Introduction

Winning a place at drama school is difficult. Really difficult. Way more difficult than getting into Oxford or Cambridge – and Oxbridge offer many thousands of places. The competition is fierce!

My research reveals that, for a typical three-year acting course, some schools have over two thousand people chasing sixteen – yes, sixteen – places. A couple of institutions report that they accept less than one per cent of the candidates they see. There are tens of thousands of auditionees out there every year, chasing very few offers.

However you tally the figures, the odds are extremely slim, and stacked against most applicants. But you don’t need to fall into the dreary catalogue of ‘most applicants’.

To get in, you are going to have to stand out.

•	You are going to need to be original, really creative, highly disciplined and totally positive.
•	You will have to be calm, courageous, truthful and completely focused.
•	You are going to have to know stuff and do stuff that ‘most applicants’ don’t know and don’t do.

Tall order? This book will show you exactly how to harness and tap in to all these winning ways.

You’ll be strong, confident, brave, inventive and articulate.

These pages will arm you with all the essential weapons and the mental stamina for what might turn out to be a sustained campaign. You will know how to access that crucial ‘edge’ at your auditions and in your thinking, because of your preparation.

An audition is over in a flash. You only get one chance once you are in the room. Many people blow it because they are underprepared and unfocused. This means they make mistakes, in the audition room and in their own heads.

Your work and thinking will be enhanced at all times, especially when in front of the dreaded audition panel. You have to give a performance that is mature, engaging, ‘watchable’, believable and not inevitable or predictable. Your audition won’t be full of the basic errors in taste and style that ‘most applicants’ will be committing. It will be tellingly different.

You will know what you are doing. You will be in control of your work and your thoughts.

The panel will be able to concentrate on you and only you. The auditioners won’t experience your fear, anxiety or bad habits. Neither will they focus on ‘inner voices’, or the strange commentator that plagues the heads of so many applicants the instant they start their speech.

If you want to apply for drama-school training, this is what you will have to do:

Research schools, fill forms, write personal statements and CVs; spend money on applications, audition fees and travel; choose up to eight contrasting pieces, work on them, get better at acting, brush up technical and vocal skills, learn about Shakespearean verse; do auditions, interviews and then recalls.

This book will guide you through every step and give you a major edge.

Mantras

Your drama-school campaign will be all about courage, persistence and self-esteem.

Sticking to the following mantras will give you all of this – and more. They are the underlying philosophy of this book and they need to become a part of your mindset from now on. Some of the mantras are about positive thinking; others are for your work.

Although I shall return to these and other maxims time and time again, please visit these pages often throughout your auditions and during your rehearsal period. If you can embrace and ingrain the ideas below, you will be armed and protected throughout your preparation and for the auditions.

1. Mantras for your head

It’s all good and nothing bad! No matter what your confidence levels are, or where you are or how you feel, always remember, ‘It’s all good and nothing bad!’ This will help to keep you positive and confident. These are the two major weapons that you will need. You’ll obviously have to be objective in your observations on what you are doing, but by remembering ‘all good and nothing bad’, you ensure that you don’t beat yourself up or allow situations to overwhelm you and/or your work. Use this in all aspects of your life from now on. Get – and stay – positive.

Make fear your friend We all run on fear, every day. It’s part of nature: Darwinian, if you like. There will be times when you are going to be afraid, nervous, worried, even feeling the tingly onset of panic. Embrace these instances and accept that you are nervous, but then use this force to help your focus, or to aid productive work, honestly and with confidence. If you make fear your friend, you can utilise the fear to gain an edge over those who are merely scared, especially during the actual audition and interview. If you are just scared, or only nervous – nothing can be done! So banish panic and get focus: be a Warrior, not a Worrier.

I am not here to get into drama school! I am just here to do my best work Tell yourself, ‘I am not here at the audition to be judged, or scared, or even to get into drama school; just to do my best, most focused, in-the-moment work.’ That way, there is much less to think and worry about. Hold on to this notion throughout your campaign, from now on it’s not about getting into drama school, it’s about calmly doing everything you can to allow you to do your best work, every day. Think about all this as you prepare; it will make you stronger because you can then operate without fear and without judgement as to whether your efforts are any good or not. Let this idea spur your spirit to experiment in search of better performance – always.

