by Bel | Apr 17, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
When auditioning for drama school, performing the work of long dead playwrights is unavoidable. Most, if not all, accredited drama schools require applicants to perform one (or even two) Shakespeare or Elizabethan-era monologues. Even with the assistance of a No Fear Shakespeare edition of the play, the language can be frustrating and impenetrable.
When Simon Russell Beale was interviewed about how he approached Shakespeare texts, he said: “I go through the text with a fine tooth comb. With complicated verse, I have to make it comprehensible at first hearing. That seems to be my basic job so a lot of the early work is about that, it’s about getting the series of thoughts absolutely clear. That’s actually easier said than done. It’s quite complicated when you dig into these plays and have to work out what this person is thinking…The emotional life comes later, that’s something that builds in rehearsal with reaction to other people but the process that you work on yourself is working out the sequence of thoughts.”
Most drama school applicants have neither Russell Beale’s extensive experience nor his first class degree in English literature, so working out the sequence of thoughts articulated in sixteenth century English will be daunting. Audition Doctor is the place to unpick the language, as well as discover the emotional journey that your character takes. The sessions are mini rehearsals where you can truly have the freedom to play.
The most successful of Audition Doctor’s students tend to be those who come prepared with different speeches with various ideas of how to approach them. They are the ones who regularly go to the theatre and who don’t settle for obvious and unimaginative choices.
Jeff Goldblum stated about aspiring young actors: “Don’t do it unless it’s a wild-hearted passion for you and you can’t possibly to anything else and I’ve got to play that game again and…when you can’t wake up without thinking I’ve got to play that game again where I’ve got to play pretend.”
The students that get further in the recall stages are those who come to Tilly with a readiness to experiment coupled with intelligent textual observations. They are the ones who practice what Niamh Cusack advised in Ideastap: “If you see a play and there is a particularly good speech in it, then get the play and learn the speech. Practice is what makes you a good actor. The more you’re prepared – learn speeches, try them out – then the easier it will be for you to walk in and do a good audition. Thinking you’ll get that big break without that hard work is a bit crazy. I don’t think there are that many geniuses; most people have worked really, really hard.”
Further on in his interview, Goldblum said that the best actors were those who were child-like in their ability to play, those who had the vulnerability to be susceptible to their imaginations. It is this quality that Tilly encourages and why Audition Doctor is continually in demand.
by Bel | Apr 10, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, tilly blackwood
Even the most respected institutions are beset by flaws. The criticism levelled at drama schools is varied and contradictory. It’s been argued that drama schools are out of touch, blindly forging on with teaching Elizabethan playwrights for which there is no commercial market. Conversely, there have been complaints that today’s young actors don’t possess the know-how to speak verse properly.
Last week’s Sam Wanamaker festival at the Globe – a theatre which is commercially successful solely by staging Shakespeare – disproved both arguments. Susan Elkin from The Stage wrote: “[It] is a very valuable event. The focus is entirely on Shakespeare. A pair of students from each of 21 drama schools – and I know how carefully selected and nurtured those individuals are so it’s an honour to take part – perform a duologue from Shakespeare on the Globe’s stage. The final, and public, performance took place yesterday. And as the Globe’s Director of Education Patrick Spottiswoode told me recently “It’s a celebration not a competition. There is no adjudication or winners”. So it’s a fine way of giving 16th and 17th century drama some close attention – and helping to refute all those critics.”
The idea that drama school is a waste of time because of its focus on Shakespearean texts is a dangerous one. The most celebrated TV and film actors have been known to turn down screen roles in favour of the stage, as evidenced by the recent announcement that a large contingent of the Sherlock cast will be focusing on Shakespeare in the near future. (Martin Freeman will play Richard III, Benedict Cumberbatch will take on the role of Hamlet and Mark Gatiss was recently in Coriolanus at the Donmar.)
It isn’t just verse speaking that drama school affords you either. As Olivier winner Aneurin Barnard mentioned in Ideastap: “Drama school gives you an amazing amount of theatre knowledge. If you want to be a stage actor I don’t think you can without training; some do, but it’s a very low percentage. I knew from 14 that I wanted to go – mainly to get an agent, because I had already been acting for a few years, though I was very rough.”
Drama school auditions are incredibly demanding and sessions with Audition Doctor take some of the pressure off your shoulders. Although all the work must, ultimately, be done by you, Audition Doctor provides an encouraging environment to explore possibilities and experiment with different intentions. Essentially, this is what a drama school audition is.
