by Bel | Sep 12, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
This week the Stage announced that figures from the University and Colleges Admissions Service show that the number of applications to drama courses for 2013 have increased by 7.3%, with nearly 50,000 made.
The expectation that applications would slump drastically due to the tuition fees hike has proven to be unfounded. You would have thought that with the papers routinely filled with phrases such as “fiscal cliff” and “challenging economic climate”, entering a profession with no guarantee of regular work would be an unattractive prospect. Not so. The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama said it had experienced a 12% increase from last year. Of the near 5,900 applications it received this year, around 4,900 were for its BA acting course.
If the odds are in your favour (175:1) and you do manage to get a place at drama school, it’s cheering to know that the competition is just as infuriatingly furious in the actual profession. However helpful conservatoire training is, to think that a drama school degree will automatically mean you are “set” is to be naïve.
The Stage also published an article in the same week entitled “Top tips on How to Make Your Audition Count” where they asked actors, casting directors and agents to give their most valuable advice. Every single one of them began with “preparation”. From April Nicholson’s “Proper preparation prevents poor performance”, Alexandra Lloyd-Hamilton’s “Preparation, preparation, preparation”, Jimmy Jewell’s “Over-prepare”, Mark Inscoe’s “Be prepared” to Spencer James’ “Prepare!”
Not only is the run up to auditions a long one, but the wait between multiple recalls sometimes feels interminable. Most people find the early stages of preparing for drama school auditions easy – finding speeches, filling in the forms, organising audition dates, are all done in an initial optimistic flush. The hardest bit comes when you are six months in the process, when you’ve had a couple of recalls but also a couple of rejections. It is at this stage that the need to keep your audition speeches fresh and spontaneous is crucial. The audition panel don’t care that this is your tenth audition, the whole point of acting is to make it seem like it’s the first time you’ve uttered the words that you’ve said countless times before in front of countless impassive panels. They want you to be a convincing human being. This can be difficult when you’ve woken up at 5am to catch the train to get to your 9am audition in Bristol. This is why sessions at Audition Doctor are priceless. Getting to the emotional place in your speech every time is vital to securing a recall and the work done with Audition Doctor enables you to do this.
The temptation to just “wing it” and “see what happens” is alluring at some stages during the auditioning process – with many erroneously confusing under-preparation with inspiration. The ability to make interesting and daring choices spontaneously can only happen with months of text-work, exploration and preparation. Professional actors continuously stress the necessity of extensive preparation and working with Audition Doctor means that you automatically outrival those naïve or arrogant enough to think they can just go into an audition without having done any work on their character or the play.
by Bel | Sep 5, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
When Joel Fry (currently starring in Public Enemy at The Young Vic) was asked in an Ideastap interview whether he thought peopIe need to go to drama school, he replied: “I don’t think they need to, but it can be quite a lot of fun. It’s the opportunity to hang around with loads of other talented actors, although it does get a bit nasty and competitive later on. It makes you feel like you’re part of something. It also helps getting an agent – I don’t know how people get an agent otherwise.”
In the same week, The Stage ran an article entitled “Is Your Agent An Arsehole?” which denounced agents as having “too much control”, “too much leverage”. However, the reality is that an actor without an agent is significantly disadvantaged. Students go to drama school not solely for artistic reasons but for commercial ones as well. The third-year showcase is the launchpad for most students’ careers. It’s where agents can be made aware of new talent and getting the right agent is crucial. Talent does not trump all; without the right representation, it’s highly likely that it will go unnoticed. From getting you auditions to negotiating contracts, agents are influential and helpful in both your artistic decisions and financial situation. Actors who don’t have agents will find it incredibly hard to be seen by casting directors as open auditions are rare and professional contacts are crucial.
Drama school gives you the best opportunity to be taken on by an agency that is highly respected in the industry. Many agents featured in Spotlight specify “No new applicants. Existing clients only.” Although new talent is always being sought, it is worth remembering that it is already an overly-crowded profession. Talent without the backup of vocational training over the course of 3 years is frequently not enough. Training at an accredited drama school is a sign to prospective agents that you have achieved a certain level of professional affirmation and you have the creative, as well as technical, abilities to sustain an acting career.
