lewis’ Oscars acceptance speech in which he remarked: “My wife Rebecca has lived with many strange men” being a slightly alarming case in point.
The term “acting” is used to describe what actors do regardless of medium – film, television or theatre. While the artistic journey for each actor is unique, most actors will concede that each discipline – be it stage or screen- practically requires different skills. Many screen actors who haven’t acted on stage in a while find it awkward. They have to reacquaint themselves with the strength of their diaphragms for projection and have no camera to direct the viewer’s gaze to the subtleties of minute facial changes that could speak volumes in a closeup. The reverse is of course also true, with stage actors having to reach emotional depths on cue and often out of chronological order.
With this year’s Olivier Awards approaching, it’s interesting to see that all the nominees are actors who have excelled on screen as well as on stage. In today’s Independent Julian Bird, chief executive of The Society of London Theatre, said: “You have people who mix theatre with TV with film showing through very strongly in the nominations. We do have a great thing in this country that people may have started their career in regional theatre; they build up another career but they keep coming back to the theatre. Judi Dench is acting in the West End currently, with Daniel Radcliffe and Jude Law set to return to the stage this year. Britain’s very biggest film stars seem to keep coming back.”
It seems that this year’s nominees have excelled and done such extensive work in both mediums of the profession that they are neither known as screen nor stage actors. This is what most drama schools aim to equip their current crop of students with – the ability to do both which is what a fully trained actor should be able to do. Failing to be equipped with the practical skills of one aspect would mean denying the prospect of potential future employment, which would be highly unwise considering the killer combination of the dismal state of the economy and the Industry’s notoriously appalling number of available jobs.
Having extensive experience in both mediums makes Audition Doctor a vital go-to place to seek constructive advice. While Audition Doctor’s clientele comprises largely of drama school applicants, many professional actors who attend sessions at Audition Doctor are often auditioning for film and television roles. Apart from working out the intricacies of character, Audition Doctor is also the place to come to for practical guidance; sessions can be filmed which is hugely helpful as Tilly can give you a fair critique on how you come across. With jobs being hard to come by, many people find coming to Audition Doctor increases their chance of getting parts. In short, Audition Doctor rather comfortingly makes them feel like the profession they’re in is a little less precarious.
by Bel | Mar 28, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
You would have thought that a profession whose primary concern is reflecting the complexities and contradictions of the multifaceted nature of human existence would celebrate the diversity of its practitioners. To be an actor (unless you seek to be one of the Hugh Grant variety) means fulfilling the job description of being a chameleon. Yet frustratingly, graduates out of drama school have the cheery prospect of not being given opportunities to get the most out of their training.
Typecasting is still endemic and this week Stephen Poliakoff conceded: “I still think we tend to cast black people in working class roles all the time, much more so than America as they have a much larger black middle class,” he says. “I think there is a little lack of imagination in that casting, and I know one or two black actors that come across as posh and find it very difficult to get hired because people are always looking for drug dealers and gangsters on the street.” On the other side of the spectrum, Benedict Cumberbatch was also portrayed as a “moaning, rich, public school bastard who complained about only getting “posh” roles.” At least there is some justice in the fact that it appears no one is immune to being pigeonholed.
It is surprising that an industry that is by its very definition relates to creativity, fantasy and make-believe can have so little imagination when it comes to casting. There is a risk that despite having received peerless drama school training, and proving that you can indeed successfully transcend the baggage of your education, provenance, skin colour, accent (and in some cases – even gender) to inhabit everyone from Lady Macbeth to a starving Russian peasant amidst the throes of the Revolution, you will be given roles of a certain type.
The only thing you can do to get any part is to stun the drama school audition panel or director with something that is totally unique to you which they can’t get out of anyone else even during extensive rehearsals. This is what Audition Doctor excels in; as much as acting is about overcoming yourself, it is also about exposing aspects of your own experience and personality. Audition Doctor always endeavours to pick and approach speeches that enhance your own currency – the simple fact of being you.
Today, Hattie Morahan was interviewed about working with Katie Mitchell straight out of university and said: “”I hadn’t trained [at drama school], so it was the first time I’d encountered any structured approach to getting under the skin of a play or a character.” The benefit of coming to Audition Doctor is precisely that – it is the rare advantage of having Tilly guide you through the practicalities of inhabiting a character as well as having the relaxed space to experiment artistically. It is this that has meant that Audition Doctor has become indispensable and is now internationally recognised, with students coming to see Tilly from as far as Austria, Hong Kong and South Africa to seek audition advice.
