Guildhall 2nd Round

Not sure how long or useful this entry will be.

The honest truth is Guildhall 2nd round is really no different to 1st round. The main differences were:

-We were in the new building this time instead of the basement of the old building (gorgeous space)
-I actually had seen one of the Guildhall alumni with us before (she was in the BBC TV show Bad Education)

That's it really.

I was number 6 to go into to do my speeches. I really enjoyed working with the two teachers on the panel. I felt challenged and pushed and honestly, I can see how and why Guildhall produces such good actors.The lady who did most of my directing was extremely impressive and I really enjoyed having to alter the starting point from which I took my Emilia speech (that was her redirection request).

Honestly , I think the best advice is to go to the toilets and run your speeches maybe 2-3 times before you go into the room just so you are well placed to say your speeches when it counts. You will definitely feel the nerves more in this round because they warn you beforehand, it may not be talent, it may just be that you don't fit the school's type. I couldn't tell you what that type is so, well, I was holding my breath until after they read the list of final recalls.

So after my audition, I waited a while (because there were 6 other people after me to be seen).

Once everyone had been seen, we waited about 10 minutes and then they came in and told us 6 of us had made it through and I was one of the 6 thankfully.

My final recall round auditions will be sometime in the week of the 18th-23rd May for a day and a half.

I have been looking into people's final recall round experiences of Guildhall as I have no idea what to expect so at this point I would point your attention to this blog

http://anotherlondonactor.blogspot.co.uk/

It is a really well detailed entry and hopefully I will be as fortunate as he was.

Until end of May people!

A
xoxo

So... I promised you all Guildhall......and so I shall deliver.

This post will be a little different from my last two for one simple reason....I am still in the process of auditioning....GULP!

But I can at least tell you about the first two rounds and about the school.

One word.....Amazing.... Guildhall is the school of dreams with a record to prove it, having alumni like Ewan McGregor, Daniel Craig, Michelle Dockery, Lily James (if you go 'who?' for that name.....you'll be knowing her name soon enough I assure you).

The newness of the names I have mentioned only goes to show and prove how well thought of the school is in this time and age.

It is also statistically the hardest school to get into so please all say a prayer for me.

My first round was at the old building (Guildhall has a new building....go if you can...its really nice)...in the basement. I was one of a group of 12 people in for the morning first round audition slot and to be honest it was lovely to chat to everyone etc., but one could feel the underlying tension in the air because, like I said, Guildhall is amazing and the thought of going there literally would make me feel as if I had won the lottery, no jokes.

Anyway, we were taken to a studio by two recent graduates and we were introduced to the two teachers who would make up our panel. They were very nice, chatted to us, tried to help us shed our nerves a bit, and then they warmed us up. I really enjoyed this because we were encouraged from the word go to have eye contact, to not have any inhibitions and really get into it. I felt like I was actually a student there.

After the warm-up, they told us what would happen. We would be taken to a waiting room from which we would go into the panel one by one. I was number 9 of 12  so.... I spent a lot of time walking around and practising/repractising speeches in the toilet.....

But whenever I was in the waiting room, there was always a fun conversation going on  I could join  or talk to the alumni about what they are doing now.

Oh! Three things that make the Guildhall experience a bit different to other drama schools. You know you have to have a modern and a classical speech for most drama schools? Guildhall tends to ask for a 3rd contrasting speech so I had to find some new tricks, quick. Also they ask for you to prepare an unaccompanied song. This wasn't as hard as I had just finished performing in a Sondheim revue so had a few song choices there thankfully.

Lastly, a bit like Mountview, Guildhall will tell you your results that same day in person, if you are happy to wait until everyone in your group has been seen. I have heard of Guildhall rounds where no-one was recalled, so this is the most daunting part of the process, that wait.

Anyway, it came to my turn. My alumni took me outside the studio and we waited for the person before me to come out. There is nothing more daunting, than wanting a school and waiting for your turn to prove you are worthy to go there. To me that 2 minute wait felt like an eternity and that is the moment I felt deeply nervous.