This is why Audition Doctor is so integral to your path to becoming a professional actor. While Laurie Sanson’s (head of the National Theatre of Scotland) comments of England facing a “talent migration” to the North should not be dismissed as mere scaremongering, the fact is that English drama schools are considered unequivocally to be the best in the world and the rising of tuition fees has barely made any difference to the number of applicants. The number of prospective drama school students attending Audition Doctor has also risen. There is no substitute for being taught by someone who has attended one herself and who is on the panel for auditions at the Actor’s Centre. Accurate insider knowledge is hard to come by and Audition Doctor offers this alongside peerless acting advice. This is why Audition Doctor sessions place in you the best possible position to get into drama school and secure an agent.
by Bel | Aug 29, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
With September just round the corner, the inevitable preparation for drama school auditions begins. Most preliminary auditions begin in November and beginning the groundwork in September can seem premature to an outsider. However, candidates who have applied before know that it takes time to choose speeches – you may have to prepare as many as five – as each drama school has its own specifications. Furthermore, they must be performance- ready before you send off your application forms. You could be given an audition date with as little as two weeks notice. Many candidates think they are being strategic by not sending their forms out till the mid-January deadline, in the belief that it gives them far more time to perfect their speeches. In reality, this just means that thousands of other candidates who were more organised than you are forging on ahead; they will do their recall auditions while you are being seen for the first time and will have a greater chance of getting a place before you. It won’t matter if you are more talented than them, you might well be put on the waiting list while they start buying their jazz shoes in anticipation of the start of term.
This is why Audition Doctor already has a set of students gearing up for the 2014 intake. Audition Doctor sessions are the most practical way of furthering yourself as a prospective actor – from choosing speeches to your breath and how you hold yourself- Tilly analyses it all. It isn’t only whether you have the emotional capacity that drama schools are looking for, it’s your ability to connect with your breath, your facility with movement and your openness to direction. Many auditionees think that if they choose a speech that involves hysterical shouting or distraught sobbing, they will prove that they have “range”. In reality, there is far more to choosing the right speech which is why Audition Doctor is indispensable Plays are combed through, speeches are discussed in detail and you never feel like you have settled for something mediocre.
Aside from attending Audition Doctor sessions, Tilly always encourages her students to go to the theatre as often as possible. Sam Rockwell mentioned something similar in his interview with the Guardian: “When young actors haven’t seen films or haven’t seen and read plays, it’s irritating to me,” he muses. “Because you have to always remember that everything’s been done – and it’s been done well. You can’t be Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep or Robert Duvall without really hard work. I don’t know if people understand that acting, if done well there’s a lot of homework involved.” He goes onto mention that during his years at drama school in New York he realised “there was a responsibility, that it was more of a calling, not just a way to meet girls, or a lifestyle – it wasn’t about being famous, it was more like Jedi training. If done well, it’s a noble profession. You can affect people.”
Many people think that actors just get up on stage and are hit with a bolt of inspiration. In reality, there have been hours of preparation and rehearsal. Drama school auditions are no different and lessons with Audition Doctor are a mixture of inspiration and preparation. Starting work on your speeches now only means that you are in the best position to succeed.
by Bel | Aug 22, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
No one in the arts world would deny the advantages of having a commercial success. Money is always short and the profits from lucrative shows often fund less economically viable, yet artistically daring productions. However, England is currently saddled with a Culture Minister who recently asserted that arts funding should be regarded as “venture capital”. Maria Miller’s expectation that art should yield fat fiscal returns is a clear indicator of how there is less patience, time and money for any kind of creativity, let alone any risk-taking, which so often the most compelling art involves.
