Getting Past The First Round

Getting past the first round can be a bit of a tricky one 🙈

Sometimes you will be faced with the same panel you met the last year or sometimes you can find you will have got to the final round within the first year and the second year you won't even get past the first round 🤪 Confusing, right?

My biggest takeaway as coach that I want to share with you is take HEART that not every school is for you and it's okay :) There are so many different schools, with different types of teacher/methods these and different types of schools produce completely different types of actors! And there will be one that suits YOU.

So you may ask, 'why are there so many schools that only choose to use specific practitioners?' Well I believe each school has a personality, and I feel like what I've noticed from auditioning myself and having gone through a final one year and then not even getting past the first round the next year, and having gone through drama school and having helped over 100 of you get into drama school and National Youth Theatre, is that people's personalities fit schools.

So, sometimes, someone will be working with me 1-1 and I go, 'Oh, you have Bristol vibes' because I feel like they've got the personality or what I've noticed previous Bristol students to be like or Bristol performances, or the Bristol tutors that I have met... it's just a vibe. 

And hey, this is just my opinion and I would definitely take everything you read online with a pinch of salt but this is just what I have noticed along my journey.

I'm taking into account that sometimes it's a personality of the school, and maybe that school doesn't resonate with you which is why you may be stuck at a first round sometimes. That's the nice thing about applying to lots of different schools is you get to feel out where you feel good and welcomed by. 

Biggest GREEN flag of a school: which school do you feel chilled and relaxed at? (It's important that you don't (and excuse my french) feel all squeaky bum time when just *thinking* about a school as this is deficiently not a good sign at all!)

You need to go to a place that makes you feel welcome, relaxed and where you can do your best work.

Of course, there's a percentage of nerves that comes into every like audition experience, and I'm definitely not going to deny that and hey, as an actor myself, I get nervous too but...

Listen to your intuition and...

Not your nerves. Your nerves will elevate the situation that you're in but your gut instinct will tell you if it's the right school or not. And maybe you need a bit of time throughout the audition period to realise what that feeling is, but usually it's the best indicator.

Another way to identify if you vibe with the school is how do the panel speak to you?

Do they ask you questions? How do the students treat you? How does the receptionist treat you when you walk in? How do they treat you when you leave? Do you have a feeling of dread after the audition? Or do you have a feeling of "Yeah, I like this " they were nice people!

Those are some little pointers to check you know about getting past the first round. Just having a moment to yourself, ask yourself "do I actually want to go to this school?"

Disclaimer!

This is a bit of a disclaimer, but I do believe that schools do have personalities. And we must match that.

How do I get past the first round in summary?

I feel like it's an accumulation of three things:

1. You need to have is flair.

2. You need to have contrast.

3. You need to have presence.

So how do you have FLAIR? Listening to your own intuitive self, being independently minded in the monologues that you choose, in the choices that you make; in how you approach the school, how you walk in the room and how you come on the zoom. Flair is all about confidence in yourself and how you approach every situation.

So point 2 ...contrast, contrast, CONTRAST. Why is this important? Because they've not asked you to do one monologue for all the audition rounds and then jog on home. They're likely to do two monologues or potentially more, because they want to see what else you can do and what else you can bring.

Contrast for me is not about happiness and sadness. It is about the contrast of rhythm and contrast of personalities within the characters.

Point 3...PRESENCE.

Presence comes from taking in the space, taking time for yourself to arrive to the answer that you need. Presence comes from backing yourself in your mind so that it seeps through your body... I go into depth with this in my audition interview technique class in the Get into Drama School Course.

Your body and body language will be received before you start to speak. And what's underneath that? 

Your ENERGY.

Your energy is what is read first. Not what you say, not your accent, not where you're from, or what pieces you've chosen or' you've been in a commercial' or 'X job'... The first thing that is received when a panel meets you is your energy.

Your energy is your currency and you need to take care of throughout the whole audition period.

You need to be eating right, keeping yourself hydrated, keeping yourself *warmed up*, keeping a heathy lifestyle and a balanced work/life attitude.

You need to make sure that you're being mindful with yourself dealing with rejection and moving past any negative thoughts, keeping yourself motivated which all l these things come into play that gives you presence. A person who is going to be self doubting and anxious or a  person who is going to be telling themselves at the height of the start of drama school applications: 'I'm not gonna apply there because I could never go there." A person who has not read the play, a person who is not sure on the history of the school, will give them a lack of confidence, a lack of presence and therefore won't get through as the first round.

If you're first time applying...

Be mindful that not every school is the same and not every school is going to offer the same thing. And if you get to the final round of one school and knocked at the first round of another school it doesn't mean you're a bad actor, it just means schools have personalities.

Hope you enjoyed :)

J xx