Drama schools may be flawed, however, it seems like everyone still wants to go. The number of applications shows no sign of decreasing which is why – despite being at the tail-end stage of drama school auditions – Audition Doctor is still oversubscribed.
by Bel | Apr 3, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
This week, Lyn Gardner asked readers: “Who has commissioned or co-produced some of the potentially most interesting new theatre that is taking place over the next couple of weeks?” The answer was drama schools. Increasingly, drama schools such as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and East 15 are commissioning new writing to develop with their students.
Many cite the primary reason for going to drama school as being seen and subsequently signed by an agent. However, as Dave Bond of the RWCMD points out…”It [also] gets theatre and theatre writers and directors to connect with graduates, and sometimes they take those graduates with them as their careers progress.”
As Stephen Jameson of Mountview argues: “It’s a virtuous circle of creativity.” And as Christopher Haydon, artistic director of the Gate which is hosting the RWCMD shows, says: “It’s an exciting way of scoring lots of goals with less risk.”
Some prospective applicants to drama school worry about what Jameson calls “the certain marionette aspect to a traditional drama-school education for actors”. However, partnerships between drama schools and new writing proves that drama schools “recognise that [their students] are creative people and foster a progressive programme of work for graduating students that reflects the current developments in theatre in this country and gives them a real understanding of the devising and creative process”.
Many students who come out of drama school form their own theatre companies to ensure that they have a sense of creative autonomy in an industry beleaguered by cuts. Consequently, work – if offered at all – can be safe and devoid of risk. Only when the element of risk is involved can the work potentially be interesting. The devising process that drama schools now offer alongside new writing means that students are knowledgeable in how to create a successful piece of theatre outside the confines of drama school.
As Gardner says: “It’s all to the good, particularly at a time when drama schools seem to be increasingly turning out graduates whose eyes are fixed firmly upon TV and movies rather than the theatre. By putting significant amounts of money and time into new theatre work they are indicating to their graduates that theatre still matters and helping playwrights, theatres and companies to create challenging new work.”
When interviewed about the upcoming production of “A View from the Bridge”, Mark Strong commented on why he has decided to return to the theatre: ‘I wanted to get back into a room with a group of people – all bright, all committed – and talk about why we do this stuff, and how we do it,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘Because film doesn’t really demand that. You tend to learn your lines in isolation, you might go in and have a quick chat with the director, then you’re on camera. And you’re disconnected from the process, really. Whereas in a rehearsal room, you’re going over a text again and again – especially a text like this, which has survived for so long because it’s so good. And if our job is to shine a light on human nature, then you really get a chance over a number of weeks to do that, and then over a number of performances to show it. It’s such a privilege.’
Audition Doctor sessions are similar to the rehearsal room that Strong describes. The text is mined and relentlessly explored. This makes the entire process of auditioning feel organic – invaluable when in the midst of drama school auditions which can make students feel like just another number. The time usually spent at Audition Doctor is spread over a number of months. The interpretation that you present to the panel will by no means be the only one you will have explored with Tilly. Ultimately, this means that when you are redirected, you will have the confidence to present a whole range of interpretations that are rooted in truth.
by Bel | Mar 27, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, tilly blackwood
For all drama school candidates currently in the throes of auditions, it might be marginally reassuring to note that Anne Marie Duff once said that “The hardest thing of all is getting into drama school. You’ll never have that level of competition ever again. I mean thousands of people apply for 30 places; you never have that when you audition for a job.”
In many auditions, applicants are sometimes surprised that they are asked to perform their monologues in front of their fellow candidates. Although one hopes that candidates are aware that getting into character in front of an audience is the point of it all, it can be daunting to unexpectedly have to get into character in front of 20 other people.
Anne Marie Duff explains that it’s because “you’re frightened of making a fool of yourself. But you just have to find the truth in it. Instead of just putting on a fuzzy nose and going “ta daaa!” Many people mistakenly think that the “ta daa” element is a precondition to being remembered by the panel. It is – but for all the wrong reasons.
Her advice, whether you are auditioning for drama school or for a feature film, is to remember that “you’re having a conversation with an audience and the audience is either out there, a thousand people, or here, down a lens. It’s the same creative process.”
The initial stages of auditions are focused on the individual and it is usually only when you get further that you are required to participate in group workshops.
