Successful Auditions E-Book

Annie Tyson

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 215

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Auditions remain a constant requirement in an actor's life, whether beginner or seasoned professional, and the attendant nerves and pressure to succeed in an intensely competitive industry is something that all actors need to learn to negotiate. This guide is aimed at those wishing to undertake in-depth training to develop the physical, vocal, imaginative and emotional skills necessary for a varied career in stage or screen. Offering practical advice, it takes readers through the audition process to the moment of acceptance at a drama school. The second section looks at first steps into the profession and how to prepare confidently for auditions and meetings, whether live or by self-tape, so that actors can meet the professional environment with confident ownership of their skills. Topics covered include: choosing your school; selecting audition material and preparing it; an analysis of a contemporary and a classical speech; the audition cycle and self-taping for video auditions. It also features practical and honest insights from casting directors, industry professionals and recent graduates, as well as up-to-date guidance for online auditions.

Leseprobe

First published in 2022 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2022

© Annie Tyson 2022

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4022 7

Dedicated to Chris Honer (1948–2021). A brilliant director, inspiring teacher and passionate supporter of new talent.

Cover design by Maggie Mellett

CONTENTS

Foreword by Joseph Millson

About the Author

Introduction

1 Auditioning for Drama School

2 Preparing for Your Audition

3 Working on Your Speeches

4 The Audition

5 Self-Taping Your Audition for Drama School

6 Professional Life – Television/Film

7 Professional Life – Theatre

8 Postscript: ‘Accentuate the Positive’

Appendix I: Shakespeare’s Language Forms

Appendix II: A Pre-Audition Warm-Up

Glossary

Courses and Resources

References and Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Index

FOREWORD

The Confederacy of the Humbled

Whether it be on stage, or in front of a camera or a microphone, acting is a collaborative art form, and that is what is so wonderful about it. Either in rehearsal or performance, it is a shared experience with your collaborators, but it can be a strange and sometimes cruel art to which to find yourself addicted.

Any other artist can work alone to maintain constant growth. A painter, composer, writer, sculptor or even a dancer can take themselves to a private space and work. Actors can study at home, but to test their art they must receive a commission, a request, and so the audition, the interview, the meeting exists. How can one make the most of that opportunity?

But what about those gaps between, those times when you are not working, not even auditioning? This can be frustrating in the extreme, and humbling, but if you tilt the lens a little, it can be wonderful. I often tell younger actors how useful it can be to ‘fall in love with the problem,’ to become romantically attached to the idea not just of being a busy actor, but to the itchy status of the frustrated actor. It is a good sign, that itch. It is your inner artist wanting to paint pictures. So befriend him. Give him a hug and create some strategies for yourself to keep the creativity alive, active and available, so that when you are called for an audition you are ready, and see it as a necessary part of your life as an artist.

The earliest stage of this journey is deciding that you need to train, to develop the expressive skills of the body, the voice and, most importantly, the imagination, so that you can work with authenticity, truth and confidence in any environment, whether live or recorded. Your training will enable you to discover not only your strengths but also capabilities of which you may have been unaware. You will develop physical and mental stamina. Your audition for drama school will give you your first serious experience of auditioning, the excitement, the nerves, and the opportunity to learn how to be relaxed and open under pressure. If you are determined, you will learn that putting yourself on the line in this way will always be with you. You will need to learn to love it!

I was lucky enough to meet Annie Tyson at my earliest base camp: drama school. Annie didn’t pay lip service to a single moment of any student’s work. She dived into the imaginative spaces with us, and God help us if we didn’t dive too. The rewards were immense: precision, laughter, and the true joy of creation.

If we want to climb mountains, auditions are the ‘base camp’ we must arrive at, again and again and again. What could be better than having the most detailed and up-to-date map and a brilliant guide by your side. This book is that map and Annie is that guide. Enjoy!

Joseph Millson, June 2021

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I studied Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham – at that time, unlike today, there were only four universities offering drama as a combined honours subject. My course at Birmingham, a single honours drama course, was the first of its kind in the UK.

After graduation I trained at Drama Centre London, to which I eventually returned after some years working in theatre, television and radio as an actor, as an acting tutor, and subsequently as the Course Director for the acting course there. I led many audition panels for the school, and when I returned to freelance life I combined acting with teaching and directing there, but also working as a tutor as part of the core acting team at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, again sitting on many audition panels and working with potential students at recall days.

I have worked as a guest director at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, Pittsburgh, and I have served as external examiner at the Guildford School of Acting, the Birmingham Conservatoire, Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre, and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. I continue to work at RADA and for the Mono Box, an ongoing training collective, and Open Door, which runs audition workshops and advisory sessions for young actors setting out on their exciting journey.