But once I went into the room, I felt better....I mean...I can only do what I do and I have to trust I have prepared.

So I did my first speech, which was the classical Emilia, then my second which was the Psycho Trudy. They didn't ask me for a third speech but instead chose to direct me on ...Emilia I think....I forget. To be honest , I didn't think much of my chances leaving that room as I felt as if they hadn't liked my Trudy delivery....call it a sixth sense (or the fact that the speech usually evokes laughter at specific points) but I just knew it didn't do me any favours in my Guildhall first round.

Oooh piece of advise.....if your speech is accented, don't do the accent in your Guildhall audition. They want you to do the speech from a place of honesty so strip all accents out and pretend you are yourself saying the speech. Sounds weird but....its the best advice I'd give anyone going for Guildhall.

I was thankful I was number 9 by the time I came out and was waiting for the results because, bad as waiting to go into the room is, it is ten.........times......worse......waiting for the round to be over and to hear the probable 'no' that you are expecting.

Once everyone had been seen, we waited about 10 minutes and then they came out. They thanked us for coming, explained that it wasn't about talent necessarily but also fit and then told us 3 people were being asked to second round recalls... and would you believe it?

I WAS ONE OF THE THREE!!

Phew!

Onto second round..................

Recall Rounds and the Offer!

I'm back!

It's been a while but I have been relatively busy with some more auditions....I will explain later in this post.

So where did I leave of?

Right, last time I posted I had gotten through my first round auditions for my four schools and going into:

LAMDA- Second First Round- 9^th April 2013

Central-Recall- 9^th January 2013

Mountview-  Recall-16^th January 2013

RADA- Recall-10^th May 2013

 

LAMDA

 

This will be as short as my time for this round was.

Upon returning to LAMDA's hallowed grounds I was taken to the corridor outside the waiting room and was told I had 4 people ahead of me.

 

I went to the bathroom, recited my speeches but honestly, something just felt off; I couldn't connect to my emotions as I felt I had said my speeches too many times. As a result I was simply portraying on my face the emotions I was supposed to feel as opposed to really feeling them and saying my speeches from that level of depth.

 

Suffice it to say, that feeling did not change when I went into the audition panel.

 

It was the same as the first round, two people on a panel at the front of the room, me close to the back so I could 'project'. I still could not connect so when I was done with my speeches, they said thank you and I left.

 

On the 12th April they sent an email informing me I didn't make it through to the recall round.

 

I was honestly okay with this as by the second time I went back there , I had seen other schools and I knew that LAMDA didn't necessarily suit me as the place to get my training. Of course this will differ for everyone but I will say that I was so grateful they didn't waste my time with telling me 'no'.

 

Central

 

Okay in my opinion the Central recall is one of those 'tell-your-grandchildren-it-was-just-quite-surreal' stories.

 

I got in there for 10 am and we had a group of about 15 people in that recall. They warmed us up and then asked us to sit down in a circle.

 

Before we were told what time during the day our individual panels would be we were given a speech. To heaven on high I don't think I could ever forget that speech. It went a little something like this:

 

'Well done for getting this far. We normally get thousands of applicants every year and out of our first round auditions only put 300 through to recalls. Out of those, only 24 will be offered a place on the course (at this point I started to do some rough maths........he was basically saying likelihood is maybe 3 out of the 15 of us might get a 'yes'....the quick breathing began) Of course even though you are offered a place, we cannot guarantee success. Most agents don't come to your showcase because they don't think one year is enough time to study the craft of acting (ahem...take note people) and so be prepared for a very hard road ahead. Now after your individual monologues have been seen we may tell you 'no' on the spot (WHAT??!)  so be prepared for that. Okay! your times to be seen are...'

 

#killmenow.....

