Friday 25 July 2014

Three's a charm

During this application season I have reached three major realisations:

1) my vocal health is paramount, and I must do everything to ensure I look after it

2) I should try and see more theatre

3) I really need to take some dance classes....

I have made a solid effort to tackle all these so far.

1) my GP has sorted out an ENT (ears, nose and throat) referral so I'm going to have a specialist work out what's going on with my throat/voice. This is a HUGE relief, after having spent months having various investigations and not knowing what was going on. I will keep you all updated on my progress, but until I have some definitive answers/progress singing will be taking a back seat in my life. *cries*

2) Through the NT entry pass scheme, I've been to see some wonderful theatre for bargain prices. The entry pass means that if you're between 16-25 you can buy a ticket to see a selection of NT shows (subject to availability) for only £5 and a ticket for a friend (also aged between 16-25) for just £7.50. Considering that this is high quality theatre and in London you'd probably pay more for a cinema ticket, I can't urge you all to sign up quickly enough! You also get discounts and access to various workshops and events so if any of this sounds like it might be useful, I'll leave a link at the bottom of this post for you to find out how to get involved. There are other similar schemes running, such as the RSC key which is essentially the same but for the RSC's shows.
So far, I've seen Alan Ayckbourn's "A Small Family Business" and I'm going to see "Great Britain" next week. I'll write a separate post reviewing both shortly.

3)The dreaded dance class. I had planned to start with ballet and then take a modern/jazz class when I had a bit more time, but I made the mistake of overworking my legs by going for a run a few days before my first planned dance class and consequently pulled a muscle. Not badly mind, but enough that it affected my performance. I really ought to have just rested it, but being really keen to get my dance standard up and being incredibly stubborn, off I went to my first adult ballet class. I had found an open ballet class that catered to adults who had danced as children but hadn't danced since (perfect, you would think!). I went along, on what felt like the hottest day of the year and danced for an hour and a half. Although I felt out of practice, it was good to get back into ballet and I enjoyed the class and felt like I'd had a really good workout. Despite the description of the class level, there were clearly some dancers there who were far more advanced than me but I took solace in the fact that I could see others who were clearly worse than I was. That was until, after the class the teacher came up to me and said (in front of other class members) that this class was clearly much too advanced for me and I should go to the absolute beginners one (I looked up the schedule after he said this, and it clashes with when I work). I wouldn't have minded these comments too much if a) he hadn't humiliated me in front of other dancers and b) if he'd told anyone else the same, but I was the only person he approached. Ah well. Got to find a new dance class I guess, that's a tad more welcoming....watch this space!

Yours faithfully,
the postgrad-app 



http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover-more/entry-pass   link for signing up for entry pass
http://www.rsc.org.uk/support-us/key/    link for signing up for RSC key

Thursday 17 July 2014

Drama School Audition 2: Mountview

WARNING, LONG AUDITION POST AHEAD!
NB. As you know I didn't get in, so I'm not sure how much advice I can give about actually auditioning successfully but, I hope that detailing my own experiences will help you with your own prep. 

When I applied for LAMDA, I was given an audition date two months later, so I had a fair amount of time to stress and prepare. Applying for Mountview was somewhat different. I had decided to apply, on the spur of the moment, for Mountview's postgraduate Musical Theatre course. I sent off the application, then didn't hear anything for another fortnight when they invited me to audition a further fortnight later- so don't panic if you apply and don't hear anything for a while!

Mountview provide you with fairly detailed instructions of what the audition will involve, and my experience was largely the same as other bloggers who've auditioned there. The only marked difference I can think of, is that as I was auditioning quite late in the academic year my audition consisted only of those auditioning for the PG course, rather than the mix of UG and PG applicants that other bloggers have described.

I arrived 40 minutes early (this is becoming a common theme for me...) and after being given a badge with a number on, I was directed up to the café to sit and wait with the other applicants. It's worth mentioning, at this point, that I have spent the past 12 months continually plagued with throat/ vocal problems. When I booked the audition, I felt unusually well and vocally strong. however as Sod's law would have it, that morning I woke up with tonsils the size of a tree and a mouth and throat that felt like I'd swallowed sandpaper. Typical.

Once we'd all arrived, we were taken to a separate building and given a brief talk on what the day would involve. Then, we were all taken through to the dance studio for the dance component of the audition. This started with an energetic warm up, which left me regretting my decision to wear black for the audition! Then we did some corner work, which consisted of us performing various exercises from one corner of the dance studio to the other on our own. For the vast majority of these exercises we were given the choice of a simpler and a harder exercise to perform. I unashamedly admit that I chose the easier option each time, as a) they kept saying it didn't matter which we chose and b) I thought I'd have more chance performing the easier ones well than the harder ones badly! With hindsight, this might not have been the most effective method but ah well- you live and you learn! 