INTRODUCTION

This book is intended for young people who wish to make a professional career in performance – whether that be on stage or in recorded media, or both. I hope it will be helpful to those wishing to undertake a vocational training on an acting course at a recognized drama school, or on performance studies or acting courses at university, and that it will be useful for those at the beginning of their professional career, whether recent graduates or those changing careers to pursue their long-held dream. It is not an anthology of possible audition material as there are many splendid books on that subject already available, and you will find examples of those in the ‘References and Further Reading’ section. However, it will offer information about what to expect, how best to prepare for various kinds of audition so that you can work confidently and give of your best, and strategies to help you deal with nerves, and it will also attempt to examine the complex psychology that is always attendant on ‘the audition’.

Freda dreams of missed chances – RADA final year production 2017.

I have included advice and observations from drama school audition panellists, theatre directors (mainstream and fringe), a television director, a musical director, students in training and professional actors, all of whom will offer supportive advice and wisdom accrued from their experience on both sides of the process. This advice is in the form of verbatim quotes from interviews conducted in 2020 and 2021, and I hope you will feel that these are personal chats with you, and that through hearing these voices you will feel you have acquired a kind of ‘family’. Even actors at the highest level of achievement and reputation have been known to say ‘It doesn’t get any easier’. The advice and observations come from different voices and different areas of the profession, and they will serve to reinforce some fundamentals that, in time, will become second nature.

I hope the book will be a conversation that will help you to see the audition as a creative and exciting endeavour rather than an ordeal, and that it is possible to be empowered and more in charge of the process than you might think.

However, since early in 2020 the profession/industry has been transformed, due, in the most part, to the challenges of Covid-19. A major shift is that the audition process, particularly for training courses but often for professional work, particularly in film and television, is now highly likely to be online in its early stages, and there is every indication that this is not going to change in the future, so the book will offer advice on self-taping and live video auditions.

Auditions – What are they?

Auditions, whether we like it or not, are a fact of the actor’s life, whatever the level of his or her experience. In the industry nowadays they tend to be called ‘meetings’, as somehow that seems more ‘user friendly’ and suggests a conversation rather than some kind of test; but whatever the encounter with the person sitting ‘on the other side’ is called, it is the opportunity for you to show your creative potential. If it is an audition for drama college this notion of ‘potential’ is all-important. You are not expected to be the finished article but hopefully someone who has the capability of making discoveries, of expanding your possibilities, and of being trained for a demanding, exciting, but often unpredictable profession.

Nailing the audition.

If it is a professional audition, then its purpose is more narrowly focused: to show your skill as a performer, but more specifically whether you can be cast in a particular role, and whether you will be good to work with as part of a team, an ensemble. So your task is to offer your talent with imagination, flexibility and confidence, occasionally in unpredictable circumstances, and above all with positivity and a sense of humour. Auditions, putting yourself out there, will always be a part of your life, no matter what the level of experience.

Here is a bit of ancient history: when I left drama school the ritual commonly accepted by most drama school graduates was that as you headed towards your final term and out into the big wide world, you wrote dozens of letters to theatre directors the length and breadth of the country in the hope that the letter, curriculum vitae – limited though it might be – and your 10 x 8in black-and-white headshot would arouse sufficient interest in the director for him/her to offer a general audition. Admittedly this was in the Dark Ages, long before the internet, email and mobile-phone text messages changed the way we communicated, and when social media was unheard of.

There was much less emphasis on getting an agent to represent you at this early stage, though you might be lucky enough to attract an agent’s interest from your final shows before graduating. There was something of a sense that you had to earn your stripes in the theatre before working in television/film. If you were lucky, you might get three or four of these ‘generals’ out of, say, fifty or more carefully composed handwritten or typed letters. You then had to offer two pieces of material, well contrasted in style and tone, and sometimes a song at the general audition, in the hope that this would indicate your range and versatility.

If you were really lucky and the audition had gone well, the director would call you back for a further audition for the ‘season’ in which you were being considered for a range of roles, and you might be asked to look at a couple of these and the plays in which the roles occurred – or you might be asked to ‘bring something else’, a different speech. At best you would be successful in obtaining the job, which would mean maybe a year’s work – or at least for several months – in a company playing a variety of roles, some substantial, some less so. If it didn’t work out you had the lesser satisfaction of knowing you had made something of an impression, and that you could legitimately remind the director of your meeting when next writing to him/her.

It’s fair to say that this is no longer the case, as the regional theatres (formerly known as regional repertory theatres) nowadays very rarely cast for long seasons (Storyhouse in Chester and Theatre by the Lake in Keswick are exceptions, as is the Royal Shakespeare Company). Actors still write to theatre directors, but the compilation of audition lists is now much more of a collaboration between the director and the casting director. The role of the casting director in the process of creating a show, whether for theatre or television/film, has become crucial.