When asked about drama school, Michelle Dockery commented that the thing she learnt above all was “to be gracious. And by that I mean to work well with others and to be generous. There is nothing worse than working with an actor who thinks it’s all about them: there’s more than one person creating whatever you’re working on.” Although drama schools want to see you, it’s also as much about how you respond to fellow actors.
When asked about her experience auditioning for drama school, Sally Hawkins said: “I didn’t get in to RADA first time but I knew that was where I wanted to go. I was very single-minded. The only other option was art school and I didn’t have much confidence in that.”
“I did Juliet. I also did Road by Jim Cartwright – talking about “gargantuan men”. It was a very sexual, big Northern woman I was playing. It was totally against type but the writing’s so fantastic that I loved saying it. I also did a very inappropriate Shakespeare: Margaret from Richard III, an old wench. I came with a prop – this was the year I didn’t get in – I had a stick. I’m always drawn to people who are a challenge: it’s interesting to unlock who they are, but you have to be careful of not picking Queen Margaret! Probably better to pick someone closer to your age and your own experience.”
Aside from guidance on audition speeches, Audition Doctor also offers what Anne Marie Duff mentioned – a conversation. It’s important to discuss your choices and it’s helpful to know your strengths and weaknesses before you step into the audition room. In the audition, the panel ask questions that range from your personal ambitions to what theatre you have seen recently. It’s useful to have articulated your thoughts at Audition Doctor prior to the audition. Understandably, when confronted with three staring faces, drawing a blank is common.
Furthermore, in Audition Doctor sessions, actors are confronted with their unconscious habits which are duly discussed and addressed. Nothing elicits a more confident audition than knowing you have prepared in advance with Audition Doctor. This is why booking ahead with Tilly is crucial as places are filled especially quickly during the final recall stages in May.
by Bel | Mar 20, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
The chief reason why people come to Audition Doctor early on in the audition process is preparation. Advice on picking monologues and direction on the speeches themselves can only be assimilated and played with if you give yourself enough time before an audition.
The Stage warned against hurried interpretations: “Once you’ve selected your speech, experiment. See what it could be, rather than stamping a panicked performance upon it. You must deliver the text audibly, truthfully and connectedly – with intention. That is the actor’s job: to convey the words without false acting voices or daft, uncontrolled head and body-wobbles. The panel will be excited by a clear, clean performance that delivers the words with connection and conviction. Heaped emotion is less interesting.”
In the same article, Andy Johnson explained how “an audition is a two-minute show”. Many candidates comment on how much quicker they perform their speeches. Usually, these are applicants whose first “public” showing of their speeches have been in front of the panel. The combination of nerves and under-preparation is a detrimental cocktail in auditions. Audition Doctor sessions ensure that you don’t throw away your audition by rushing. They give you the reassurance that it’s okay to not throw yourself unthinkingly into your speech, but to do what the Stage recommends: ” To take a moment to imagine the audition space as the location of the monologue. The best auditions are those in which the actor successfully transports the panel from wherever they are to an urban street, a clearing in the woods, a vast hall in a medieval palace etc.”
Audition Doctor is also beneficial for advice in the interview part of the audition; running through possible questions and answers can make all the difference. Ben Caplan recently lamented: “I’ve known actors come into class and have not properly read the play or don’t know basic things like who is running the Royal Court. That is not good enough. But if you do prepare yourself you can have a successful career.”
As almost every actor has said, they key to a good performance is preparation and this is what Audition Doctor gives you. Tilly doesn’t give out answers but something much more powerful – the ability to ask more questions. The curiosity and willingness to engage in trial and error that is fostered in her lessons prepares all her students for drama school auditions.
by Bel | Mar 13, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
It’s common to hear of aspiring actors declaring a preference for screen or TV. As discussed in the previous posting, this may purely be down to the fact that students are wise to the fact that opportunities in theatre are waning. However, it would be foolish to disregard any medium in a profession that is always so exhaustingly coupled with the adjective “unpredictable”.
As Patricia Hodge said this week in the Guardian: “Actors can only be as good as what they’re offered – our only weapon is our ability to say no. When you’re at the beginning of your career, you’re not able to say no very often. Fledgling actors need to say yes to everything.”.
