by Bel | Jul 15, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
When Phillip Seymour Hoffman was asked at in
interview at the Golden Globe Awards what advice he would give to those starting out in the acting profession, he said:
“You have to act wherever you can, you can’t be picky. Wherever you get a chance to act – and it might even be an audition room, even if you’re auditioning for something you know you’re never going to get or you might have read it and you might not even have liked it but you know you have to go, if you get a chance to act in a room that somebody else has paid rent for then you’ve been given a free chance to practice your craft. In that moment, you should act as well as you can because if you leave the room or the theatre or wherever you are and you’ve acted as well as you can, there’s no way that the people who watched you will forget it. That was something that someone told me years ago and I think it’s great advice because it’s always about that, it’s always about the work at the end of the day.”
Actors have found that Audition Doctor is a place where they are able to hone their craft to such an extent that they are able to reach the emotional places that the role requires every time. Consequently, auditioning feels like less of a lottery as students are often in control of their performances; performances that have been rehearsed and considered but without any loss of spontaneity or authenticity. Audition Doctor’s popularity relies heavily on the fact that lessons encourage students to become more independent of thought and more confident and adventurous in their artistic judgements.
Hoffman went onto say that the stature and awards that have become attached to his name mean precious little “If I show up to work one day and the work I’m doing isn’t any good, I’m just a guy who’s not acting well. I’d tell that to anyone starting out: take those words and bring them alive. If you do that, something will transpire.”
Professional actors come regularly to Audition Doctor because every lesson takes away the fear of being “that guy”. The intensity of Audition Doctor sessions also strengthens a different muscle – that of developing an acute concentration.
Last week, Mark Lawson wrote an ode to Maxine Peake in the Guardian in which Steven Moffat spoke of Peake’s ability to maintain focus during TV shoots: “Filming can be tedious and repetitive. But even by the seventh take of a scene, she’s still listening to what the other actor says and responding to it, giving you something fresh.”
This is something else that Audition Doctor develops in every one of her students – the capacity to continuously listen and react in the moment and on the line.
“I’ve done 30 hours of television with [Maxine Peake] now,” says Moffat, “and she has never spoken a line of mine wrongly. There has never been an interpretation that jarred, which is very rare. She has this native actor’s intelligence for what you intended or even sometimes to go beyond that and show you something you didn’t know was there.”
Actors who come to Audition Doctor find that sessions strengthen both their gut instincts and their critical faculties, which means that in the audition room, they often surprise themselves as well as those auditioning them.
by Bel | Jul 9, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
Richard Jordon wrote in The Stage of the difference between good and great acting in The Stage, citing Imelda Staunton’s performance as Mama Rose as an example.
“When you see great actors at work, you realise it is in the little touches they instinctively find in their own technique which grounds their performances, thus propelling them forward to another level, becoming both visceral and memorable. In any such instance you also understand what is meant by the expression ‘living the performance’.”
Staunton has made clear that the road to this calibre of work, however, is one that littered with years of practice and, most importantly, failings; failings that continued well after drama school – the acknowledged place where actors are encouraged to be imperfect and experiment without any career-damaging consequences.
Unlike for today’s drama school graduates, Staunton’s route into repertory theatre is one that is no longer possible: “I did all leading parts and I’d much rather be doing that than standing at the back at the RSC watching other people do it. I’d rather do it, make a mistake and do it again.
I know it sounds obvious but [rep meant] you [were] allowed to learn from your mistakes. You [were] allowed to hone your craft. I didn’t come out of RADA fully formed, I don’t know even if I am now…I think that people should be allowed to fail, change and form as actors.”
Audition Doctor has proved indispensable for drama school candidates, recent graduates and professional actors precisely for this reason. The constant urge for change, exploration and betterment is a sentiment shared by all actors regardless of experience.
Mark Lawson asked in an interview with Staunton: “People say that at drama school, the way you look, the kind of physique you have leads to quite early stereotyping – whether you’re a leading actor or a character actor. Did you feel like you were being pushed into a certain direction?”