Drama schools offer fewer bursaries while having no choice but to increase their fees. However, drama school has always been only one (albeit successful) way of entering the Industry. This month, The Stage wrote about how training companies such as Fourth Monkey and Bridge Training Company are on the increase. The launch of the National Youth Theatre’s rep company this year is a sign that industry practitioners are eager to offer students without the financial means an alternative to drama school. NYT’s rep company comprises of 15 NYT members who are given the opportunity to work for nine solid months on productions, as well as given voice and movement lessons. Students also receive bursaries from the Kevin Spacey Foundation, are taught by the likes of Nick Hytner and Michael Grandage and perform their shows in The Ambassadors Theatre in the heart of the West End. It seems that repertory companies might look as if they will return as a reasonable substitute for drama schools.
Training companies such as these are garnering more publicity as they are seen as“effectively an alternative to the third year in drama school”. That, along with “each one [having] a personal mentor from the top reaches of professional theatre” which allows for “masses of networking opportunities” means that aspiring actors will increasingly look to training companies such as these to hone their craft. That and not being £27,000 in debt makes it undoubtedly a more attractive option.
While the competition is not currently as stiff as entry into drama schools, this is set to change. Audition Doctor has noticed an increase in the number of students applying for acting schemes such as these which are advertised on Ideastap. Because the opportunities are usually so unique, competition is fierce, which means more students are coming to Audition Doctor for help. While it seems crude to view yourself as a marketable commodity, you are trying to make it as an actor at a time when the Westminster agenda is at odds with your chosen profession. This means you must make the most of what the Industry is fighting to offer you for free. Audition Doctor sessions mean that you present the best you – the you that is worthy of investment.
by Bel | Aug 15, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Much has been made recently of the need for British drama schools to widen their curriculum to accommodate the ever-changing nature of the acting industry. Drama school graduates, such as Tom Hopper, have mentioned that though the training is heavily focused on stage acting, most of the work that they audition for is in TV and film.
“For me, there’s a lack of screen acting at drama schools in the UK. We focus so much on theatre, which is brilliant; the discipline you need for theatre is huge. But we could use some more screen acting. So many auditions you go for when you get out of drama school are screen-based, certainly in my case. I sort of learned as I went along. I did do some screen acting at drama school; only a couple of weeks in three years, which isn’t necessarily a huge amount considering you’re going to be doing quite a lot of it.”
More and more drama schools now offer courses that cover both mediums. Jane Harrison, principal of Arts Educational Schools London, views stage and screen as two different languages: ““And I want our students to be fluent in both French and Spanish as it were”.
However, many drama schools also offer purely screen acting courses. As Audition Doctor says to all her students, going on any course that solely focuses on one medium automatically makes future employment harder. With Max Irons revealing this week that both of his parents encouraged him to be a plumber/carpenter instead of an actor, it makes perfect sense to go to a drama school that gives you the opportunity to be well-versed in all disciplines so you can make some semblance of a living.
Many students that come to Audition Doctor are tempted to do purely screen acting courses, however, as Casting Director – Andy Pryor – stated in The Guardian: “Theatre is where you see people at their best…you often see actors playing very much against type: that way, you get a great idea of their range.” He then went onto explain how spotting Jack Farthing at the Royal Court led to him casting him in a Poliakoff drama, followed by a bigger part in BBC1’s comedy Blandings earlier this year.
Selecting a drama school that equips you with as many skills as possible is an advantageous move career-wise. But many skills can only be learned through experience of being in the profession itself. As Hopper states: “Drama school builds discipline and gives you a structure. If you’re like a sponge and absorb all the information you’re given, you can then take bits from it when you need them. But it doesn’t prepare you for the life of an actor. Work isn’t necessarily going to happen straight away; it’s about sticking to it. There’s a lot of things to deal with, like the psychological element of being in and out of work. You’re self-employed at the end of the day and you have a product to sell, and drama school doesn’t teach you about that.”
Whether you are applying to drama schools or auditioning for jobs, you are marketing yourself as a product and there is a need to ensure that you are psychologically and emotionally prepared.
