Part Two: Oxford School of Drama Audition Experience
For Part One, PRESS HERE
As we entered the room, someone (I’m not sure who, I can’t remember, but a member of staff) told us that we have all been called back so we can all relax. I breathed a sigh of relief quietly to myself and instantly felt disappointed though that I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to some of the wicked people I’d met. Oh well.
The president of the school came in and we had a question and answer things with him. He made it clear the OXSD wasn’t a school where they would cuddle you and tell you were terrific. He was definitely the warmest person I’d met that day though.
Once the QA was over we had a 10-minute break and a different woman with the same man from the morning came in and told us how the day was going to go. She said that we would be doing some exercises, then sight reading individually.
The first exercise was us pretending to run into the sea in the middle of winter. We all did it in unison a few times and then, we did it individually.
Next, we did a lot of impro. The lady put us in pairs and gave us a simple phrase each to keep on repeating back and forth in between us. The phrase could be said in many different ways so they wanted to see how creative we could be. Everyone did this at the same time, after a while, we all sat down and got up two by two in front everyone else and did the impro. We got a different phrase to say but this time she could tell us to swap the phrases and also, after a while of doing it, continue the scene improvising. I thought this went really well but the rest of the day went downhill for me.
Usually, I am fine with sight reading but this text was really hard for me to interpret. I struggled trying to think of what scenario this could be but settled on something in my head. We did the sight reading one by one. I was 4th and annotated the paper a lot with objectives and translative verbs but in the end, I through it all out the window. I read it then the lady asked me what I thought it was about and I told her I was talking to my therapist and acting out a story at the same time (in hindsight I wish I hadn't over complicated it). She said that she wanted to do it as if I’m trying to convince my boyfriend to stay in a relationship with me. At this point a million questions were going through my head. I didn’t know if she wanted me to forget what the words were actually saying and play it like that or try and make the words make sense with the context. Anyway, I went for the latter although, I wish I had asked. They then spoke to me in general asking if I was dead set on doing the one year course and why. Then the day was over but we had to wait forever for a taxi to take us back to central Oxford.
You can probably tell that all the negatives are foreshadowing the outcome of the audition. Usually I write my audition experiences before I know the outcome but I had been so busy that now they’ve already got back to me with a no for their final recall audition. (I wrote the previous post without knowing my outcome though and still called them cold!) I tried to write this as impartial as possible but there is no denying that it wasn’t a successful audition. Not because of them even though I did say they were cold, but because of my performance. I called them up recently to get my feedback and they said one of my monologues were too descriptive (- Lady Macbeth) and the other one I wasn’t playing the given circumstances but focusing on telling a story instead (- Bitchboxer)... They also said that I was imaginative and playful and that my sight reading was too general.
I am so grateful to them for providing feedback as they are one of the few drama schools to do this. Naturally, I am very concerned because I did one of the monologues that at I did at OXSD for Juilliard but more on that in another post. I do find it strange though that ArtsEd accepted me and I did these two monologues...
Oh well, onwards and upwards.
As we entered the room, someone (I’m not sure who, I can’t remember, but a member of staff) told us that we have all been called back so we can all relax. I breathed a sigh of relief quietly to myself and instantly felt disappointed though that I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to some of the wicked people I’d met. Oh well.
The president of the school came in and we had a question and answer things with him. He made it clear the OXSD wasn’t a school where they would cuddle you and tell you were terrific. He was definitely the warmest person I’d met that day though.
Once the QA was over we had a 10-minute break and a different woman with the same man from the morning came in and told us how the day was going to go. She said that we would be doing some exercises, then sight reading individually.
The first exercise was us pretending to run into the sea in the middle of winter. We all did it in unison a few times and then, we did it individually.
Next, we did a lot of impro. The lady put us in pairs and gave us a simple phrase each to keep on repeating back and forth in between us. The phrase could be said in many different ways so they wanted to see how creative we could be. Everyone did this at the same time, after a while, we all sat down and got up two by two in front everyone else and did the impro. We got a different phrase to say but this time she could tell us to swap the phrases and also, after a while of doing it, continue the scene improvising. I thought this went really well but the rest of the day went downhill for me.
Usually, I am fine with sight reading but this text was really hard for me to interpret. I struggled trying to think of what scenario this could be but settled on something in my head. We did the sight reading one by one. I was 4th and annotated the paper a lot with objectives and translative verbs but in the end, I through it all out the window. I read it then the lady asked me what I thought it was about and I told her I was talking to my therapist and acting out a story at the same time (in hindsight I wish I hadn't over complicated it). She said that she wanted to do it as if I’m trying to convince my boyfriend to stay in a relationship with me. At this point a million questions were going through my head. I didn’t know if she wanted me to forget what the words were actually saying and play it like that or try and make the words make sense with the context. Anyway, I went for the latter although, I wish I had asked. They then spoke to me in general asking if I was dead set on doing the one year course and why. Then the day was over but we had to wait forever for a taxi to take us back to central Oxford.
You can probably tell that all the negatives are foreshadowing the outcome of the audition. Usually I write my audition experiences before I know the outcome but I had been so busy that now they’ve already got back to me with a no for their final recall audition. (I wrote the previous post without knowing my outcome though and still called them cold!) I tried to write this as impartial as possible but there is no denying that it wasn’t a successful audition. Not because of them even though I did say they were cold, but because of my performance. I called them up recently to get my feedback and they said one of my monologues were too descriptive (- Lady Macbeth) and the other one I wasn’t playing the given circumstances but focusing on telling a story instead (- Bitchboxer)... They also said that I was imaginative and playful and that my sight reading was too general.
I am so grateful to them for providing feedback as they are one of the few drama schools to do this. Naturally, I am very concerned because I did one of the monologues that at I did at OXSD for Juilliard but more on that in another post. I do find it strange though that ArtsEd accepted me and I did these two monologues...
Oh well, onwards and upwards.
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