Staunton responded: “No because at drama school, you get to do everything. It’s when you leave drama school that the real world kicks in. So at drama school you can play someone who’s 70, someone who’s 17, but when you come out and you’re in your twenties, you can only play those sort of rolls.”
This is why recent graduates find Audition Doctor an important stepping stone in their careers; the variety of roles available in the industry itself is far narrower than at drama school. Consequently, students find that Audition Doctor is where they can differentiate themselves and improve their craft by giving them the chance that Staunton said repertory theatre gave her – doing instead of watching and failing without disastrous consequences.
Fiona Shaw recently spoke of directing Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia in The Telegraph. In rehearsal, she said encouraged her cast “to dig into their own sub-conscious minds and make their own decisions about what is happening, without explaining it to anyone else. Secrets can be so powerful in the theatre.”
As at Audition Doctor, sessions are about exploration and decisions. Students have found that the results of the sessions drive them nearer to “living” their roles and give them an real understanding of the difference between when they are merely good and when they are bordering being great.
by Bel | Jun 30, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In an interview for Film 4, Tom Hiddleston said: “I call acting 3D anthropology or archeology; in the way that you’re out there digging away at the mine shafts of the collective emotions of human beings – in the present and the past. Actors have to bring back their findings and put them in the glass case that is the [performance].”
The process of excavating emotions and exploring which best suits certain interpretations takes time and regular commitment. This is why both the professional actors and drama school applicants that come to Audition Doctor attend regular sessions.
As Matthew McConaughey said: “When it’s wonderful, when it works, you go into a scene and you have 16 different ways of telling the truth. When you’re stuck, sometimes you’re just trying to protect yourself from telling a lie. Sometimes you just feel like you’re just connecting the dots and that’s all I really can do. I don’t have the song.”
Audition Doctor is popular because the work undertaken in the sessions has time and time again helped unstick actors in auditions. Students who come to Audition Doctor give themselves the opportunity for studied preparation and the gift of having thoroughly explored the idiosyncrasies and motivations of their character.
Michael Fassbender commented: “My preparation is the same whether it’s for a $150m film or a $1.5m film or whatever, I’ve got a lot of homework to do. I’ve got to be well-equipped when I come onto the floor and I want to come onto the floor with ideas and I also want to be well prepared so I have the ability to have the freedom to explore any avenue on the day.”
Audition Doctor students will attest that sessions afford them an artistic freedom that sets them apart from others who are auditioning. Students always enter with a spectrum of objectives, intentions and opinions on a character. The flexibility and understanding that characterises an Audition Doctor student is palpable in the auditioning room, especially when being redirected.
Aside from giving students the capability and confidence of making bold and unorthodox choices, Audition Doctor also provides actors with a safety net. The level of preparation and dissection of not only the role but the play itself means that if for whatever reason you falter, you know that, as an actor, you are in possession of a kind of parachute.
For McConaughey, he finds something in the script that is “a real personal politic. It blankets an entire performance and it also gives me something to fly with, something that I can have in my pocket if I get in trouble in a scene. I can go “well I know this man is about this. I know he needs this – throughout – before this story ever started and after this story goes away.”
He described his process now: “I try to get the guy’s monologue then I can get the dialogue.” Similarly, Audition Doctor sessions mainly focus on individual speeches. The honing and moulding of their voice in a particular speech gives casting directors or drama school audition panels the knowledge that they will be able to carry this authenticity through into the wider context of the play.
Students who come to Audition Doctor gain success because the level of research and experimentation undertaken in the sessions mean they never deliver an “act by numbers” performance that merely joins the dots.
by Bel | Jun 16, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In The Stage, Judi Dench spoke about her constant “fear of everything” as an actor – fear “ of not fitting into that slot, of not fulfilling that piece you are asked to do. I get more frightened [the more I do]. The more you do, the more frightening it is anyway as you are much more aware.”
Fear plays an undeniable role for most during auditions, however, at Audition Doctor, much of that fear is alleviated through the progressive confidence that each student gains with each session. Both professional actors and drama school applicants have found that failure is not discouraged at Audition Doctor.
