Oxford School of Drama Audition

Hello Internet! So yesterday I had my Oxford School of Drama audition. Coming from the US, I was quite jet-lagged and a little bit out of it when I showed up. Overall it was a good experience but a little inconvenient as it was so far away. They do have the option of sending a DVD in, but I feel that it is so much better to do auditions (especially for theater) in person.

They were incredibly accommodating for those of us traveling from out of town and had a bus come in to the center of Oxford to take us out to Woodstock to where the school is located.  They then had us all sit in this big waiting room while everyone else showed up.  They divided us into three groups for performing the monologues, but first we did a large group warm up and a few movement exercises. We did a general body warm up with stretching first and then we moved on to improvised movement.  They played snip-its of three different songs and we had to improvise movement to fit the mood of the music. After that was over, we did an exercise where we thought of a moment from a piece of theater we had recently seen and thought about how that made us feel.  We were then told to paint a picture of that moment using our body. Each body part was designated a different color. They then told group one to stay for performing their monologues and everyone else to wait until their group number was called.

We then went in the order of a list that the audition panel had and I went second.  At this point in the process my monologues are very polished and almost feel as if they are overworked, so I did my Gruesome monologue which I had only performed once before, which contrasts to my Lady Anne monologue. I thought they went quite well, but like I said they have been feeling a little tired almost.  Once my group had finished, we went back into the waiting room until everyone else had completed their auditions. They then came in and read two groups of names, I was in the smaller group of names and we were told to go to one studio, while the other group was told to go to a different one. Then the woman who works in admissions came in and told us that unfortunately, we were not the group asked to stay but that she had ordered us a taxi to take us all back to Oxford which should be there in 15 minutes. We were also told that we could call between 3:00pm and 4:00pm the next day for our feedback.  So we went outside and waited for the taxi, after about 30 minutes, one of us went in to ask where the taxi was and she was told that is was coming. Another 30 minutes later the 8 of us got in and headed home.

Today at 3:00pm I called for my feedback, curious if it had anything to do with me feeling like my monologues were overworked, and was promptly told that they wouldn't be doing feedback until 3:30pm and to call back in half an hour. So if they were a restaurant or a hotel or something, I certainly would not be giving them a good rating for customer service, but in the end it was a good learning experience, and an opportunity to see what a drama school campus is like.

Next up is RADA in a couple of weeks so keep an eye out for that one!