 

Anyway after that eh.........inspiring speech.....I was told I would be seen later in the afternoon. I had at least 9 people ahead of me. My main problem with this was that given the warm up in the morning, one has a lot of time to cool down and not be connected before one is seen. Its almost worth lying and saying you have a flight to catch just so they will see you earlier if this is something you can relate to.

 

Anyway when my turn came I did my two speeches (which were Ophelia and Trudy) and got directed especially on the Ophelia speech which is a speech I was never that particularly comfortable with (God only know why I chose to do it!). They then told me to take a seat with them. I seriously thought they were going to say 'no' to me at this point.

 

Instead they told me I was not a 'no' or a 'yes' yet. I was a 'maybe' and that if they offered me a place, I should take some Stanislavski classes before I took up the place.

 

To this I literally thought...'huh?...surely the point of me coming here is to leeeearn that stuff??'

 

I was not filled with the deepest confidence post that round and when I got the email telling me I had been waitlisted.....I thought....meh...I'll survive ;)

 

RADA

 I still love RADA. It is conveniently placed, it looks great building-wise and its really friendly!

 

My recall round was pretty much similar to my first round except they also asked me to sing.

 

You will see less people in your recall though, in terms of other candidates as they give you a specific time meaning that you arrive and one person is in the room being auditioned, one person is sitting outside waiting and you're next.

 

Daunting much? Nah....its good for just running your lines one more time and mmm-aaaahhing your voice into a state of readiness.

 

The panel had three people who were all extremely friendly and kind. They ask you to do your two speeches looking at them, then sing. After which you 'pull up a chair' and have chat. They asked me about me, any shows I had seen recently, other schools I auditioned too and that's about it.

 

I really enjoyed the experience and was pleased with my performances, however I got a letter a few days later saying I was not going through to the next round. I was okay with this (given I already had an offer...scroll on down)...to be honest. Also I have been told innumerous times that, RADA especially of all drama schools, looks for a very specific type of person. You either fit or you don't but just from what I can understand....confidence (a specific type of confidence) has something to do with it.....I could be wrong so don't take my word as the biblical truth.

 

Mountview

 

Okay!! Its after lunch on the same day and I have been told to stay. We, the lucky few, were taken downstairs into a bigger studio (dance studio) and we had an improvisation session. I will be honest, I struggled with this one. We had these 'inventing games' session where you couldn't speak or gesticulate but had to get people to all play the same game ....I gesticulated....sigh....then we had an 'animal catwalk'...which if I hadn't been trying to rack my brains on what to do...would have been hilarious to watch! This dude was a turtle and I truly wanted to cry laughing.

 

Anyhoo after my deep failure on the catwalk as a mouse.......don't judge.......We sat down on the same side as the panel (of four) and watched each others' speeches. After the speeches one of the four people on the panel would direct you.

 

One thing I will say.....DONT FALL ASLEEP!...it is so tempting after an excellent lunch and having seen at least half of the speeches before in the first round.....the chair becomes very comfy and ooph...its tempting.......but I thankfully survived.

 

After doing my speeches, I was told to say my Shakespeare monologue whilst having my tongue in between my teeth...prrrreettty sure its because I'm terrible at enunciation.

 

After the round is complete the panel go out and deliberate. For us this was about a 20 minute wait.....it was agony...But we had some alumni with us whom we could ask questions so this helped.....with the first ten minutes ;)

 

The panel then return and make cuts. 5 of us survived the cut. I was one of them!!

 

The last round is the interview. The Head of Postgraduate acting speaks to us one at a time and it's the equivalent of a chat. In my interview he asked me what I thought I could have done better throughout the day. I said my improv as I thought that wasn't the strongest to say the least. He smiled and told me he was glad I said that as he thought so too.

 

We chatted about a few other things but it was nothing terrible to be honest.

 

My Offer came on the 8th of February by email.

 

I accepted the offer but had to defer it a year due to financial setbacks.

 

Because I had a year therefore, I decided to audition for Guildhall, for which I am still in the running.

 

More on that in the next post!!

 

A

xoxo