Part One: ArtsEd MA Acting Audition Experience

Getting to Turnham Green was a bit of nightmare even though it really shouldn’t have been. I decided to get a district line train that didn’t go via Turnham Green then change to the Piccadilly line because there are fewer stops on the Piccadilly line. Turns out Piccadilly line trains do not stop at Turnham Green except for at specific times! Great! Now I was in Acton and had to get a train back to Turnham Green! Such a waste of time! Good thing I left plenty of time and got there 40 mins early. 

The picture bove is a fake entrance. I spent a while trying to get in this way.

The picture bove is the real entrance.

I ran into two people I had met at my DSL audition. We all mingled for what seemed like ages then were taken upstairs to a big room. It was nice to see kids in school uniform around as well as adults. I thought that this would be a bit weird at first but I realised it’s actually a really nice feeling since I loved school.

In this big room we did a very brief warm up with the head of voice and walked around the room for a really long time breathing and doing various exercises to relax us. This was definitely not part of the audition since we didn’t have name tags. After this warm up, we all sat in a circle and the head of the course gave us a long chat about the type of training we would be encountering. Before this, he went around the circle and personally said high to each of us. The talk was very funny as well as insightful. There was a strong emphasis on the fact that at ArtsEd they don’t only train you how to be actors but also people. It lasted for a while and they clearly valued every auditionee that day which was refreshing to see.

After, we were split into two groups and made our way to a room where the groups would be performing to each other. It was so awkward when we walked past the current MA Acting students since they were going in the room we had a talk in for their combat class. Maybe awkward isn’t the right word but it was surreal to go past people who’s position you could potentially be in next year. They all wished us good luck which was nice if not slightly uncomfortable.

Now for the speeches!! I was going to be doing two speeches I had never done before in order to practice my reserve speeches for my Juilliard audition on the weekend. Also, I hadn’t ever worked on these speeches with anyone other than myself so I was so worried. I had confidence in them, of course, but I just didn’t know if they would be received as well as the other two which I literally spent a whole audition technique course working on.

 Anyway, I did the two speeches (if you want to know which speeches I chose along with some tips, click here) and I think they went pretty well but then again, I never know. What was really unique about the ArtsEd audition is that to say the audition was relaxing would be an understatement. The head of Acting didn’t even have a panel, he was sitting in the chairs amongst us along the edges of the room (the voice teacher saw the auditionees in the other room). It literally felt like an acting class. Despite the relaxed environment though I did mess up the lines in my contemporary since I had never done it in front of people before. No one noticed though. Once we finished our speeches, we went down to the canteen briefly and waited while the panel deliberated. I was really nervous, there were some really talented people in my group and I just had no idea how well the monologues were received.

Upon returning upstairs the head of Acting said that if we were not recalled today it meant we were no longer under consideration to join the course (this was the opposite of what he said earlier which was that we should not read into being recalled). He then had around 8 or maybe 10 folders in his hand and he read out the names on them...

Press here if you want to find out if my name was on a folder!