This echoes Colin Farrell’s interview on the BAFTA website where he insisted: “You have to be allowed to fail as an actor because it’s very easy to play it safe”. Like drama school, Audition Doctor sessions are where you are encouraged to take risks and feel safe in doing so.
Audition Doctor sessions involve both discussion as well as performance. The choice of speech always takes perhaps longer than expected. However, Geoffery Colman, Head of Acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama, recently wrote in The Actor’s Handbook:
“The choice of speech preoccupies many candidates, who unearth an astounding range of two minute extracts – often material inappropriately sourced online and disallowing any creative placement of their own heart and mind. And oh, how audition candidates obsesses about contrasting this, that or the other! Just select an extract from a play that is simple, clear, unfussy and – most important of all – one that allows you to enter its world without a fight (and most certainly without the need to show that you are entering it). People bring much worked-upon accents, props, shouts, peculiar moves, glances and screams as though volume alone will do the deal. This should be avoided.”
Both Benedict Cumberbatch and Hugh Dancy spoke of what they looked for in a character in interviews for BAFTA. Cumberbatch stated: “When I look for a role…I think about how important is this character. Not how big but how important, how interesting is this going to be to watch and how interesting is it going to be to bring to life.”
Dancy mentioned: “I suppose I’m looking to be intrigued in some way. Maybe have a question raised that isn’t immediately answered for me. It’s not often necessarily the case that you realise that as you’re reading something. It might be that over the following few days it’s percolating.”
Auditioning, particularly for drama schools, is a long process and you can live with the speeches for up to 6 months. The speeches chosen have to be simultaneously comfortable yet demanding – both emotionally and intellectually. Audition Doctor sessions give you the time and space to fully inhabit the character and really make it your own.
This originality and individuality is what drama schools are looking for because as Dench noted in the same interview: “Don’t let’s fool ourselves – don’t let’s stop for a minute to not remember that right here at my shoulder is someone standing, and behind her is someone else and someone else.”
by Bel | Jun 9, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In an article for Ideastap, Caroline Leslie, Head of Acting at LAMDA, advised those auditioning to “really get inside the mind of your character – think about what they hide and show of themselves, and how they think other people think about them.”
“Choose a piece and a character that fascinates you. You can really tell when someone has chosen a piece that they connect to and auditions almost always work better if the actor has chosen something they love.”
At Audition Doctor, choosing the speech for you is a lengthy yet integral part of the process. Julie Walters has said “In a role, I’m mainly looking for truth and integrity. No matter what it is, even if it’s a comic cameo, there’s still got to be a truth behind it. And I’m not just looking at my character, I’m looking at the whole thing.”
Audition Doctor encourages you to pick roles that are challenging and beyond your reach, however, that will be fully grasped and inhabited by the end of the course of Audition Doctor sessions.
Walters went onto advise: “You want to know who that person is…so I will do my own rehearsals as if I were rehearsing with a director but on my own.” While the line-learning process is often done alone, many professional actors come to Audition Doctor because they desire a more collaborative rehearsal process. Rehearsing alone can be counter-productive if there is no one to tell you which of your interpretations works better and why.
Andrew Buchan recently advised actors when learning lines to “get it in your body, don’t just sit on the edge of your bed because they won’t go in, get it in your muscles.”
Many actors and drama school applicants come to Audition Doctor because they want to get a performance into their muscles, see it up on its feet in front of a professional and to also strengthen their ability to take and act on direction.
Walters said: “I don’t like being over-directed, some people feel that they need to be seen to be directing…All you have is your instincts and they can be interfered with sometimes rather than nurtured and then you begin to doubt them.”
Audition Doctor’s popularity relies on the fact that Tilly only ever strengthens your instincts and simultaneously coaches you to harness any nerves into a truthfully sustained performance.
Audition Doctor sessions, however, are not for those who are unwilling to take risks. In the same interview as Walters, Tamsin Greig urged young actors “to be more brave about failing”.
It is in this willing to not be perfect and to dare to expose her vulnerabilities that Julie Walters has featured in an article entitled “Julie Walters – a heroic talent” in which it says: “She disappears into her characters and gives them hearts so loud you can hear them beating.”