Aside from seriously hampering career opportunities, disregarding theatre prevents you from embracing the creative independence that film and television simply can’t afford. As Lara Pulver said: “At first I found screen acting far more difficult than stage acting. The lack of rehearsal was quite a shock, but you learn very quickly that the key to being comfortable on screen is preparation. With stage work you have time to prepare with the rest of the cast and explore the play together – on screen you generally have to turn up with a performance.”
Maxine Peake declared: “For me, theatre is where it’s at…With theatre, you sit and read it and chat about it, discuss it, but with telly you’ll be doing a scene and it’ll be, “What does that mean? Oh right, OK, let’s go.” You get a read-through, but costume might come in and say “Let’s take your measurements” and makeup women come in trying to get their job done and they don’t have any time because the budgets are just getting tighter and tighter. You literally have to do in 30 seconds what you’d do in about four weeks in theatre.”
In television, the old adage that time is money prevents the organic exploration that theatre rehearsals are known for. Furthermore, despite, or perhaps because of, government cuts, there is a common consensus that theatre is upping its game. As a result, it is in new writing for theatre that actors are permitted to be daring and radical. There is an emphasis on encouraging the new and risk-taking is something to be encouraged rather than feared.
As Robert Lepage mentioned in today’s Guardian: “I think theatre must be an event, an experience, not compete with cinema. When people are able to download stories on Netflix, you need to give them a good reason to jump into the car and drive two hours. It has to be something you can only see in the theatre, and it has to be worth it.”
You would have thought with the hike in tuition fees that there would be fewer students applying to drama school. However, Audition Doctor has actually seen a sharp increase in students. This is perhaps because students know inherently that the emphasis on theatre training at drama school will give them the opportunity to practice the kind of artistic license that screen acting doesn’t allow.
Dennis Kelly recognised this when he said: “Theatre is a gateway to thinking – you start off with plays because it involves acting and messing around, and before you know it you’re reading and watching foreign films and thinking, and you just can’t stop.”
by Bel | Mar 6, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Insanity was once defined by Einstein as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. One of the many reasons why students come to Audition Doctor is the fact that they find that they are not getting the recalls they so desperately want. They perform the same two speeches over and over again at every drama school audition without success.
Audition Doctor has always stressed that the most important decision you make is your choice of speeches. However, many candidates continue to pick speeches that they perhaps think will show their range, yet which are ostensibly not suitable for where they are in their development.
Steve Winter, head of Old Vic New Voices, advised in Ideastap: “Don’t play a pensioner when you’re 21. Play to your strengths and embrace whatever age you are.” There are hundreds of great monologues for people in their twenties and thirties out there – so don’t just reach for the grandparent role.”
Furthermore, Winter commented on casting sessions where students failed to read the actual play from which the speech was chosen. Reading the play multiple times is a must. It’s essential that you have as thorough an understanding of your character as possible. Additionally, showing that you have a lack of knowledge of the play reveals a lack of interest and preparation. Drama schools are renowned for their insistence on total commitment, not bothering to do something so basic as read the play will guarantee no recall.
“You need to know the playwright, story and character arc of the monologue you are performing,” says Steve. For all you know, this might be the monologue delivered just before the character reveals that they are a pathological liar, or in prison, or actually in love with their mother. If you don’t know the context, it’s hard to give a really informed performance. Also, OVNV are looking for actors who are dedicated and enthusiastic enough to do their research. As Steve says, “Phrases such as. ‘I just selected it from the monologue book my tutor gave me’ are not words we like to hear.”
Audition Doctor is not the place to come if you aren’t thirsty to stretch your acting capabilities. Most of Tilly’s students come ready with several different speeches and ideas of how to approach them. Audition Doctor will not find audition speeches for you because the hunt for the perfect speech is important in itself. The writing must speak to you personally as the organic process of exploring the speech is a lengthy one. In other words, you have to care about what you’re saying to be able to convey the emotion and vulnerability that the writer asks of you.
When Arthur Darvill was asked how useful his training at RADA was, he responded: “Training is a funny thing. I was very lucky and went to RADA. That was the Holy Grail for me, before I went. But it meant that I spent my first year trying to “get it right” rather than get what I could from it. The truth is you never get it right, you just keep learning. Drama school was a great opportunity to do that and – like any place of learning – you get out what you put in.”
