LAMDA First Round MFA Acting Audition Experience

My audition was on a Sunday afternoon; I hopped on the train and arrived at LAMDA 20 minutes earlier than my allotted time on a windy afternoon. Current students were at the entrance and crossed my name off a list then one of the students took me to a room with loads of other waiting auditionees.

Now to say the atmosphere in this room was tense would be an understatement. I did some spinal roles and a Vinyasa Flow Sequence to prep my body but it was just so damn tense in there! It stayed quiet for around 20 minutes until (thankfully) a guy broke the silence and eventually everyone started chatting. Current students came in and out of the room intermittently calling names; some auditionees were trying to get in the zone on the side whilst others were chatting and this carried on for around an hour. I felt really old (I’m only 21) since a lot of the chatter was about ‘classes’ and schooley stuff. Now would be a good time to mention that the ages of everyone in the room were 17-18 (we went around saying our ages at one point).

The photo above is of the very tense room.

My name and two others were called and we then went to wait outside the room we were auditioning in and told what order we were to be going in. I would be second out of the three. Upon entering, I noticed that the audition panel was made up of a man and woman who were both very warm. They asked me to sit in the chair in front of the panel and told me I had a nice smile :P. They then asked me how to pronounce my name and what monologues I would be doing (they wrote this information down as I told them). The woman pointed to the silver tape on the ground and said that this was the front of the stage and that I should not go past it but I should feel free to move around in the space behind it. She also said it was okay to look them in the eye if I wanted to use direct address. She then asked me which monologue I would like to do first, I told her my contemporary and then I was free to begin.

I always choose to do my contemporary first since I think it’s much nicer to watch a super serious monologue before a very chirpy, bubbly one. 

I did my contemporary then ran to the side and collected my bits of paper for my classical monologue and did it. They both went okay! I never really know how my monologue went unless it obviously went terribly. They were smiling and writing the whole time and during my classical the woman was writing furiously and the guy was not writing at all.

After my audition, I went to wait briefly outside a room adjacent to the audition room for my interview. The two ladies who interviewed me were a joy to speak to. I heard that they were both graduates from the other auditionees. They asked me where else I was applying; if I had had any recalls and just about what I was doing now.  I told them I was currently working for an engineering company which I could probably work for part-time as a supplementary job when I’m an actress and they were really impressed that I had thought that far ahead. What can I say? I’m a woman with a plan. When they asked me if I had any questions I told them that I knew everything there was to know about the school and that I had wanted to come here for so long. I surprised myself because I got emotional and almost cried I kid you not! I hid it quite well but that goes to show how relaxed I was in this interview and it really was just a walk in the park.

The interview ended and I grabbed my bag and coat from the ‘holding pen’ I was in before and skipped out of LAMDA. They said I would hear back in 2-3 weeks. I seriously hope I get a recall.



***UPDATE I received an email today stating I have a second audition! Press here, to read***