Audition Doctor students have found that sessions have pushed them to do the same and have made them braver and more astute actors as a result.
by Bel | Jun 3, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
The Stage asked Maria Friedman to give advice on auditioning: “Preparation, preparation, preparation. Bring yourself, not someone else, to every audition- you can’t hide you, so get to know yourself and what it is you have to offer; and know that is your three minutes – so don’t allow something else to dominate it, whether it’s your fear, or travel on the train – and use them. Come in and enjoy yourself and do the performing you wanted to do all your life.”
Aside from the depth of preparation that each actor achieves at Audition Doctor – something that is difficult to achieve alone – Audition Doctor’s popularity lies in the fact that work is only done on speeches that enhance your particular ingenuity, individuality and boldness. Audition Doctor sessions, particularly for drama school applicants, are as much about rehearsing monologues as figuring out the kind of actor you are, working out your strengths and weaknesses and finding it within yourself to identify with a spectrum of roles.
Similarly to the work done Audition Doctor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman said: “The first thing I looked at was how were they similar to me and how were they different to me. I had to cover those bases…so I could create this person who was not living my life but living someone else’s life.”
The best speeches to work on are those that provoke an expansion of empathy or understanding.
Benedict Cumberbatch said: “As an actor you have to find a level of empathy and understanding of your character and I think to carve out anything that’s two-dimensional, whether a character is thumbs up or thumbs down, I find that limiting…I want to find out the three-dimensionality, what motivates them, what’s human about them. That’s not to soften the edges at all, that’s purely because it’s near to a human experience so that there’s some common ground for audience to understand the character’s motivation because then it isn’t something that’s ostracised from us, something that’s telling us how to feel and think. I personally get bored watching that type of work and bored doing that type of work.”
The work that actors undertake at Audition Doctor forces them to go beyond the parameters of their perceived capabilities. Imagination and craft are exercised and pushed to places which offer up a whole, truthful and bold performance.
Lisa Dwan spoke in the Guardian about her role in Beckett’s Not I : “Do you know what’s so gorgeous about this role? I’m not a woman, I’m a consciousness. It’s stretched me intellectually, emotionally. To get out of my blonde hair and body and be this thing, I can’t explain the gift.”
Roles that allow actors to experience this are few and far between, however, taking the time to choose the speech that gives you the opportunity to challenge yourself is essential. Once chosen, Audition Doctor sessions encourages actors and drama school applicants to get out of themselves and authentically live out the role.
by Bel | May 27, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In an interview for The Stage, Samuel Barnett spoke of his experience playing Posner in The History Boys at the National: “…it was in that role I started to really learn my craft. Drama school is amazing, it teaches you so much about how the industry works, but it’s the work itself which teaches you your craft: timing and delivery and subtlety.”
Aside from drama school applicants, a large number of Audition Doctor’s students are professional actors who want to continuously better their craft between as well as on jobs. The appetite for improvement and readiness to be challenged is what characterises all Audition Doctor students. However, many find that the sessions are about acting less and refraining from doing more than is necessary.
Robert De Niro said in an interview: “It’s simpler than you think. It’s very hard for many actors and I get caught up in it myself, where you think you have to do more, do something, you don’t have to do anything, nothing and you’re better off and it’ll work.
[It’s like] the way people are in life, they don’t do anything. You know, I’m talking to you and I’m looking at your expression and you could’ve been told that something terrible happened to your family and you’re still going to have the same look on your face. That allows the audience to read into it rather than telling them what they should feel…Sometimes you don’t have to spin it or interpret it, you just have to do it and it’ll take care of itself.”
Audition Doctor sessions are useful in paring down whatever you’re working on to the simple truth without ridding the performance itself of nuance and complexity.
Barnett went onto say how different spaces have affected his performances. “[The National] can be a tricky space in terms of making contact with the audience.” He feels as if he’s done his best work in spaces such as the old Bush Theatre. “I adore those small intimate spaces where you really do feel like you can look people in the eye. It is a different kind of technique, I think. You can give what is a very televisual performance, people can see every flick of your eyes. In the Olivier, it’s not that you need to be bigger in your performance, but perhaps more driven and more intense – though I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules.”