Audition Doctor is much the same.
by Bel | Feb 27, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
When Ideastap asked David Harewood whether drama school was worth the time and expense, he responded: “I’m really glad I did because it gave me that classical training, and you can’t get that anywhere else in the world. We have a deep theatrical tradition here as old as any other on the planet, and you get trained in all these different styles. So when you do get auditions, you feel like you can do anything.
I can do a bit of telly, a bit of radio but I can also belt out a bit of Shakespeare, and you’d find that very difficult if you hadn’t gone to drama school. Some people may not want those skills. I’m coming across a lot of young actors who have gone through other forms of training and are fantastic, and maybe some of these guys don’t dream of getting up on stage and doing King Lear – maybe they’re not interested in that. But it’s also the experience of studying the craft – it’s a skill and the more you study it, the better you get.”
Perhaps it isn’t that the actors Harewood is talking about aren’t interested in theatre, but because they are aware of the recent changes that their profession has faced. Their desire to find success in TV or film is based on a realistic mindset that fewer subsidies mean fewer risks. It’s a well known fact that conservative tastes reign during times of financial trouble.
Even Trevor Nunn acknowledged: “It’s a changing world as drama students leave their drama schools thinking ‘I have to get into television and I have to get into film,’ because there are fewer and fewer opportunities in theatre.”
However, this has frequently proven not to be the case. More than ever, new theatre companies such as DryWrite, Clean Break and Theatre 503, to name a few, are staging new and radical plays. It also appears that students from drama schools are taking the situation into their own hands by forming their own companies. Invertigo Theatre Company is one such venture which was set up by four Guildhall graduates who focus on “the lesser known, from new writing to European plays.”
One of the reasons why drama school graduates are still pursuing careers in theatre is the liberating aspect of the medium over film.
As Kirsten Scott Thomas mentioned: “The trouble with acting in films, she goes on, is that “you’re constantly being told what to do. ‘Move your head that way. Can you cry a bit more? Can you do this, can you do that? Oh, that was lovely, that was amazing, that was beautiful.’ And sometimes you think, that wasn’t amazing and wonderful and beautiful, it was just a look. But you’ve got this person saying it was. And then it’s taken away from you, and it’s all mixed up and made into something else. Basically, when you are acting in a film, you’re giving the director the raw material to make the film. But when you’re acting on stage, that’s it. And that’s when you discover that you can really do it. It’s this word ‘trust’ that keeps coming to me. It’s not a question of whether one person is conning you into thinking you can do it, saying, ‘Oh, it was beautiful.’ On stage, if it works, it works.”
One of the reasons why actors come to Audition Doctor lies in what Jeremy Irvine said recently in an interview: “What’s worth remembering is, when you finally do get cast in a film, there’s no rehearsal time and you’re not supervised. You get a script and you’re told it’s shooting in two months and you have to do all that work yourself. There’s no one holding your hand. There’s no director asking, “Have you tried this?” That happens on set on the day, by which point it’s too late if you haven’t done the preparation.”
Audition Doctor sessions are popular because they are pockets of time where the focus is on preparation. The intensive and qualitative nature of the work that you do in the lessons often means that students choose to come to Audition Doctor over an extended period of time. Consequently, even if you are coming to Audition Doctor for preparation for a film or TV role, you are afforded the luxury of a more prolonged sort of rehearsal period that theatre is known for.
by Bel | Feb 20, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
This week Mark Shenton wrote of his pleasant surprise at finding that a triple bill of Beckett monologues seemed to be outselling Andrew Lloyd – Webber’s newest juggernaut – Stephen Ward the Musical.
It was refreshing to see that not only had these notoriously impenetrable plays successfully transferred from the Royal Court to the West End but that Sky Arts are set to broadcast one of the monologues (Not I) in July of this year.
Lisa Dwan, who performs the one-woman trilogy, concedes that many audiences in the past have been “overly burdened by that intellectual reverence and intimidated by the impenetrable nature of Beckett’s immediacy”. However, it seems that current audiences are undeterred.
The nature of the performance is as far removed from Stephen Ward the Musical as humanly possible. The first play is a monologue spoken at unbroken speed for 9 minutes in pitch black. The only thing that the audience can see is Dwan’s mouth, which is suspended eight feet above the stage.
