Handouts

Olga gave us handouts of advise and questions that people ask drama schools about auditions to give us a rough idea of what questions people usually ask and if we have any similar questions and whether we would have the same questions so that we can get an answer from it:

This is from 'Birmingham school of acting' :

Christian Burgess

Olga gave us this handout previously: 

Just to have some information on Christian for when he came into our college to talk with us. 

He gave us a talk about Guildhall and the auctions process.

Auditions process: 

You spend loads of time with the second/third year actors and get to know them, then you go in and do your audition. He mentioned that some drama schools advise you not to give the panel eye contact and shake their hands but he didn't see the issue with it. 

Then he gave an example of a man who worked really hard on the characters stance and how the character walked and aced that but hard,y spent time on the monologue so there was almost no point in it. 

The talk was split with the performing arts students & the production arts students. So Christian asked our two groups what we are currently working on. For us actors, we are studying site specific for zombie quest in Hitchin on Halloween so we briefed him on that, and the production students are working with the Royal Opera House with some set, and Christina mentioned that guildhall have connections with the Royal Opera House. 

He made the course and the school sound really good and it made me question if I wanted to go drama school, but I am still not sure. We also have been given the opportunity to go and see a show at Guildhall that Christian is directing called 'Lulu' which I think is great because it will give us a great insight of what they do at the drama school and what the outcomes of the shows are.

Session with Olga

Today we got told that Christian Burgess is going to be here next Wednesday and Olga gave us a few bits of information so that if we wanted to ask some questions then we would have a rough idea of who he us and what he does and we can pre think of some questions.

Christian Burgess is director of Drama, Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

We then got given a page of tongue twisters including:

• She sits shining shoes, shining shoes she sits
• Red Leather, Yellow Leather
• Plain bun, plum bun, plain plum bun
• She sat on the balustraded banister Inextricably, mimicking and hiccuping
• unique New York x2

And some songs as well:

• This little light of mine
• A baby sardine
• Don't build your house on the sandyland
• fee fie fiesta
• Gwarderly Archer
• Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

Then we did an exercise where we had a line to say and used a list of different facial expressions as we say the line:

'THE FIRE EXIT MUST BE KEPT CLEAR'

We said it with 'a big smile' , 'not showing the teeth' , 'furrowed brows' and it changed its meaning everytime we said it with a different expression, it was a really interesting exercise, apparently they do this at Mountview drama school. 

The same day we went into the computer room with Ella and Olga and they helped us with our UCAS applications.

Reading Children's Stories

Olga got us all a children's book to read and we had to read it to ourselves and make it sound interesting. After we had read it all, we then got in  circle and some people could volunteer to read it to the class if they want too, Nathan was first. It was an interesting task because you wouldn't think reading a children's book can change your voice in so many ways.

I read ' what the ladybird heard '. And it is about a ladybird who never said anything, but heard about a plan that Robber's had to steal the cow. And it ends with a ladybird saving the the cow because the ladybird told the rest of the animals who lived the farm.

I really enjoyed the session, it was fun to hear how different people read the books and I felt like a child again!