Final Round of RADA

Last Saturday I had my fourth and final round of RADA, and have now officially completed the audition process. It was a 9am - 6pm workshop and suffice to say, I’m bloody exhausted! There were 24 people on the day. We were the first of five fourth rounds, meaning that there is roughly 125 people left in the process, and leaving the odds of getting in at 5:1.

First off, they gave us a schedule sheet for the day with a complete list of everybody on the front, which I would recommend you definitely keep because I find it's nice to see how everyone got on later! Anyway, we started with a group discussion with Edward Kemp, the Director at RADA, who gave a brief outline to the day and reassured us that we had done extremely well to get this far. In this large group, we first had a movement class.

I cannot even begin to explain how much focus I had from the word go - so much so that this movement is almost a blur. I can hardly remember anything! Which is a bad thing for you guys, not really informative and useful but at least it means I was performing at my best. These are the parts that I can remember.

There was a general body warm up to begin with - chewing toffee to warm the face, rolling of shoulders etc. There was nothing unexpected or difficult to deal with. We then were split in to two (it’s coming back to me now ha) and while one group stood to the side, the others walked neutrally in the space. We had to cover all the spaces, then gather together tightly without touching like atoms. After spacing out again, we froze and one by one had to run. This sound so odd. The five or so people taking notes on us got a chance to see us all individually to a drum beat. We had to run with intention, but not seriousness, then towards the end, run with larger strides and really going for it before snapping back into static neutral. Missing out a few irrelevant games and stretches, (I can’t remember if this was movement or improv later on but I think it was here) we had to act like champagne bubbles, spaghetti drenched in oil and a bomb fire night sparkler.

Looking at the admissions procedure provided in a PDF on their website, which I think everybody serious about this school should be looking at religiously, it says that they are watching out for use of body and spacial awareness. I’ll use the sparkler example. Everyone had to picture a sparkler that was lit on the drum beat and burned for around twenty seconds before dying. As you can imagine everybody was very chaotic and erratic. So what did I do? I positioned myself facing outwards in clear view of at least three members of the panel and instead of jumping off immediately, imagined the fire spreading like a fast wave from my feet to the top of my head - then jumping off. What everyone else then did for the dying sparkler, was adopt sluggish, melting movements. But does a sparkler do that - or flicker? I flickered.

Oh my lordy that’s a lot of movement. I hope all that makes sense. I’ll get a move on or this will take far longer than I anticipated.

Next up was voice and we were split into three groups of eight. This workshop began with a number of exercises to equalise our centre of gravity and regulate our breathing. We did a number of spine rolls, face exercises and tongue stretching for our articulation. To calm the nerves and stopping breathing from becoming tense during speeches, we also did a number of calm ‘sighing’ exercises to release the tension and allow our bodies to just breathe for a moment. It’s important to know that we weren’t being critically judged for this section of the workshop. The aim is more to guarantee that everybody has a physically able voice for the training they provide. We were given a short piece of sight reading from novels and were given five or so minutes to familiarise ourselves with the text. I was given an extract from Shirley by Charlotte Brontë. All of the pieces were very visual and required us to effectively communicate the setting and description. We performed these pieces one by one in front of everyone while the Voice Director took notes.

After a quick break, in smaller groups of six we then did scene study work and in pairs were given different scenes. The play we were given though unknown at the time, actually was In Flame by Charlotte Jones. After a quick read through, we looked at the given facts in the scene in a group discussion. After we had established everything we possibly could that was factual and truth about the characters, we were asked to get it on its feet mon-naturalistically. We were asked to only move with intention to get away or get closer to the other character. After a bit of getting used to, my partner and I realised we had to let go of reality and began pushing and shoving each other like children - a complete contrast to out thirty/forty something year old characters! We were then asked to put as much space between the characters as possible, while still delivering the lines effectively across the large space. Once you let go, you begin to realise how much fun this can really be. When the instructor asked my pair to move on to the next activity she told us we were doing really, very well. This made my day. We then scaled it down to naturalism and began to see that the point of the activity was for as to still feel the pull and push in the depths of our stomachs, and therefore become more believable and focused.

After lunch, we were put back together into one large group for ‘Action’ which I can best describe as improvisation. The admissions procedure states they look for a response in the moment, flexibility of mind and body, and group awareness. We started by imagining we were in a remote village in Africa and were packing our things to go on our journey - we then had to act in mime to a piece of inspirational music. You see, in the summer of 2011 I went to Borneo for one month and stayed in a village for seven or so days, before packing up and trekking through the rainforest back to city. So it wasn’t hard for me to gain inspiration. We also had to walk the space said it was a New York street in the 1920’s before she asked us later on individually to introduce ourselves in character etc.

Split back into groups of six, we went on to work on our new speeches. After the six of us performed in front of each other, the Acting tutor individually gave us feedback and advice on how to respond better in the moment. It’s not a requirement to take this advice and use it when presenting the speech later, but it really does help. It was pointed out that I don’t pronounce the ‘th’ in northern (which we laughed about and put it down to my Essex background). She told me not to worry too much about it as that’s the very thing we would work on at drama school. Back in the larger group, we spent about an hour and a half performing our speeches which were greeted with applause as opposed to silence like some other schools prefer.

As a whole I feel very very very happy with the outcome of the workshop and I know that whatever the outcome, I performed at my best and bloody enjoyed it too! I should find out if I’ve been put on hold in the next few weeks, and then whether I have a place or not around the second week of June. And can I quickly say thank you for your interest in my auditions as today this blog hit 4000 pageviews!