It is worth pointing out that the entertainment industry has changed enormously and has diversified. An acting career requires actors to embrace many different options and opportunities other than offering prepared speeches in a room with one or two people watching. Actors leaving drama school find themselves negotiating a multifarious range of casting systems, including the ubiquitous self-tape. The challenges posed by Covid 19 have meant that drama schools have necessarily had to move to online auditions, and there is no doubt that this will become common practice in the future.

Whatever the type of audition, whether for drama college or for a professional job, you are putting yourself in the firing line – you are setting yourself up for judgment on the part of the audition panel, and it takes courage to deal with the pressure. Hopefully you will be successful, but often, especially once you have entered the professional world, you might not be. You will have to deal with rejection and the attendant disappointment time and time again – and the pressure to succeed and to prove yourself is huge. This is something that actors live with – ‘unknowingness’, the feeling that things are not in your control, and the possibility of disappointment as a fact of life; but later in the book we will look at how to turn this seemingly negative place into something robust and sustaining, which gives you creative confidence and a sense of agency.

CHAPTER 1

AUDITIONING FOR DRAMA SCHOOL

This might be your first ‘real’ audition – the first where you feel that there is a great deal at stake, and that the outcome will change your life. You will have been told that the competition is fierce, that the schools audition thousands every year for thirty places or less. The Oxford School of Drama will audition over one thousand applicants for nineteen or twenty places in 2021, while RADA had four thousand applications for twenty-eight places on their three-year Acting course.

Worrying global politics – Stuff Happens, RADA final year production 2017.

The morning after – RADA final year Industry Showcase 2021.

‘We love mum in spite of everything’ – RADA final year Industry Showcase 2021.

It is also a somewhat dispiriting fact that a great many drama school graduates change path because the industry’s unpredictability has meant they were not able to make a viable living or to sustain a career of any longevity. This could be for a wide variety of reasons, one of which could be simply that the demands and the disappointments are not for you, or it could be more positive, which is that you have found some other occupation that gives you more fulfilment, and for which the training and skills you have absorbed are brilliantly transferable.

We have all read the stories about overnight successes, and these days this is fostered by ‘reality’ TV shows that purport to make ‘stars’ from seemingly nowhere. The true reality could not be more different. If this, and the stern warnings from parents, teachers and well-meaning friends does not deter you, then the first stage of this process is to think seriously about what you want from a training, why you believe that a professional career as a performer is for you, and to do some honest self-analysis.

What Must I Consider?

What does it mean to be an actor? It might be better to ask, ‘What is acting?’, and then ‘Why do I want to be an actor?’ ‘Because I want to be famous’ won’t really do, but of course the notion of ‘success’ – that is, being able to earn a living somehow from the thing that you love above all, and to keep doing it with the same love that you started out with – might serve as something of an answer. Social media can be a terrible and seductive trap regarding our perceptions of ‘success’. So much valuable and rewarding work is done unsung and unheard, except by the audience to whom it brought a joyful, illuminating and memorable experience.

What is the experience and the moment – and there might be more than one – that has led you to this ambition? What might acting/performing ask of you? Are you someone who can take being judged in public? Can you take criticism, hopefully constructive but sometimes tough to hear? Think about the things that make you you. What are your strengths, your weaknesses, how would you describe yourself to a close friend whom you know will pull you up if you are seeing yourself a bit too rosily or indeed too negatively? Look for the positives, of course, but be honest about yourself. What do you think you can offer the industry?

If all this sounds rather heavy going, think about why you are undertaking this appraisal, and try to treat it with a sense of humour and empowerment. It is the beginning of building your confidence, and confidence rooted in self-knowledge is the key! If you are determined and you believe that your way forward is to train, then the next question is, what do you think a training is, and what do you want from it? There may be those who tell you that it is not necessary, and that plenty of people ‘make it’ with no formal training – and of course actors/performers take different paths.

Acting is about life in all its richness, holding ‘the mirror up to nature’, and life experience is of inestimable value. The old saying ‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat’ certainly holds true in some cases – but a good vocational training will be taken seriously by the industry, give you craft skills for all genres and media, knowledge, stamina, discipline, and the ability to work both in a team and independently. Above all, a training will teach you how to work and, possibly more importantly nowadays, how to make work.

Drama School or University?

Once you have decided that you need to train, it is important to be able to distinguish between the courses on offer in drama schools and universities. They are not really the same thing, and the landscape has been made more complex by the fact that most reputable drama schools offer their training as degrees (BA undergraduate degrees for three years, and MA post-graduate for one or two years), validated by a Higher Education institution. In addition, many universities are now offering degrees in Performance Studies, Drama, Theatre Studies and Acting.

To add to this minefield, some drama schools with university-validated degrees require you to apply via UCAS (the Universities and Colleges Admission Service), just as you would for a conventional degree in English or History, and some do not, having their own discrete application process. The best and most comprehensive way to find out about this and to assemble accurate, clear information is via the Federation of Drama Schools.

