Recently, there have been several articles where both actors and directors have spoken about how important an audience is in a play’s growth and development.
Ralph Fiennes said: “It’s in front of an audience that I start to really learn what I’m doing. You rehearse, but a play grows over time. I feel sad that we don’t have a system of adjusting and changing things after the first night.”
Many people find that rehearsing solo is only helpful up to a point and it is only when they attend regular Audition Doctor sessions that they discover a freshness in to their speeches. The longer you give yourself to rehearse with Tilly, the quicker it is to find the rhythm of the speech, develop originality and plumb the depths of the character.
In the Guardian, Matt Trueman said: “In preview, Waste was – frankly – a bit dull: a fascinating, intricate play but a long, drawn-out watch. A month on, it’s far livelier. Everything’s more expansive. Lines have more spring. Each becomes a rollercoaster with ups, downs and loop-the-loops. It keeps you listening, holds your attention. Each individual moment is 1% or 2% better. The whole lifts by 10.”
Students who attend Audition Doctor report much the same after a consistent string of sessions.
Watching [Waste] most nights, staff director Oscar Toeman commented: “If you read Waste, it’s heavy,” he says. “The actors are doing a hell of a lot of work to make it feel as light and buoyant as it does. The point is that they have learned what an audience needs. Just as you only learn to drive after passing your test, you only really learn how to play a role after press night.”
Similarly, Audition Doctor gives actors the chance to learn what a potential audience needs and road test different takes on their part.
Charles Edwards, playing Henry Trebell in Waste, said “[As a show goes on], you find that running the thing with a crowd, allowing the language to strike you in ways it hasn’t already, you make realisations of your own”.
The rigorous sessions at Audition Doctor mean that students often find they continue to find nuances which keeps a rawness to their performance – a quality highly prized by audition panels.
Fiennes advised young actors: “It’s important not to get into a little hole of just perfecting one’s own technique. I’m always looking at other actors.”
Tilly strongly recommends that her students go frequently to the theatre. Students have found that a combination of both observing other professional actors and attending Audition Doctor lessons quickens the pace of their own progress and they become more confident and successful in auditions.