Paul Clayton claimed recently : “Someone once said to me, “Do one thing every day that might get you a job, and then live your life for the rest of the day.” That’s what being an actor means.” Audition Doctor sessions are demanding, but as a result, have frequently been the thing that have got someone a place at drama school or an acting job. This means whatever the outcome of your audition, you can live the rest of the day free from the anxiety that comes from fearing you haven’t done enough.
by Bel | Jul 31, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Susan Elkin, The Stage’s Education and Training Editor, was asked so often whether drama school was a necessity that she wrote an article arguing why the widely-held misconception of “if you can act or sing, surely you can just stand up and do it” was palpably misguided.
“Debunking attitudes like that is probably one of the most important things I do as The Stage’s Education and Training Editor. After all, however great your footballing potential, you wouldn’t expect to walk in off the streets and immediately play for Manchester United. It takes years of training to achieve the right skills. And you never stop learning. Exactly the same principle applies to performing on stage or screen.”
She goes onto mention how young people often cite actors such as Sheridan Smith as examples of actresses who have been successful without training. However, as Elkin states: “Smith studied singing, dancing and acting part time for many years in her native Lincolnshire and trained extensively in her teens with National Youth Music Theatre. Untrained she clearly was not.”
There are indeed respected actors who haven’t gone to an established drama school. However, many started early and were trained on the job. This was often supplemented by sessions on set with acting coaches. Elkin invites her readers to “take the three leads in the Harry Potter films: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. For nearly 10 years and seven films, starting when they were barely out of primary school, they were trained on set which included many systematic, carefully thought out classes to develop the necessary voice, movement and acting skills. And the same applied to the many other children involved. Those films were, effectively, their training provider.”
Attending a drama school is not the only form of training potential actors can receive. There are amdram productions, schemes such as the National Youth Theatre, joining a theatre company and also training privately with professionals established in the acting profession. Audition Doctor is one such example. Audition Doctor works with many students too young for drama school entry (minimum age is 18). This is an increasingly popular method of giving younger people access to focused quality training.
Elkin is one well-schooled in the requirements of the profession, writing extensively on the ever- changing landscape of drama schools and the wider industry. As she so staunchly says: “No one…makes it in this competitive industry without training at all”, which is an indicator that it makes no sense to hang onto delusions that you will be the exception any longer. It is in your best interests to ensure that you have the tools to not just survive, but also achieve the ambitions you have for yourself as an actor. However pretentious it sounds, this does require a commitment to the art of acting. Like all forms of art, talent only reaches its full potential with the back-up of hard graft and practice. Audition Doctor is an ideal place to begin.
by Bel | Jul 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
Although Michael Simkins’ article in the Guardian was hardly a paean to the acting profession, it was an honest account of the fickle nature of the business with all its highs and lows. In “Is Acting Today Just Too Tough?” he talks of the harsh demands of cash-strapped producers, the paltry salary of theatre work and the fact that the defining difference between professional and amateur actors is not talent but “whether you have the stomach for the lifestyle – one in which rejection, disappointment and despair are part of your daily routine.”
The buoying narrative doesn’t stop there as he asserts: “The cruellest aspect of the acting business is not that it’s unfair, but that it’s merely indifferent. It gives everything to some and nothing to others; talent, ambition and virtue have little to do with it. What’s more, with no qualifications or tests to assess how good (or bad) you are, the only benchmark is success.”
Despite all of this, there are still several thousand applicants to drama schools each year and all of them will no doubt have heard all of this before. While the adage “all art is subjective” is largely true, getting into drama school is a way of testing how good or bad you are – albeit an unreliable one. Although success in the profession is in no way guaranteed, it is interesting to see that actors who have found success very early on in their careers have chosen to take a break from the profession to go to drama school. It’s an acknowledgement that drama schools don’t just churn out graduates that are industry fodder; they prepare students for the demands of the profession.
In an article entitled “Life After Potter – Where Are All Hogwarts’ Graduates Now?”, it was interesting to note that many of the young actors were graduating from drama schools such as The Royal Welsh Conservatoire of Music and Drama, LAMDA and RADA despite having spent the ages of 10-21 on a set. Harry Melling said: “I went to LAMDA. The films were a great learning experience, but I wanted to do theatre, get better, to have a process.” While Frank Dillane declared: “Arriving in an establishment (RADA) where everyone is better than you, you can’t uphold any kind of arrogance for very long.”
