Auditioning For Drama School

Choosing a Drama School in 2016 has never been easier...or harder. You`re almost spoilt for choice do you do a foundation course, what course do you want to study, is your choice going to hinder your career? Then to top it off there are so many places both old and new to choose from. So where do you begin?

RADA and LAMDA are not the only drama schools anymore that offer rigorous training for this industry check out the Drama UK website and it will give you somewhere to begin, but they are still not all the places that offer some great training. If you can, ask friends that have been, or have already auditioned at various places and see which place they enjoyed auditioning for or studying at, check programmes and websites for where actors that you admired trained, read all the articles on the internet you can find and try your hardest to submerge your head with all the information you can fit in it. Auditioning is expensive (training even more) and unless you have a lot of money to spare you`re probably looking at auditioning at a handful of places (and still racking up a bill of £150 minimum to do so) so make sure they are the places that are the best for you. Some places do open days, definitely check them out, and some teachers from a variety of the schools do workshops which might give an insight into the training at the college. However, even then it comes down to a gut instinct. If you can, try and audition for as many as possible in your first year so you can get a feel for each place (and more chances), then if you don`t get in (which is more common than not - 1000s of people audition for each drama school every year) you`ll have a better knowledge for next year, and don`t let yourself give up - some of the best actors didn`t train until later on in life and usually getting some life experience on a year out doesn`t hurt your acting career.

Once you`ve chosen stick to your guns! Don`t let other people change your mind - if some schools don`t sound like the place you want to be (even if someone else says they are highly prestigious) then they are not right for you it`s you who will be spending the next section of your life there, not them. I do warn you though, before applying make sure that your audition speeches and songs are already prepared - I`ve heard of some people applying and then getting an audition a week later. Some schools have their own set lists (particularly Central School of Speech and Drama), usually you can check these out beforehand on their websites, but there are always going to be curve balls who will tell you to prepare something you don`t have when they send over your audition time. To make you feel as secure as possible during this time of unease make sure that at least if you are applying for an Acting course you have at least 2 Shakespeare/Jacobean contrasting monologues and 2 modern monologues, and if you are applying for a Musical Theatre course at least an up-tempo and ballad musical theatre song (try to find a contrast of decades as well) and a Shakespeare/Jacobean and contrasting Modern monologues.

Break a leg - you are about to enter into a crazy world full of jazz hands, iambic pentameter and constant criticism - but you will have the time of your life!