Getting into Drama School can be a difficult and, sometimes, traumatic process.

I have been on both sides of the fence. Many years ago now, I went through the London Drama Schools‘ auditions to gain entry to start my actor training. Now, I audition students for entry onto my Acting Programmes.
Here are 5 points that will help you get through the Drama School audition and get accepted.

1. Pick Appropriate Audition Speeches

   You will be required by most acting schools to learn two audition speeches. One modern and one Shakespeare. Modern means any play written in the last 100 years (roughly). An audition speech is a monologue given by a character in a play directed to another character or given by a character speaking out their own internal thoughts to themselves. The latter, Shakespeare referred to as soliloquies.
   I would recommend finding speeches said by characters of a similar age and type to you. If you are 18, it‘s easier for you to relate to, play, and be convincing to a panel, as an 18 year old character from a play. Obviously, you can widen the age range but I would veer away from characters that are much older than you.
   Also, find characters that you can relate to and who are of a similar type. It‘s best to make the process as simple and enjoyable as possible. Find characters you resonate with and enjoy playing. If they are of a similar type to you, it will be easier to produce high quality acting for the part.

2. Get Professional Coaching

   Most Drama Students take professional acting lessons and acting classes run by professional coaches to practice and perfect their audition speeches. If you decide not to do this, remember you may be up against students who have been perfecting speeches for years with professional coaches.

3. Know the Character and Play Inside Out

   You MUST know the character and play intimately. During your Drama School auditions, you may be asked questions by the audition panel on the character and the play. The panel will know many of the plays very well. They will ask you questions to make sure you are committed and to ensure you‘ve done your homework.

4. Take Re-Direction

   If they ask you to do your speech in a different way, this is called re-direction. They are doing this to see if you can do it differently when requested or if you keep repeating it the same way. You MUST take the re-direction fully. However they ask for it to be redone, don’t question it, and fulfill it as fully as possible.
   If you fail to take the direction, it will be a mark against you.

5. Don‘t Block In Improvisations

   If they ask you to improvise, just throw yourself in and don‘t block the other actors. Here is an example of ’blocking‘.

   Actor A: Hello, would you like to go for a walk?

   Actor B: No, I don‘t want to.

   Actor A: Oh, go on.

   Actor B: No, I want to be left alone.

   Actor B is blocking and that won‘t be liked by a panel.

   They are looking for people to join in, communicate, and create.

   Also, don‘t take yourself out of any group situation they put you in. If you don‘t join in or are reticent, they will think you‘re not a team player.

It would be a wise move, in advance of your acting training, to take acting courses in improvisation so you are at home with this acting technique.

Following these five points will help you gain entry into Drama School.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney

Creating great acting has always required the actor to be highly emotionally aware. Not just regarding their characters, but of themselves as individuals.

In the early 1900s there was an amazing actress called Eleonora Duse, who was arguably one of the greatest actresses that ever lived. When she was interviewed regarding her acting, she said that one of the reasons her acting continued to grow and get better was due to her ability to use her own experiences within her acting. Instead of seeing her personal life issues as distractions, she saw them as potential inspiration.

To this day, many actors struggle with this concept within their actor training. Many acting classes and acting courses tend to veer away from this area, as it is felt that it is very psychological.

This is an interesting standpoint for an industry that is built on revealing the psychology and lives of characters. Surely this requires the actor to delve into the emotional states within themselves to recreate those states for a character? This was what Duse did to create her outstanding body of work.

There is an actor training that does focus on emotional recreation – Method Acting.

Method Acting lessons focus on allowing the actor to get in touch with themselves to recreate emotion, consistently. Its foundations were borne out of Behavioural Psychology, where it was established that humans react to sensorial stimulus.

During Method Acting courses, the actor spends a lot of time reliving personal memories from their past in conjunction with their senses. For example, to recreate joy, they may work on a memory where they experienced extreme joy – and relive that event by recollecting the sounds, sights, tastes, smells and feel of the event. During acting classes, the actor carries out these acting exercises to recreate the correct emotional content, as emotion in itself can only be recreated through the senses.