‘Did you mean that?’ – RADA final year Industry Showcase 2021.

‘Come to the Prom with me!’ – RADA final year Industry Showcase 2021.

The aims of the Federation are to engage in activities and discussions that enable diverse groups of people to receive the highest standard in training for the modern performance industry, sharing values and best practice. The organization identifies the changing nature of the industry, and encourages a flexible but rigorous approach, collaborating with both schools in the Federation and industry professionals. It seeks to be a strong and articulate, knowledgeable presence in discussion of the values of conservatoire training in a challenging higher education environment. In other words, it seeks to protect and sustain in-depth, rigorous, demanding training.

The Federation website will give you all the essential information you need about each partner school, a short history of the Federation, the values it espouses and industry connections. It will direct you to each school’s website where you will find information about the courses on offer there, some indication as to the distinct character of each partner school, advice on choosing your school and course, auditions, and the application process. The Federation website is essential reading for anyone considering drama school.

Regarding university courses in drama or theatre and performance studies, the amount of practical work and contact hours will vary enormously. There may be a bewildering series of choices in terms of different modules, and some courses lean towards the theoretical rather than the practical. This is not to say that the education you would receive there would not be of immense value, extremely stimulating and rewarding, but the numbers in your cohort could be far larger than in a conservatoire-type drama school training, so individual attention may be limited and there might be far less time spent exploring the fundamental practical principles of craft and skill in favour of a broader examination of ‘drama’.

If you are considering study at university, ensure that you research the university’s website and the course prospectus with reference to content, skills contact hours and the number of students admitted. Is it what you want? It is worth noting that some university graduates decide to undertake training at a recognized drama school after graduation, some on a three-year Acting course, and many on a ‘fast-track’ post-graduate MA one-year Acting course. Many partner institutions in the Federation of Drama Schools now offer these MA courses, some with specialisms such as screen acting, classical acting, musical theatre. While there are some inescapable and possibly daunting financial implications in choosing further intensive vocational training after three years’ study at university, the advantages of maturity, of having mixed already with a wide variety of people, and of knowing that this is what you really need, are considerable.

GRADUATE PERSPECTIVE

Mikhail is a graduate of the MA Acting course at the Drama Centre in London. He says:

This MA course had the intensity that I needed. My first degree was History, and it really helped me because the essence of history is, in some way, about stories but mainly concerned with the socio-economic, political life of people and communities over time. The History degree helped me understand context more. I think any degree gives you a little bit more knowledge about life and experience. I did do a regular job too, which was a different kind of life, teaching me about deadlines and dealing with people. I think you can draw from that, use that knowledge, and make it more powerful.

DRAMA SCHOOL PANELLIST PERSPECTIVE

Edward Hicks is the principal at the Oxford School of Drama. He says:

As well as finding the right school, it’s even more important to choose the right course – is it the one that you really want and that will meet both your particular passion and your needs?

Dewi Johnson is an audition panellist, director, and lecturer in acting at Stratford College.

My first advice is [that you need] to know where you want to go – have you researched the school and the course thoroughly? Each drama school will have a slightly different idea of what a training is, and the final objective will be the same, but it’s how you get there.

Choosing Your School and Your Course

So, after all that hard thinking, you have decided to train at a drama school. There is yet another crucial question you should ask: is this the right time for me? Am I ready? The minimum age for accredited BA and Foundation courses is eighteen (and of course schools do accept students at eighteen), and twenty-one for MA courses. There is no upper age limit. If you are applying at eighteen, would a year or two gaining some life experience be beneficial? Drama schools are known to look very favourably on this.

The start of the party – Strange Orchestra, RADA final year production 2017.

So what are you doing to expand your experience, particularly in relation to your curiosity about people and the world, about culture generally and its function in society? If you are interested in training for musical theatre, are you keeping up with dance and singing classes? Would it be useful to do some volunteering? Travel a bit? Play your favourite sport? Get a part-time job? This last might be helpful in saving to augment your student loan. Is there a youth theatre in your area, particularly if linked to a theatre, or an amateur society where you can gain more performance experience or participate in a short course or two? Are you watching films, theatre, developing your knowledge? There are accessible productions online.

If all this seems somewhat daunting, remember that no experience is wasted, and you will be developing a point of view about the world, your confidence, a hungry, open mind and above all a curiosity about life – all of which are essential for an actor. Have you discussed this in depth with family, close friends, teachers? Have you investigated the financial aspect – student loans and living expenses, and indeed living away from home, possibly for the first time?

Rehearsal for Close Quarters, RADA 2019.

A bit of banter back at the army base – Close Quarters, RADA final year production 2019.

Night-time in the war zone – Close Quarters, RADA final year production 2019.