We then learnt a dance sequence to "You can't stop the beat" from Hairspray, before performing it in groups of three. I can't claim to have performed this perfectly, as it was extremely fast and I am by no means a trained dancer but given the short amount of time to learn the moves I felt it went okay. There was a large mix of different abilities present, from those who had never taken a dance class before, to those who had dance degrees. I can safely say that I was somewhere between these two extremes!

Once the dancing was over, we were given a short break to change out of out dance clothes and have a drink. We were then lead into a studio to prepare for the singing component of the audition.  We had a short warm up as a group, and then sat down to audition, in alphabetical order. The standard of singing was pretty high,with one of the other auditionees actually managed to move me to tears! Given the state of my vocal cords, I was pleased with how well my song went, and relieved that my voice hadn't just broken in the middle of the song! I sang all of one of my songs, and then was asked to sing some arpeggios after to test my vocal range. Other auditionees were asked to to similar things, though some were asked for an excerpt of their second song or to repeat part of their original song again.

After we'd all finished, we were left in the room for around ten minutes whilst decisions were made about who was to stay for the next bit of the audition. Around 5 (out of 13) numbers were called, including mine and we were led into another room...to be told thanks but not this time! One thing that I did think was particularly useful about Mountview is that they did sit us down and give us individual feedback about why they didn't think we were right at that moment. Annoyingly I was told that I was "so close to getting a recall" and that I had nearly made it (not helpful Mountview!) and that my vocal quality had held me back that day. Cheers for that, tonsils...

All in all, it was a reasonably enjoyable day. The other auditionees were really talented and friendly and I always enjoy performing, even within an audition situation. If you're on the fence about auditioning next year, I'd say "go for it". You've got nothing to lose except the audition fee!

Until next time!
Yours faithfully,
the postgrad-app 





Thursday 10 July 2014

Drama school audition 1: LAMDA

From the moment I read the course description of the two year course at LAMDA, I was in love. Everything about it sounded perfect for me; the length of training, the classes and particularly the new writing component of the course. Alas, it was an unrequited love but I enjoyed it while it lasted!

My LAMDA audition was nothing out of the ordinary. I arrived at the school forty minutes before my audition (protip- always better to be half an hour early for an audition than five minutes late!), and so was taken to sit in the common room for about half an hour. Eventually I was called through to sit outside the audition room for a further ten minutes then eventually was called in.

For anyone who hasn't experienced an audition at LAMDA, I will warn you that it's a very quick process. Each school auditions conducts their first round auditions differently, with some preferring a workshop component that lasts around an hour as part of  the audition day but LAMDA operates what can be described as a conveyer belt audition. This means you go in, say your name, perform your two speeches then leave the audition room. The next person then goes in and this carries on. You then have a brief interview with a separate panel, which is pretty relaxed and mostly about yourself and your interests. The whole process lasts around ten minutes or so making it a pretty pricey audition (£44 currently) given the small amount of time you spend there. Despite all this, I enjoyed my time there, and given how nervous I was on the day I feel I performed pretty well.

Having not had a major acting audition in quite some time pre-LAMDA I was understandably nervous. I am naturally quite an anxious person and so started to worry about things could potentially go wrong. These ranged from the mundane; "What if I forget the words?/I lose my voice?" to the plain bizarre:
"what if I go to speak but vomit instead?". Thankfully nothing out of the ordinary happened, other than my voice slightly cracking during my Shakespeare speech, but I was able to push through it and carry on.

It's always so hard to gauge how well an audition like that has actually gone, but I left feeling better than when I arrived so I count that as a small victory in itself. Unfortunately LAMDA don't give feedback for first round auditions so I'll never know what I could have improved on. However, I'm trying to strengthen my application for next year in every way I can possibly think of so hopefully something will work!

Cheers for tuning in, until next time!

Yours faithfully,
the postgrad-app 

Sunday 6 July 2014

A brief history of mine

I wasn't one of those children who always knew they wanted to be an actor. In fact for many years, until injury struck, I was convinced I was going to be a professional dancer. In the words of the great philosopher, Forrest Gump "My momma always said 'life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get'". I found myself having to find a new dream in life, and flitted between various ideas for a number of years.

Like many children, I joined an amateur dramatics group, had fun and briefly entertained the idea of being a professional actress. Again, like many children, I dismissed this as merely a phase. However nearly a decade later, having finished university I found myself drawn towards performing. A lot of soul-searching, bad jobs and general thinking later I realised:
a) I want to be a professional actor
b) given the way that the acting industry works in this country (UK), the way to give myself the best start at my acting career is to train at a leading drama school

This of course, is not without it's problems. Drama school, particularly for us postgrads is prohibitively expensive (I'll cover the financial problems associated with drama school in a separate post later). Additionally, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know it's incredibly competitive to get into.
I only auditioned for two schools this year, as I was testing the water and didn't manage to get recalls for either. But now, I know what needs to be done and I'm ready to put in that work for next year!

To all those that have been reading, and following so far- I wish you all the best with your individual journeys, thanks so much for joining me here!

Yours faithfully,
the postgrad-app