Dwan said: “The performances are transcending [everyone’s] whole view of what theatre is. Why shouldn’t theatre be in the black? Why shouldn’t it be uncompromising? Why should a piece of poetry not play on the nerves of the audience instead of their intellect, as Beckett demanded? He wanted it spoken at the speed of thought. Why can’t you surrender that little bit, and allow it to play itself out on your nervous system? People with conventional positions struggle with Beckett, and people who are willing to be surprised, open, and look at it as a slice of life, not as just one particular medium with their very blinkered view of what theatre is, have a visceral, physical, and visual experience.”
When speaking of the rehearsal process, Dwan commented on how the director, Walter Asmus, always said “‘it always has to cost you. It needs to cost you more, we need to see you bleed up there.”
While Audition Doctor wouldn’t necessarily advocate picking Not I as a drama school audition speech, the speeches chosen should ideally push you to similar boundaries. Dwan said when she was performing that “just being suspended in that light for Footfalls, and the same way in Not I with the deprivation, makes me go places. I don’t even feel like a human being half the time, and that’s just so liberating”.
At Audition Doctor, the sessions afford students a similar sort of freedom. The session is your time to make the sort of decisions that you think will showcase the depth of your emotional range and your willingness to prove your vulnerability. They are pockets of time to safely push yourself, to let a speech truly cost you something. You will rarely find a space that offers the freedom, lack of judgement and professional insight as at Audition Doctor.
by Bel | Feb 13, 2014 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Last week, Denis Kelly declared that nothing annoyed him more than the lazy and commonplace assumption that theatre was elitist. “I’m the son of a bus conductor and a cleaner, I grew up in a council house and left school at 16 with no qualifications, but I found a home in theatre…I got involved in theatre young and it kept my mind alive, through brain-numbing jobs that meant nothing to me.” He went onto say that the number of people currently seeing theatre in this country was comparable to attendances at Britain’s other populist event – football matches.
Drama schools such as LAMDA are also working hard to change the false perception that the industry is an exclusive club open only to the moneyed. Having recently appointed Rhiannon Fisher as its first Access and Widening Participation Officer, the drama school has set up new initiatives to give school students more information on vocational drama training.
Speaking to The Stage, Fisher commented: “The idea was to use our [final year students’] first public production as a way of introducing secondary school students to Shakespeare. The students were split into two companies, one of which did Macbeth and one Twelfth Night so they covered four schools each,” says Fisher, adding that each performance runs for 90 minutes followed by a question and answer session with the cast.
Fisher acknowledges that the “Q/A is vital. It allows audience members not only to ask questions about the play and acting those roles but also about vocational drama training in general and LAMDA in particular – the very information which so often fails to get into schools because, on the whole, it is outside the experience of teachers and careers advisers.”
There are further plans afoot to run workshops in 2015 for underprivileged young people in five major cities around the country. Furthermore, the audition fees, which have been cited as eye-wateringly expensive, may be wavered for those who have attended the workshops.
If you don’t qualify for workshops such as at LAMDA, or simply can’t make events such as the Surviving Actors Careers Fair, where Susan Elkin noted: “there was a programme of seminars, workshops and one-to-one sessions” by industry professionals, Audition Doctor offers something similar. However, inevitably, due to the one-to-one nature of the session, it is far more tailored to the individual.
Elkin said in her column for The Stage: “Predictably, what interested me most in all this were the top-up training opportunities for actors [at the fair] and I was pleased to see The Actors Centre, The Actors’ Guild, The Actors’ Cafe, Actors’ Studio and Actors’ Training Centre among others, all busy talking to dozens of actors keen to learn, develop and hone skills.”
As well as being a private acting coach, Audition Doctor also offers sessions at The Actors Centre. This gives her students the added bonus of understanding how drama school students continue to top-up their training even after having graduated, as well as what institutions such as these offer.
Recently in The Guardian, Kristin Scott Thomas spoke about her rediscovery of theatre after years of doing purely film: “I suddenly felt independent. You could walk on stage and you could stand on your head if you really wanted to. No one’s going to say stop, don’t do that, that’s a ridiculous idea. There’s this feeling of independence and trust – I could give myself permission to play things in a certain way and see if they worked or they didn’t. I could trust myself.”
That encapsulates why Audition Doctor is in demand by both professional actors and drama school applicants alike, as the overriding feeling that students take away from sessions is a confidence and trust in their own artistic judgement.
The progress that Audition Doctor’s students achieve can rarely be attained by going to a Q&A or a seminar; the experimentation and discovery lies in actively doing, as opposed to passively listening. This is why Audition Doctor is considered to be so significant in her students’ development.