The advantage of Audition Doctor is that the interpretation you come to perform can be modulated to any space. Furthermore, having a professional who can make you aware of how you can inhabit and command a space puts you at a distinct advantage at auditions.
The work done at Audition Doctor pushes students to make more daring choices and to challenge themselves to tackle characters that don’t fall into their safe zone. However, the advantage that Audition Doctor’s students have is that Tilly encourages them to enhance their own particular qualities and singularities in such roles. This echoes Meryl Streep’s response to people asking why she chose to play characters seemingly so different from her:
“Well, why did God invent imagination? Should I have played women from central New Jersey all my life? The people I have played in movies and in the theatre have all felt like me to me.”
by Bel | May 20, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In his new book, Year of the Fat Knight, Anthony Sher recounts his experience playing Falstaff in the RSC’s production of Henry IV. In an extract printed in the Guardian, Sher wrote:
“To an actor, dialogue is like food. You hold it in your mouth, you taste it. If it’s good dialogue the taste will be distinctive. If it’s Shakespeare dialogue, the taste will be Michelin-starred. If you’re learning lines before rehearsals, you have to learn in neutral, in a way that won’t cut off the creative choices that will happen when the director and other actors are involved. So I’m speaking Falstaff in my own voice, I’m not attempting any characterisation.”
For both professional actors and drama school applicants, the frequency and intensity of the sessions mean that lines are generally learnt through a kind of organic osmosis. However, professional actors have found that the intense characterisation that is undertaken at Audition Doctor – work that has often landed them the job – is the characterisation that is pushed even further in the professional rehearsal room.
Perversely, the depth of research and work on a character that is explored at Audition Doctor, however, never leads students to become rigidly fixated on one interpretation. The extensive knowledge of their character means they are aware of the myriad of artistic choices that they have chosen not to take. Consequently, in an audition room, students are always flexible and open to bold experimentation.
The process by which a student reaches an understanding of a character is highly individual and Audition Doctor has no prescribed and one-size-fits-all method.
Robert Duvall’s advice to young actors was: “It all begins with listening. I talk you listen, you talk I listen and it goes from there…that’s the journey in an individual scene. Rather than going for the result, let the process take you to the result.” Similarly, the nature of the Audition Doctor process is that the result is often the unexpected. Consequently, audition panels are confronted with an original and exciting interpretation.
In a recent interview, Kevin Spacey spoke about acting as “Putting yourself into someone else’s shoes and trying to plant seeds about what a writer’s ideas are and what they’re trying to say, what they’re trying to express…The only thing that interests me is what scares me. The only thing I’m interested in is what I think I can’t do.”
Audition Doctor sessions are sought after because students invariably enter their auditions with a fearlessness, originality and humanity that marks them out.
In their auditions, the work and commitment that they’ve undertaken with Tilly echoes Maria Freedman’s comment that “The best thing about theatre is that it’s a beautiful hand-out to remind us of each other’s fallibility and frailty and humanity. It’s a ‘Hallo, you know me and I know you’ and it’s done with words…”
by Bel | May 6, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Prominent actors such as Julie Walters and Mark Strong have publicly protested the inaccessibility of drama school for those from under-privileged backgrounds. They frequently cite the £9,000 yearly fee as being a prohibitive barrier to pursuing an acting career. The Stage wrote a rebuttal that said “It shows concern, which is welcome, but actually comments like this are not very helpful.”
The increase in tuition fees was not particular to drama schools and while there is a lack of actors from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, The Stage argues that the problem isn’t funding.
“The difficulty seems to be that the training industry is struggling to find ways of getting the message to socio-economically deprived young people that yes, they can train vocationally if they have the talent and potential to benefit. They may belong to families for whom the idea of drama school seems derisively effete. No one locally knows much about professional performing arts training. The press continuously reports well-known actors inaccurately bemoaning the financial impossibility of it. And everyone focuses on actor unemployment. The messages are all negative.”