You only get one shot So don’t blow it! ‘One shot’ may sound a bit scary, but there’s no need to be scared: it’s all good and nothing bad because fear is your friend and, besides, you are only there to do your best work.

So on the day, you’ll be free to take a second or so before starting your speeches to remind yourself of what it takes to do your best work and then go for it! But make sure you can accomplish everything you aim for. Get used to hitting the bullseye in one shot. Be ready to start well every time, because for a focused, connected and effective audition, you have to start your speech well.

Be you, be true It’s all you can do. Be you in the interview, be you in the room; be you as you work, be you as you perform. These last two notions may sound odd, since you are planning on being other people in your monologues. However, the panel will also need to see a calm, focused ‘you’ within that character. This may be tricky to get your head around, but stick with the idea for now. They need to encounter ‘you’ when you talk to them too. This is who they are going to have to live and work with for three years. So don’t forget to have fun.

These ideas will liberate you and your aim will be true, allowing you to be mentally strong and cool-headed enough to step up to the plate, ready to do your best work.

2. Mantras for working

It’s all about the words The words are all you have. Your job is to deliver them with credibility and clarity. Explore them. Respect them. Let them affect you. You should not try to affect them.

Change is good You are doing a two-minute show here. Therefore, you have to employ range, depth and journey in terms of needs, moods and tone, in order to keep the panel engaged and interested. Keeping the panel in ‘the zone’ requires you to supply changes in pace, gear, mood, tone and even rhythm. Use change and use it often. Don’t stay locked on to one thing, or on one level. Change is good.

Start well, end well Collect your thoughts as the actor before a rehearsal run of a speech, or when at an audition. Ask yourself what you are trying to achieve here.

•	Focus on the physical and technical aspects of what you want to nail down, or to avoid. For example, you can tell yourself, ‘Don’t drop energy and intention towards the ends of your sentences.’ You can embrace fear and tell yourself, ‘One Shot!’
•	Then start to connect to the character.
•	Visualise where they are physically and the situation that she or he is in.
•	Get into what they want and how badly they want it.
•	Find what that urge to speak is. What drives their need to say something?
•	Then you can start.

End ‘in the moment’ and stay there for a second. Don’t disconnect too soon, as this also disconnects the onlooker. Linger in the after-burn. Good or bad, no matter how you think it went in the audition, do not make apologies in your stance, posture or even verbally. Some people have even been known to say, ‘Sorry, that was sh*t.’ Why do that? You never know what others may have seen, or what they may be thinking. They could have a more positive view of things and might have seen something to make them think: ‘Hmmm, you know what? Let’s see a bit of that again.’ Your premature disconnection or wave of negativity may tilt them away from their first instinct. You do not want to leave them with any millimetre-sized shred of negativity in their heads. End well, for them and for you. End well also because you may have to do your next piece and you need to be in a positive, clean space, so that you can start well again. So end on a good note – whatever you think just happened. It’s all good and nothing bad.

Try it many ways When you are working, don’t start out by trying to polish or perfect a finished, final vision or interpretation of your speech. Explore everything in as many ways, and for as many reasons, as possible. This will make your journey sooo much more interesting. Experimenting with many ways of approaching and delivering your speeches will open them up and allow you to grow your skills and vision. Go anywhere and everywhere, but come from somewhere.

Note

You are going to see similar ideas, exercises and instructions at various stages from now on. Often things like ‘Get to the end of the sentence’ or ‘Don’t drop off’ are repeated – and for very good reasons. The point of a mantra is that the content ingrains itself as you repeat it. Many of these ideas will pop up again in specific sections, such as ‘On the Day’ or ‘In the Room’. In these instances, I have developed or changed them to suit the context.

There will be many things to remember, along with lots of dos and don’ts, exercises, tips and reminders. You may not ‘get’ or perfect all of them immediately. No matter, keep plugging away. Acting is a craft and there is much to learn. You just about get the idea of one aspect of the work and then will come more things. While you are attacking these, the grip you had on other skills will loosen. This is natural. Stay on the case. The good news is: the more you do, the better you get. But it all needs application and discipline – as does getting into drama school. If you persist, the golden prize can be yours. But don’t forget to have fun along the way.

Thanks

Vanessa Kirby, Doug Quinn, Clive Wouters, Richard Jackson and Alison Winter.