Drama school may not be a necessity for success, but chancing it in a profession that is routinely prefixed with the word “unstable” is a caveat to all its potential practitioners to be as prepared as possible. A 3 year training does exactly that. With more students coming to Audition Doctor, it is clear that in spite of the warnings, drama schools are more popular than ever. Making yourself distinguishable from the throng has become even more necessary. You are watched at every single stage of an audition; while this makes the process sound rather like a stint in a high-security prison, it is the truth. This means sessions at Audition Doctor are an integral part of ensuring that you are on form every single time you are in front of a panel. There is (literally) no time to mess up, with many panels timing the length of your speeches with a stopwatch.
Although the 26 selected for entrance into each drama school are entering a profession in which 92% are out of work at any given time, the students that come to Audition Doctor are undeterred. Why? Michael Simkins acknowledges that “The answer is that it’s a drug – and once it gets in your system, it’s difficult to break the habit. In any case, despite the withering odds, if you’re an actor, you’re a dreamer. As David Mamet put it: “Narrative always wins out over statistics.”
by Bel | Jul 12, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting, tilly blackwood
Today, Lyn Gardner asked the question: “Would you do your job – the one you’ve been trained to do – for free?” She was referring to the unfair yet widespread practice of professional actors working for free on the London Fringe and other events such as Edinburgh. Having fought off three thousand other candidates to get into drama school, undergone rigorous vocational training, many come out the other end performing for free. One could argue that this is a “work experience” of sorts and the chance to continue to develop the skills that you were taught at drama school. It’s an opportunity to perform roles that you might not have been cast as at drama school and there is always the possibility that influential casting directors will attend, be floored by your performance and catapult you into the world of award-winning feature films.
However, the stiffness of the competition to work for absolutely nothing is both mad and maddening. A current profit-share production of Measure for Measure at the Union Theatre auditioned over 1,000 actors for 10 roles despite the lack of a salary if cast. Gardner cited the reason for this was “because whereas once a small number of drama schools produced a limited number of actors each year, now there are vast numbers of university courses producing graduates who are ready to go straight into the profession. Many, furthermore, are weighed down by student debt.”
There is a sense that the thousands of students coming out of drama-based university courses every year are industry fodder – there aren’t enough parts for everyone who has spent 3 concentrated years receiving focused conservatoire training at drama schools, let alone people who have “studied” acting at university. However, neither is a drama school training a guarantee of skilled artistry. Mark Rylance mentioned that when auditioning actors, “sometimes, people will have had bad training, and I’ll think: I’m going to have to unravel a lot here.”
Whether you are trying to get into drama school or just out of it, you have to be at the top of your game to get anywhere and Audition Doctor ensures that you are match-fit for any audition. Rylance compares auditioning actors to “rather like looking at football players. You have to build the team, the company.” Working for free may be far from ideal but it’s better to be active and build up a range of roles. Working with Audition Doctor means that you don’t feel like the craft that you have spent 3 years honing is put on the back burner and that you are continually stretching your acting chops so you are ready for any audition opportunity that comes your way.
by Bel | Jul 11, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, tilly blackwood
If only The Observer’s account of Mark Rylance’s method of auditioning was the norm for all drama school auditions. While they are rarely the “shouty, humiliating exercises, usually of no more than two minutes duration” that the journalist describes, at the initial stages at least, they don’t usually “last up to 30 minutes each”. Furthermore, although most audition panels would argue that, like Rylance, they “are designed to be encouraging rather than demoralising”, everyone will experience the latter at some point throughout the process.
Although Rylance is auditioning professional actors for his upcoming production of Much Ado About Nothing, his way of appraisal and observation of each actor is very similar to that of drama school auditions. There is the acting obviously, but also voice work and movement sessions that are also part and parcel of all drama school auditions.