In the UK, Brian Timoney Actors’ Studio is the only UK acting school or drama school in London to solely focus on this approach. The acting course is focused on recreating real, in depth, believable acting of the highest standard.

Brian Timoney recently said “It’s important for the actor to be emotionally aware. My approach to acting training is to get the actor to get in touch with this side of themselves to build their ability to express themselves without fear.”

Best wishes

Brian Timoney

A little known fact is that many top Hollywood actors still take acting classes and acting courses. It may seem hard to believe that someone like Al Pacino is still taking acting lessons, but it’s true. Many of these actors work with personal acting coaches to perfect their technique, in the same way that athletes work with coaches to perfect their technique.

The majority of top creative Hollywood actors work with acting teachers who are Actors Studio members. The Actors Studio, New York, is the home of Method Acting. The current co-presidents are Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel and Ellen Burstyn. This gives you an idea of the standard of acting striven for at the studio.

Method Acting produces an extremely high level of acting. Over 75% of Best Actor Oscars since the year 2000 have gone to Method Actors. More recently, Forest Whitaker in 2007, Daniel Day-Lewis in 2008 and this year, Sean Penn. Their acting training is Method Acting.

Method Acting was born in the US, and many British actors have been rumoured to have taken up the technique, including Anthony Hopkins and Peter O’Toole.

Brian Timoney is the UK’s Leading Method Acting Coach and Method Acting Expert. He has appeared in the UK media, including the BBC; teaching TV soap stars Method Acting techniques. Brian has also been featured in The Metro, The Sunday Express and The Stage.

Brian believes that taking up Method Acting can benefit the UK acting scene enormously.

He says “Many Drama Schools, particularly London Drama Schools, have an aversion to the technique because it has an emotional focus. In Drama Schools, they basically teach you how to fake emotions rather than recreate them for real. This effectively short-changes the actor and the audience, which is why my actors’ studio specialises in Method Acting. It’s a proven technique used by the best actors in the world, and it’s all about NOT faking your performance.’’

Whether UK Drama Schools will follow Timoney’s lead is yet to be seen. Brian holds drama classes and drama courses in Central London, which are open to beginners who are serious about training at a professional level.

There is certainly much credence to the Method Acting approach. It’s hard to argue with the results it produces – just look at the performances of the many, many leading actors that use it.

Acting training, in general, is a complex area, with many requirements placed upon the actor. Actors have to deal with emotional content and external characterisation to produce high calibre work. In short, there is no easy answer, but hard work, lots of acting classes and courses (many of them Method Acting classes and courses) and a healthy diligent approach to acting is needed to achieve the desired results.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney

Knowing where to start with your acting training can be difficult. There are so many Drama Schools and Acting Schools in London, with a multitude of acting courses to choose from.

An actors’ studio specialises in actor training for beginners who are serious about entering the profession.

One of the main barriers to taking the leap into professional acting is a lack of confidence and not knowing whether you are any good or not.

This is a hard question to answer at the beginning. You have to view actor training in the same way as you would any other job. How would you know if you are any good at being an accountant until you have studied the subject?

Most beginners have a desire and aptitude for acting, and that’s enough to start with. If you take the correct drama course, you can begin to develop your raw ability to a professional standard.

Right from the start it’s important to consider your acting training and what kind of acting approach you would like to study. A typical Drama School or Acting School tends to give you a pick’n’mix approach. They teach you a little bit of different techniques, and then you have to cobble together a mixture of everything.

The problem with this approach is that it leads you to being a ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. In my experience, it’s sensible to look at what the most successful actors do to achieve a high standard of acting.

With a little research on the subject, you will discover that many leading actors, particularly in the US, use Method Acting classes. One of the reasons they use it is because it achieves an exceptionally high standard of acting consistently.

It is important to teach this approach – Method Acting – to people who have little or no acting experience. There are acting classes and acting courses that focus in depth on Method Acting, to allow you to improve your acting ability to an exceptional standard, from day one.

Some acting lessons are split between acting technique and practical application within scenes. It is important to find a Method Acting class that is fundamental in training your talent, and are not about merely saying lines effectively and repeating them the same way each time.

Best wishes

Brian Timoney