Drama school and acting classes advice

[DramaSchoolMums]

I am posting on behalf of my niece (well her parents) to seek advice from any Mums/dad's of drama school students. I work in HE but not directly in this sector and have been asked my advice!

My niece is very keen on drama school. She knows all the stats about the low success rate first time round (currently Year 12). She is nevertheless planning on auditioning next academic year. She is well aware she will likely not get in this time and does have back up plans for year out, getting experience etc etc and trying again etc etc. However, at the moment we are looking for advice about classes for this year. My / her question is:
She is keen to get some classes under her belt now, before she auditions as she only has access to her college A' level classes, and school plays but wants something more 'professional' to have on her CV. She also wants to work with industry people a bit more and get some useful experience. She has lots of monologues rehearsed but has only ever performed them in front of her teacher or her friends so if there was anywhere offering this that would be great. But she is also keen on working with a group and developing her knowledge of other acting skills as well as speeches.

Does anyone know of any London acting classes, or suitable things she could do? Also, how much would be a reasonable amount to pay for say a day workshop? have any parents on here paid for similar things before? She can travel to London on the train in about an hour so could do this, at weekends or over her summer break.

She has already done National Youth Theatre by the way but found it not that helpful and not great value for money for the price paid versus the skills and knowledge she got out of it, although it was great fun.

Any advice about classes in London area? And prices?

Thank you so much!

Local Am Dram groups - she needs experience as much as formal classes.

Most of the drama schools offer summer courses, Including pre-audition, has she researched any of these? Well worth looking at if you’re within travel distance of London (sadly we’re not)

Thanks BringOn. I should have said - sorry - that she also does a LOT of local am dram stuff, and plays etc! Sorry for dripfeed.

So what she is looking for is more stuff with taught classes and techniques etc, as well as industry people leading it.

Great ideas, thanks Error

Tring Park School for the Performing Arts does short courses, there might be something suitable there. They have a residential summer acting course this year.

Maybe encourage them to explore the forum on www.notapushymum.com/
Lots of information and you could ask question there.

I think GSA does workshops too.

gsauk.org/courses/part-time-short-courses/summer-conservatoire iirc Rada et al do similar.

LAMDA summer school, various of the other drama schools do summer short courses or intensives too :-)

Depending on whether she prefers acting or musical theatre have a look at West End MT and scroll back through their Facebook page. Lots of masterclasses with west end actors and regular performance opportunities. If we didn't love over 2 hours away my son would be doing it for sure.

As pp have said, the big drama schools do shorter workshops/residentials. Dd did 2 weeks at Central which she found really helpful; also a weekend at Guilford. Some courses specifically target audition skills.
(Dd is now doing a foundation year at Fourth Monkey and will be going on to do their 2-year fulltime course in the autumn).

Someone from an acting family here (mother & two sisters trained at top conservatoires):
She has already done National Youth Theatre by the way but found it not that helpful and not great value for money for the price paid versus the skills and knowledge she got out of it, although it was great fun

Hmmmm, that bothers me a bit. If she can't see what she learned there, then maybe she's not ready for conservatoire training.

I'd second amdram experience. Or doing a Drama degree (not acting school but standard university) at the very best university she has A Levels for (Royal Holloway, Manchester, Bristol, Lancaster, Exeter, BIrmingham, Glasgow are all top universities with top Drama/Theatre departments) and really widening her views & experiences about the kind of work she wants to do, while getting loads of extra-curricular experience, and making really useful network of like-minded people.

She can then audition for some of the excellent Masters courses at conservatoires: Central School of Speech & drama, Bristol Old Vic, Guildford School of Acting, Royal Welsh College, Glasgow School of Arts.

At the moment, from the information you give, I think she has a very narrow view of the profession and the realities of training, and a very limited experience of training and how she might compare (compete) with the thousands of moderately-talented, moderately-pretty young 18 year old women auditioning every year ...

I really don't think such young women have much of an idea of how extremely talented and bloody lucky you have to be as a woman to succeed even getting into a conservatoire training programme. Doing A Level drama & school plays just doesn't cut it.

In addition to NYT, she might look at some singing & dancing classes - most actors need to be able to hold a tune, and to move.

@BeansandRice I found your post somewhat patronising in tone unfortunately. As posted, my niece felt the NYT didn't represent "value for money", based on the skills learnt. That is a fair point. She said there were large numbers of young people versus staff, and only one specialist artist, and that the course led to a stadium arts performance which, she felt was designed to cram as many young people into the course as possible. She was quite astute about it and saw that it was a profit making exercise rather than offering good quality 1-1 acting tuition and value for money.

I also found this paragraph very patronising:

• At the moment, from the information you give, I think she has a very narrow view of the profession and the realities of training, and a very limited experience of training and how she might compare (compete) with the thousands of moderately-talented, moderately-pretty young 18 year old women auditioning every year ...

I really don't think such young women have much of an idea of how extremely talented and bloody lucky you have to be as a woman to succeed even getting into a conservatoire training programme. Doing A Level drama & school plays just doesn't cut it.*
... given what I'd already said about my niece's level of understanding of the statistics and her realistic outlook, and fully preparing not to get any offers. She doesn't know it all I'm sure, but to say she has a "narrow" view etc is unfair given that this entire thread started because of her openness to looking at other opportunities and learning experiences, fully aware she needs to do more than simply A' Level.

Have to say I agree with the OP: it sounds like the young lady in question is eager to learn more and explore more facets and work harder: to me that sounds very far from having "a narrow view".

As for who gets into conservatoires, that depends quite a bit on all sorts of factors. But what we know of the OP's niece is precisely that she doesn't think her A-level and school plays are going to be enough- and that she feels her NYT experiences probably won't be enough on its own either.

Nor has the OP given any information as to either her niece's talent or her looks. For all we know, she might be stunningly beautiful or startlingly ugly. She might be spectacularly talented or not talented at all. All we know atm is that she is prepared to work hard and that in itself sounds like a good start.

I have heard others say the same about the NYT: that it doesn't really offer the same learning experience as one of the more targeted specialised courses or a really good foundation course.

Thanks @Corythatwas for your response.

Thanks everyone.
I think she is going to continue to look for some good quality masterclasses led by industry people so she has some interesting things to mention at her auditions and interviews and some support preparing her speeches.

There have been a few suggested places on his thread but we are still looking for something suitable in London so it seems we will have to do some more investigating.

The suggestions about the actual drama school-based workshops was a really good one and she is saving up to attend one of those in the summer as well.