“I try to move them one way or another depending on how much they’re coming out to me, or into themselves,” he says. “Often, their nerves and desire to get the job makes them overly expressive – not bad, but they express more than they need to – so I’ll give them some kind of an obstacle to stop them being so sure-footed. Then I’ll see how they take that note, and I’ll listen to their voice, try to tell whether or not it’s locked in a particular place, and I’ll look at their movement.”
Nerves will inevitably play a huge part in how you perform. If you have only ever done your speeches alone in your living room, auditions in which you have to stand in a vast echoey studio in front of fifteen other candidates as well as the panel, will come as a huge shock. Although all drama schools do send out “What To Expect On Your Audition Day” emails, they don’t specify certain aspects for whatever reason. With extensive experience in drama school auditions, Audition Doctor will be able to tell you what to expect at various stages of the process at specific schools. Some schools require you to perform in front of fellow auditionees, some will be ask that one of your speeches is done to camera. If you are remotely self-conscious or uneasy, there is less likelihood of you inhabiting your character and delivering the performance you want. As Andrew Scott says “an audience can smell authenticity”and you can guarantee that an audition panel will be comprised of human Bloodhounds.
What Audition Doctor ensures is that your nerves are used to your advantage. Each speech is analysed with a fine tooth-comb and Tilly ensures that every intention behind every beat is absolutely understood. As Mark Rylance mentioned: “With Shakespeare, the audience has so many fears and anxieties, so many preconceptions; you have to draw them into the present, to give them an experience rather than a lecture. It should be like a great tennis match: who’s going to win?”
The Shakespeare speech is often the one that scares candidates and what Audition Doctor does so brilliantly is making it “present”, alive, genuine, and almost unbelievably, fun. Rylance cites directors such as Ian Rickson and Tim Caroll who “make their productions to last, and not so brittle that they’ll break. They encourage actors to surprise each other, to keep it fresh, to bring the sense of discovery and fun from the rehearsal room into the performance. You have to move into chaos.”
This is what Audition Doctor encourages students to do during lessons – to be flexible and bold in their choices and to embrace the uncertainty of the process- because often the most radical and exciting performances come out of it.
by Bel | Jul 4, 2013 | acting classes, acting classes london, audition classes, audition doctor, auditions, classes for acting
It’s easy to forget when you’re at a drama school audition that your chances of being selected hinge as much on your ability to collaborate and work well within a group, as your individual abilities. This is why the further you get in the audition process, the longer the movement and voice sessions become. Your speeches may be stunningly poignant and render the panel irrevocably moved, however, if you don’t appear to support and use your fellow applicants’ choices as a springboard to go further in your decisions, chances are you won’t be considered. Drama schools are looking to build a company – a group of actors who are independently strong performers but when working together are capable of surpassing their own limitations to create work that is both bold and honest.
In these workshop sessions, they urge you not to “feel like you have to perform. Just do what comes naturally.” Despite this, many candidates choose to overlook this advice and act like they’re in a full-scale West End production of Mamma Mia! the musical.
The Guardian’s Secret Actor contemplated the “look at me “ quality that he thinks all performers possess and declared it a necessary characteristic for all actors – without it “they’d be dentists.” However, there is a fine line between “pure peacockery” and using this attribute as a way to be better in your acting.
“What separates the peacocks from the good guys is the finesse they employ when displaying this element of “look at me”. It’s what separates the self-important Russell Crowes from, say, the self-effacing Bill Patersons.” It’s having to strike the balance between doing enough to be seen by the panel yet not forcing them to look at you because you’re an insufferable show-off.
What Audition Doctor preps you for is not to be that person. There is always one and sometimes horrifyingly, more than one, which inevitably leads to a competition for attention from the panel members. It is mortifying to witness but because of Audition Doctor’s guidance and advice about these workshops, you can go to your audition understanding that interesting and brave choices aren’t necessarily those that cause the most clamour and pandemonium. Audition Doctor is about daring to fail – either loudly or quietly – but always with the intention of pushing artistic limits and striving to reach the seemingly impossible.
