GSA

I had my audition on the 25th March 2013. I left my house at 5:45am and was already in central London for half 6. You won't believe how easy it is to get up early for something that you actually want to do. I arrived on the campus at 8:40 and we were sorted into 4 groups which would rotate around throughout the day - much like Mountview.

First off, I did the movement session which went on to the speeches. Guildford are really big on forgetting your stage directions to make it fresher and interacting with everything around you. The other auditionees were against each wall to the side watching you and if possible definitely use them! They only want to see one speech which means you have to choose between your Shakespeare and modern. Usually I would say perform the speech that showcases you the best - in my case Shakespeare. But this is where you need common sense. Listen to what they're asking - lots of movement and interaction. If your Shakespeare involves little to no movement as mine does, go with your modern. Your call!

The last thing we did was the voice workshop. You should bring along a copy of a sonnet, but I noted that they printed out extras for the forgetful auditionees. We worked a lot on articulation and relaxing our facial muscles and then one by one presented the sonnet to the panel. All they want to hear is your voice - how you speak, how you pronunciate, and how effectively you can act through your voice. Although it is not a requirement, I would definitely insist that you learn the sonnet as I was the only want out of 20 something people able to recite it. By keeping your head down and just reading from a sheet, you will already be at a disadvantage. Pace yourself. There are 14 lines in a sonnet and there should be a slightly longer pause before the last two lines.

We had lunch and then were put into two rooms; Group 1&2 and then Group 3&4. The head of the panel came into the room I was in and announced that I and two other people were staying on to do the recall in the afternoon. As the 60-odd people left the room, one boy stayed as he was convinced his name had been called. I can not explain how painfully awkward it was when the graduates had to explain to him that he wasn't selected.

For the recall, we performed our other speech individually followed by a small interview. And I really do mean small - I sat down and they asked one question: Why do you want to come to GSA? Please try not to over think these kind of questions. They'd rather hear something completely honest than a well rehearsed kiss-arse answer. I explained that I applied through word of mouth and was hearing really good reviews from graduates etc and they appreciated my honesty.

And that's that. Now I'm waiting for either an offer or rejection.