There is an assumption, especially during our “age of austerity”, that the arts are (to quote Sam West) “an add on” as evidenced by “the double squeeze of Arts Council cuts and local authority cuts.” Consequently, disadvantaged young people shy away from drama school training because they see themselves as acquiring loans and subsequent debt for an industry that is fast shrinking.
Many of Audition Doctor’s students have been successful drama school applicants and are able to fund their training through the audition waivers, free lunches, DaDA grants and bursaries that The Stage writes about. Drama schools understand the obstacles that their students face and have made concerted efforts to ease the financial strain on their students.
The other main contingent of Audition Doctor students are professional actors, many of whom have varied stories about how they entered the profession. Regardless of whether or not they went to/are going to drama school, all of Audition Doctor students approach their work with passion and a determination to unceasingly push their training to the next level. Those that come to Audition Doctor regularly as well as work on their speeches find that they do better at auditions and consequently decrease their chances of unemployment.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that even the best actors have had their doubts when it comes to the validity of their profession. When interviewed by James Lipton for Inside the Actors Studio, Meryl Streep said: “When I was applying to law school and thinking that acting was a stupid way to make a living because it doesn’t do anything in the world, but I think it does, I think there’s a great worth in it. The worth is listening to people who maybe don’t even exist or who are voices in your past and through you, through the work you give them to other people. I think giving voice to characters that have no voice is the great worth of what we do because so much of acting is vanity. I mean, this feels so great to come out here and sit here and have everybody clap but the real thing that makes me feel so good is when I know I’ve said something for a soul, when I’ve presented a soul.”
by Bel | May 2, 2015 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
This week, The Stage wrote about how the concerted effort drama schools have made to encourage their actors to self-produce and self-create has paid dividends.
“Traditionally drama schools focused on developing stage skills and getting paid jobs in theatres at the end of it. And for that, the wisdom went, you needed an agent because he or she would work miracles for you in return for a 15% commission on all the work you did. Cynics have described drama school as a one-way ticket to a showcase – and all those brilliant agents hungry to snap up you and your talents.”
However, there has been a sea change with regards to the way drama schools educate their creatives. The difficult reality is that even with a final showcase at a top drama school, “common sense and arithmetic suggest that many of them will not get agents or paid jobs in companies.”
Many actors would strongly identify with Toni Collette’s recent comment: “I think acting arrests me, it keeps me awake. The way people live their lives, the whole psychological labyrinth, is what turns me on, so the job itself feeds me”. Not working and waiting for your agent (if you have one) to ring can be hugely dispiriting. This is why drama schools are pushing students to form their own theatre companies so they can make work for themselves. Mischief Theatre Company is one such company, born out of LAMDA graduates, that recently won an Olivier for The Play that Goes Wrong.
Audition Doctor is another example of being proactive and increasing your chances for professional work. Actors, whether in or out of work, have found regular sessions at Audition Doctor to be an invaluable driving force in pushing their careers in the direction they desire. The continual character exploration and textual analysis mean that whenever an audition arises, Audition Doctor students never feel they are “out of practice” and always have new approaches and ideas to experiment with.
Toni Collette said: “The great luxury of being any kind of artist is that you explore and challenge yourself. You can paint different pictures. You don’t have to draw a cloud every day.” What Audition Doctor fosters is the hunger for the new, fleshing out aspects of character that you have yet to inhabit.
The success of Audition Doctor students, however, lies in Tilly’s ability to draw out aspects of your individuality in the speech. It reflects Michael Sheen’s description of acting as “being like a sound desk, fading sliders up and down on aspects of your personality until you have someone.” The advantage of coming to Audition Doctor is the total focus on you and what you are creating. Many actors have found the one-on-one Audition Doctor sessions to be essential, as they find that they are consequently able to give more back in the collaborative work that they do with their theatre companies or in rehearsals for professional jobs.
Ultimately, those who attend Audition Doctor are there to improve their craft and to create art, which Stanley Tucci defined as “taking whatever is in front of you and making it into something else. To me that is what art is.”
When Phillip Seymour Hoffman was asked at in interview at the Golden Globe Awards what advice he would give to those starting out in the acting profession, he said:
