by Bel | Apr 10, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, tilly blackwood
When interviewed on the BBC, Juliet Stevenson was asked whether she would have become an actress had she not gone to drama school. She confirmed that she would have done through a more indirect route. Without resorting to over sentimentalising romanticism, she acknowledged that acting was, for her, a vocation – “I do feel alive on stage, sometimes I don’t, but very often I feel like this is what I’m meant to do whether I like it or not.”
Drama school can feel like the only option to get into the Industry but it isn’t necessarily for everyone. Stevenson admitted that she nearly left drama school on several occasions as she found it extremely emotionally taxing: “I was very young, you’re using who you are to play other people when you don’t know who you are yet at that age.” However, the process of delving into the uncomfortable recesses of your psyche is going to be draining whether or not you do it within the peripheries of an accredited institution.
The tightly structured days, the personalities of your peers, the quality of your teachers all have a huge bearing on the nature of your drama school experience. Drama school is a gamble and many have succeeded without it. The pre-audition talk at one drama school entailed a sober reminder from the Head of Acting that “You’ll have RADA graduates that never get a job, you’ll have untrained people nabbing all the roles that you’ve trained 3 years for. There is no fairness in this profession” as we all stared wide-eyed at him and blinked – rewiring our naïve brains to accept the fact that he was telling us with realistic- not pessimistic- reasoning, that a place at drama school by no means guaranteed an immunity to failure.
However, attending drama school gives you the possibilities to know how to deal with the unavoidable setbacks that come with being an actor. Lyn Gardner recently held a lesson for acting students at drama school on theatre criticism: “There’s real value in trying to hone their critical faculties so that they can appraise their own work honestly, as well as that of their peers. If you’re training to work in drama, stringent evaluation of your own and other people’s work is crucial. You can only fail better –to quote Samuel Beckett – if you admit failure in the first place. But the bottom line is that these youngsters going out into the profession will, if they get work, be reviewed. Sometimes those reviews will make them dance with joy, and sometimes they’ll want to hide under the bedclothes. I hope that, when that happens, they’ll…remember that judging your own work honestly is as important as anything the critics might say.”
It’s being given opportunities like this which makes drama schools invaluable to the aspiring actor. The likelihood of Lyn just popping into your theatre company’s rehearsal and “[reading] a complete set of newspaper reviews from Theatre Record, marvelling at different responses, and how revealing they can be of the critics writing, rather than of the shows themselves” is highly unlikely. Nor is it probable that she’ll organise an outing for you all and “take [you] to the kind of shows many of [you] have never experienced before…such as Dreamthinkspeak’s In the Beginning was the End, (a peripatetic piece played out in the basement beneath London’s Somerset House).” Maybe she would if you wrote to her and asked her nicely, but drama schools have easy access to respected professionals such as Lyn on tap. Why wouldn’t you want to go?
Audition Doctor has proven to be indispensable when it comes to drama school auditions. Competition is now so much more fierce and being taught by someone who is a professional actress herself and who runs a weekly auditioning workshop at the Actor’s Centre marks you out from other candidates. Audition Doctor’s students are people in all different stages of the profession – from drama school applicants, current drama school students, professional actors to businessmen who want to improve their public speaking skills. What Audition Doctor gives all of them is confidence and peerless advice that means the prospect of failure is significantly less likely.
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.
by Bel | Mar 24, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
In today’s Guardian, Maxine Peake recalled how, when at drama school, her heroes were not screen stars but theatre actors such as Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman and Albert Finney. All of them had illustrious careers at the RSC – Finney famously understudying for Olivier in Corialanus and both Stevenson and Rickman starring together in acclaimed productions of Troilus and Cressida and The Tempest.Yet it’s fair to say that it was their work in film and TV that elevated them to a different level of public recognition.
As it is normally film actors who are at the forefront of the public consciousness, there might indeed be some truth in the Terrence Mann quote: “Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich. But theatre will make you good.”
However, when people come to Audition Doctor with the sole aim of going on a screen acting course, Tilly always dissuades them from limiting their options – not only in terms of what work you will be offered but also in terms of the quality of teaching. The traditional syllabus offered at drama schools is still stage-based and the reason for this is that theatre training is considered the solid basis for all mediums in the profession.
It’s easy to understand why upcoming actors might not have any interest in the theatre – the concept of a “stage star” being more or less an anachronism and it being notoriously badly paid – the irony being any ticket to productions in the West End costing less than £50 means viewing will be so restricted and so far back that the only advantage of sitting there at all is the knowledge that you will be the first out of the post-theatre rush – a sort of gross perversity of Easyjet’s “Speedy Boarding”. However, it is worth noting that many famous screen actors have come back to the theatre. Perhaps they acknowledge that to call yourself an actor is to understand the nightly challenge of standing up on a stage with no camera to direct the spectator’s gaze or underscoring to manipulate emotion – just yourself.
Like her contemporaries, Peake admitted: “I do wonder how people are going to afford to go to drama school now. I panic about how people can even afford to go to the theatre. The West End is thriving but at £76 a ticket…I’m really concerned we will tip back into the bad old days when only people from a certain class or people with disposable incomes could afford to send their children to drama school.”
It is true that the current crop of “in vogue” actors all seem to be old Etonians but as with all fashions, these things are cyclical. Ultimately, whatever your background, it is your ability to transcend it that will make you an actor of any worth. Ben Whishaw mentioned in last week’s interview for the Guardian, how he likes to think of himself, especially in the theatre, as “a channel for other people to feel – for, in a sense, it isn’t about you”.
Audition Doctor is not about acting in the sense of showing or demonstrating. Sessions at Audition Doctor are so unique in that Tilly encourages you not to “act” at all. It is in these moments that you truly inhabit the life of another. As you have more lessons at Audition Doctor, you realise that it is about stripping away the ticks and preconceptions and revealing the vulnerabilities which make a performance so compelling. When Sara Kestelman was asked about what her teaching at the Central School of Speech and Drama taught her, she said: “I learnt that the text is sacred. I learnt one must be immensely patient.” Tilly always stresses the former and perhaps most uniquely, is always the latter, which is why lessons at Audition Doctor are such an experience.
by Bel | Mar 14, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Aspiring actors know that the profession they are entering is hard. They’ve probably been told countless times by friends, family and actors themselves: “If you can do something else – do it.” The stock association of an artistic profession with penury and struggle is not groundless.
When asked “Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?” Anthony Sher replied: “Peace of mind. All the creative arts involve struggle.” Entering any artistic profession – whether it be writing, painting involves an element of surrender. Relinquishing the security of a monthly paycheck and the knowledge of whether you’ll ever work again is the price the artist pays for doing what he/she loves.
However, now young actors face the added difficulties of even getting started. Sher went on to say that government cuts were hugely damaging for the next generation of thespians. “Our theatre is the envy of the world; it has a huge value for us spiritually. I feel so sorry for younger actors who aren’t able to have the opportunities that I had, starting out in repertory theatre. It’s really tough on young actors now”.
Adding to this was Julie Walters declaring last Tuesday: “If I was coming out into the business now I would never get into drama school…It would have been a really hard journey if I had ever made it at all, because there are no grants for them, it is really, really difficult.” For students who lack the requisite funds, the Industry will be impenetrable and has a risk of being populated solely with actors who have the ample means to fund drama school training – ironically potentially rendering the stereotypical image of the financially struggling actor obsolete.
But ultimately, despite the fact that entering the acting profession seems more foolish than ever, for a lot of young aspirants, they can’t imagine doing anything else – it is in all senses of the word – a vocation. Drama schools panelists are inundated with thousands people desperate to prove that they have what it takes to not only survive but thrive in the Industry. In this climate, they are perhaps less willing to take chances on people who have potential but will take more time to acclimatise to the rigours of training . As someone who has been through drama school training and is a working actress, Tilly at Audition Doctor can often accurately single out the faults and anxieties that the panel might have of you. Throughout Audition Doctor sessions, these are addressed and your natural talents are enhanced to ensure that you are fighting fit to beat off the increasingly stiff competition.
Even if you are not applying to drama school, Audition Doctor is an ideal place to explore scenes and work on texts that will undoubtedly make you more confident when you are giving your next presentation at work or auditioning for your next acting job.
by Bel | Mar 7, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Along with the NHS, Bond and the Sex Pistols, the general consensus at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony was that Shakespeare was emblematic of quintessential “Britishness”. As Danny Boyle intended, we saw Kenneth Branagh “ in the person of Isambard Kingdom Brunel performing Shakespeare to the accompaniment of Elgar” to an audience of one billion people. Without belittling Shakespeare’s transcendent ability to write speeches that are rhythmically in tune with the beatings of the human heart, whilst simultaneously encapsulating the tumultuous vagaries of the human condition, it is also the actors who have performed the Bard’s plays that have ensured his place in the nation’s heart.
It is no accident that the finest Shakespearean actors such as Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, Patrick Stewart and Anthony Sher were professionally trained at British drama schools. Audition Doctor has many students from abroad who seek audition advice in the hope of securing one of their covetable places. However, the tide may start to turn with The Stage recently publishing an article regarding the establishment of a “lower-fee Barcelona drama school to target UK students.”
The principal declared it would be “aimed at students from the UK who are looking for cheaper fees…, we have [a] lower cost of living, plus the number of contact hours with tutors we have here – from 9am to 5pm – comparable to some of the best drama and dance conservatoires in the UK without students having to pay the big bucks they would have to pay in the UK.”
However, fees are still £8,400 a year for the three-year BA degree which isn’t that much cheaper than the £9,000 in Britain. This, coupled with the fact that students will find it harder to become involved in the British Acting Industry by virtue of the fact that it’s hard to get agents to travel to see final year showcases that aren’t in London – let alone the Continent.
A place at drama school in England is worth the investment if you wish to be a member of the Industry in Britain. Audition Doctor has succeeded in ensuring that students are in the best possible position before entering the audition room. From audition to interview technique, Audition Doctor understands the nature of not only the drama school audition but also the auditioning process for professional acting jobs. Whether you are a professional actor needing extra help or hoping to get into drama school, you will soon find Audition Doctor an absolute necessity.
by Bel | Feb 28, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
The Guardian recently devoted an article solely to the cutthroat climate that is associated with auditioning. It opened with the true yet now timeworn cliché of a young and hopeful actress “queuing in the rain outside the London Palladium for five hours, waiting to take her chance at the open auditions for A Chorus Line…Eventually, she was ushered on stage with a group of 50 other hopefuls, and asked to do a double pirouette on the left, and then another on the right. Her future rested on their perfect execution.” Contributions by Bob Avion (choreographer of the original New York production of A Chorus Line) such as: “when you are panning for gold among hundreds, you have to eliminate quickly”, are additionally indicative of how punishing the process can be for actors.
Unless you are part of that exclusive coterie of actors who are so well-established that they are in the privileged position of no longer needing to audition, chances are you will have to if you want to get into drama school or get an acting job. Drama school auditions are effectively job interviews and the pirouette of the musical theatre world is what an audition speech is to the acting world. It’s the moment to prove your agility as well as your ability and attending an Audition Doctor lesson means that you are much less likely to squander the unique moment of being the sole object of the panel’s attention.
As Siobhan Redmond says: “”The audition should be a microcosm of what you’ll do in the rehearsal room,” says Redmond. “By the end, you should at the very least be labouring under the delusion that you speak the same language.” Three years is a relatively short amount of time to equip an artist with the skills she/he will use throughout an entire career, so drama schools are looking for students who are malleable and who are atune to direction.
Audition Doctor sessions allow you to experience what an audition is like without the nerve-wracking atmosphere. If you are applying for drama schools, Audition Doctor can be helpful as it also means that your audition isn’t the first time you have performed to an actual person, as opposed to the bookshelf in your bedroom.
Siobhan Redmond says that the best time in every actor’s life is “the period between being offered the job and actually having to start it. Nothing beats it.” Coming to Audition Doctor gives you a significantly better chance of being in that position.
by Bel | Feb 23, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
At some stage during lessons at Audition Doctor, Tilly will inevitably ask you to start to envisage the kind of actor you want to be. Whether you hope your career focuses on treading the boards at The Royal Court or in the movie studios of Hollywood, it’s worth noting that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Interviewed in the Metro, British actor – David Oyelowo, who has recently appeared in Lincoln and is tipped to be on the brink of stardom in the US, asserted: “A solid grounding in theatre…is the reason why so many British actors take the lead spots in US film and TV. ‘You look at the actors who are in Lincoln,’ he says. ‘Most of, if not all of them, came out of the theatre. The theatre is generally what takes actors from being good to great. There’s nothing more terrifying, more exposing. And being around such seasoned actors – for me, it was standing in the wings watching Alan Bates – there’s nothing like that in terms of learning.”
Increasingly, drama schools are offering courses that focus exclusively on film and TV mean that theatre training is often ignored. It is illogical to view theatre and screen to be polar opposite disciplines; in both, the actor is required to inhabit an authentic person. Discussions with Audition Doctor always stress the importance of not only picking the right drama school but also the right course for you. Tilly frequently advises students to be open to drama schools that offer courses that involve training in all mediums. These give you more opportunities in the future, as you are equipped with skills that are not exclusive solely say to screen acting.
That being said, Audition Doctor will concede that attending any course at drama school is better than not going at all. As Lyn Gardner stated: “Great acting, like great writing, is often in the eye of the beholder, but audiences almost always know when they are in the presence of something special. Talent may be enough to get by on screen and TV, but with a few notable exceptions such as Kelly Reilly, the untrained actor often fares badly on stage. The performances that most often thrill us are those where instinct and technique are both in perfect balance but also opposition, and flamboyance and inner life collide head on, transforming feeling into thought and words. When this mixture of abandon and control ignites, what happens is as mysterious as alchemy; the theatre crackles; it leaves the spectator reeling. It makes you believe Eric Bentley’s thesis that “the purpose of theatre is to produce great performances.”
by Bel | Feb 14, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
The auditions process for drama schools is a sobering harbinger of the brutality that characterises the acting profession. The need to differentiate yourself from the thousands of other candidates who not only look and sound just like you, but of course who are doing the same speeches as you, can quickly drive some to despair. But they are also a realistic indicator of what professional actors go through everyday. As Freddie Fox said in his Ideastap interview : “In no other business will you be turned down for three jobs in one week.”
Rejection occurs so frequently that it feels hard to exercise control over your career. Drama school auditions feel similar; the desire just to get a foot in the door means that you forget that, as Hayley Atwell said, “you audition them as much as they audition you…I applied to a lot of drama schools – As much as I wanted to go to RADA, when I got there I didn’t feel like it was me. When I went into Guildhall, I just felt so relaxed. We had a whole term of classes about failing – ironically, a lot of the best work came out of that.”
Drama school is famously emotionally and physically exacting with 12 hours days and learning lines every night. It’s important that you like the place where you will be devoting the next 3 years of your life. The recession and £9,000 a year hike will make the decision to go harder to justify, but no amount of hoping or arrogance will ensure that you will be one of the lucky few who “don’t need training.” Successful and well-respected actors who haven’t trained – such as Tom Hollander – are a rarity. There is no certainty in any job sector anymore, let alone in acting, and thinking you’ll be as fortunate is risky.
Yet drama schools aren’t the only way to receive training and to get noticed by agents. The Industry is trying in some ways to give young hopefuls who can’t afford drama school a leg-up. Vocational alternatives like Fourth Monkey’s £2,000 training scheme, Frantic Assembly’s physical training courses and NYT Rep are financially viable and thrilling opportunities. These involve Industry mentors, workshops, Q&As, weekends in Stratford with the RSC and a showcase performed in front of Industry professionals with the chance of representation. However, like with all jobs in the Industry- unless you are Derek Jacobi – these schemes must be auditioned for as they are highly competitive.
Anyone who is auditioning for either professional acting jobs or drama schools at the moment will be uncomfortably aware that you need every bit of help you can get. Audition Doctor sessions have proven to be unique because Tilly’s students are able to receive peerless direction coupled with insightful practical advice. No actor can control the outcome of any audition, however, going to Audition Doctor means that you can be confident in the knowledge that you have at least managed to control the fact that you are the most prepared you can possibly be.
by Bel | Jan 31, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
The Times reported that “in a report published by the Conference of Drama Schools, it was revealed that more than 25,000 applications were made to the 22 accredited drama schools in England and Wales…Which means that they are now twice as difficult to get into as Oxbridge.” The number of applicants is ever increasing, seemingly immune to the hike in tuition fees. The main reason cited for this was the proliferation of audition-based shows on television.
Geoffery Colman (Head of Acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama) stated: “This year, we received more than 4,000 applications for a place on our degree course and that figure is going up every year. But we’re finding that fewer and fewer of those applicants will have ever set foot in a theatre, understood what it means to train for three years to be an artist, or have any idea of the professional world they’re signing up to. Audition-based shows have made it look quick and easy to attain a kind of celebrity-based stardom…You have only to work on your voice for about three weeks and, bam, you’ll be good enough for the West End or No1 in the US charts. Whereas what we’re saying is that it takes three years to train a voice. Young people are increasingly coming in with this idea that talent is an instant right that should be ‘spotted’. They aren’t coming in with a real commitment to the work required to become an actor.”
Edward Kemp, artistic director of RADA insisted that despite the fact that such shows encouraged record numbers to apply, the panelists are not of the Simon Cowell persuasion: “What we want to see is not the commercially lucrative finished product of the TV audition show but unformed raw material that we can mould. That is a totally different auditioning experience, for a quality that is much more difficult to spot.”
The idea that a drama school audition is a talent show is a misguided one; drama school auditions do not solely comprise of performing audition speeches, the interview is also regarded as an integral part of the process. This is where the panelists gauge your commitment to the Theatre, how receptive you are to direction and your dedication to the training process.
What Audition Doctor can help with is not a rigidly polished performance but the capability to respond authentically to the circumstances of the play. As you have more lessons at Audition Doctor, Tilly also opens your eyes to the fact that the interpretation that you might have both agreed on is merely one out of a thousand possibilities; Audition Doctor gives you the freedom to adapt and play around with the character. This is why Audition Doctor sessions are such golden opportunities – the chance to be vulnerable in the presence of a professional eye is rare and it is one of the assets that drama schools most prize. As Colman says: “What we are looking for is authenticity, pliability, a core radiance. It’s up to us to find that. But my best advice is – be vulnerable. And, for God’s sake, go to the theatre.”
