Part One: Oxford School of Drama Audition Experience
Before I start, I have to say that Oxford School of Drama (OXSD) was the COLDEST school I went to. All the staff I met at the school except the president were just so COLD.
Rant over.
I travelled to Oxford after work the day before and spent the night at a friend’s house. OXSD provides a free bus service to and from the school which I opted for. After a bit of trouble finding the bus stop, I boarded the bus with plenty of time to spare. It was made very clear in the documentation sent that the bus would be leaving promptly at 9:45 AM, however, when it hit 9:50 AM the bus still hadn’t left and I was getting a bit worried that we would be late since the day started at 10:15 AM. In the end, we left shortly after 9:50 AM and arrived at the school with a few mins to spare.
We were greeted by the lady who was in charge of the administrative side of our applications and taken to a room known as “the coffee bar” which was a student hang out. Now would be a good time to mention that there around 30/40 of us and they were both BA and 1 year applicants. (This is a very good sign about the school for me, if you would like to know why, I explained it in this post) Along the sides of this room were boards which had announcements for each year and there was also an auditions board with our names and the groups we were in. We were told the groups we were in once we were in the coffee bar and these would be the order that we would do our monologues.
Before the monologues though, was a movement workshop. We had to take off our shoes and socks and leave them outside the room then enter a room with black walls (I’m not sure if it was a black box theatre). A lady at the front said we were going to do a quick warm up and this involved a simple movement sequence done to music and at different tempos. It was a nice unique warm up, in fact. Next, we had to think of a squirrel and pretend we were a human with squirrel-like qualities. It was hard not to focus on what other people were doing since in situations like these, people (including myself) feel a lot of pressure to ‘perform’ even though it’s more about just using your imagination and not ‘showing’ anything. Once this was over it was time for my favourite thing! Dancing all around the room like a maniac! The lady put on some music and we had to just let our bodies move to the music how we wanted it to. I love activities like these since letting go of inhibitions is not too daunting for me and I really enjoyed this activity. Once the movement workshop was over it was time for us to come in group by group and perform our monologues in front of each other and the panel.
I was in group one which was great because it meant that my heart was beating extremely fast and I was all warmed up. I did my extra two monologues and not the ones I usually go for (again, to prepare for my Juilliard audition). These monologues were well received at ArtsEd so I felt more confident about them this time around. I was around third in my group to go. A lot of the people before and after me got stopped because their monologues were over 2 mins! I was sure mine were not over 2 mins so I wasn’t worried that I’d be stopped. One guy also asked if he could use a student to direct his monologue to and they told him no because they wanted him to create the world for himself🤷🏾♀️ Fair enough.
Once we were out of the room we went back to the coffee bar to wait for what seemed like ages (a common theme for the day). I got to know some really great people and we had some funny conversations as well as some Hamilton Sing-a-longs. We had lunch then the organisation lady came and called some names and sent us to the dance studio. I’m guessing she called some other names after I was gone and they went into a different room. The brief walk there was nerve-wracking and by the time I entered I was sure I wasn’t getting call back...
Click here if you want to know my OXSD fate!
Rant over.
I travelled to Oxford after work the day before and spent the night at a friend’s house. OXSD provides a free bus service to and from the school which I opted for. After a bit of trouble finding the bus stop, I boarded the bus with plenty of time to spare. It was made very clear in the documentation sent that the bus would be leaving promptly at 9:45 AM, however, when it hit 9:50 AM the bus still hadn’t left and I was getting a bit worried that we would be late since the day started at 10:15 AM. In the end, we left shortly after 9:50 AM and arrived at the school with a few mins to spare.
We were greeted by the lady who was in charge of the administrative side of our applications and taken to a room known as “the coffee bar” which was a student hang out. Now would be a good time to mention that there around 30/40 of us and they were both BA and 1 year applicants. (This is a very good sign about the school for me, if you would like to know why, I explained it in this post) Along the sides of this room were boards which had announcements for each year and there was also an auditions board with our names and the groups we were in. We were told the groups we were in once we were in the coffee bar and these would be the order that we would do our monologues.
Before the monologues though, was a movement workshop. We had to take off our shoes and socks and leave them outside the room then enter a room with black walls (I’m not sure if it was a black box theatre). A lady at the front said we were going to do a quick warm up and this involved a simple movement sequence done to music and at different tempos. It was a nice unique warm up, in fact. Next, we had to think of a squirrel and pretend we were a human with squirrel-like qualities. It was hard not to focus on what other people were doing since in situations like these, people (including myself) feel a lot of pressure to ‘perform’ even though it’s more about just using your imagination and not ‘showing’ anything. Once this was over it was time for my favourite thing! Dancing all around the room like a maniac! The lady put on some music and we had to just let our bodies move to the music how we wanted it to. I love activities like these since letting go of inhibitions is not too daunting for me and I really enjoyed this activity. Once the movement workshop was over it was time for us to come in group by group and perform our monologues in front of each other and the panel.
I was in group one which was great because it meant that my heart was beating extremely fast and I was all warmed up. I did my extra two monologues and not the ones I usually go for (again, to prepare for my Juilliard audition). These monologues were well received at ArtsEd so I felt more confident about them this time around. I was around third in my group to go. A lot of the people before and after me got stopped because their monologues were over 2 mins! I was sure mine were not over 2 mins so I wasn’t worried that I’d be stopped. One guy also asked if he could use a student to direct his monologue to and they told him no because they wanted him to create the world for himself🤷🏾♀️ Fair enough.
Once we were out of the room we went back to the coffee bar to wait for what seemed like ages (a common theme for the day). I got to know some really great people and we had some funny conversations as well as some Hamilton Sing-a-longs. We had lunch then the organisation lady came and called some names and sent us to the dance studio. I’m guessing she called some other names after I was gone and they went into a different room. The brief walk there was nerve-wracking and by the time I entered I was sure I wasn’t getting call back...
Click here if you want to know my OXSD fate!
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