Drama school auditions 2024- Acting/MT

[Mcmumager]

Is anyone starting the journey of drama school auditions and starting to feel the stress? Maybe sending them to drama group was a big mistake lol.

Yes, they fly close to the wind with their marketing!

Yes, you have to be careful because they claim as their own 'grads' anyone who has been on any course, and not just their actual degree grads. A lot of the time the real success stories went there for 6th form, benefited from their undoubtedly fantastic training and went elsewhere for degree. But they do have successes among their genuine degree grads too - the girl playing Anna currently in Frozen, for example. To be fair, if you dig a bit into their website you can find the previous few degree cohorts by year, so you can see exactly who got representation and what some of them have done since.

If you look on the Emil Dale website at their current BA grad year, the majority have agency representation now and the agencies are fairly much the same as the other drama schools, IC, Arts Ed, GSA etc

Hello! I've not seen this thread before.
My daughter did the foundation year at EDA before a three year funded diploma at Bird. She is now in her second year working in the industry. More than happy to answer any questions anybody has about either college x

Thank you. I have sent you a DM.

Thank you - can you explain a bit more about the ages she did this and the qualifications she came out with? How did she find both colleges? I’m fairly new to all this! Thank you!

Just jumping on this to say my son also went to EDA. He did BTECH there for 2 years, went at 17. Came out with a distinction for BTECH in performing arts. He enjoyed his time there, did very well, progressed massively in dance, progressed in singing but didn’t feel they did much for his acting. He is now at GSA on the MT degree. He got offers at Urdang, Arts Ed and GSA (all the places he auditioned for). He’s just about to go into his 3rd year. He absolutely loves GSA.

Thank you for your reply! My DD is a dancer first and singer second. Looking for MT or Dance options sept 2025 (y12) So just wondering about Emil dale and courses in general!

Some colleges take at 16 for a level 6 diploma - performers, Bird, Laines (they also take degree students at 18 - Laine does not offer degree funding, only DaDa funding. If you can afford the fees they are very expensive) check out Studio Centre - not sure what levels and ages for them. Therefore 3 year course from 16 - these were traditionally your ‘dance’ schools as they started full time training at 16 especially ballet schools such as Royal, Central, ENB etc.

Over the years those colleges have added more MT style training, more singing and acting as now dancers have to be able to sing well (in past, shows like cats and phantom would have some dancers who couldn’t sing and they just weren’t mic’d. Nowadays all of them have to be able to sing as the training diversified). The funding changed too to add degree funding to help more students be able to afford the courses. So now we are left with a very messy, mixed range of training methods and funding structures.

At 16 if your DD wants to do MT She can enter some colleges to start diploma, or she can go to somewhere like EDA (there are lots of courses offering this type of course, not all of them are very good - EDA is one of the best) and do a 2 year BTECH then audition for degree courses (or level 6 diploma) or she can stay on at school do A’levels then audition for degree courses. MT where the main strength is singing and acting then colleges prefer them at 18. Some don’t get in first time, or second time and may get offered foundation course for 1 year if they have potential but are not quite ready for the full on degree course. Lots of colleges offer this - EDA, GSA, Arts, Mountview etc. It’s all a bit messy.

Best thing is to create a spreadsheet to make sense of it all.

Thank you yes will do. It’s all quite mixed and confusing as you say.
We wouldn’t qualify for DaDa anyway but couldn’t afford laines so that’s out. Can’t afford arts Ed either. Would only be able to afford either 3 year diploma or help with degree course not both (do people do 3 year diploma at 16 then on to 3 year degree? Or is your 3 year diploma at say birds in place of a degree?)
At 16 I don’t think DD would be ready to leave home. We are SE can get to London but not really to EDA daily. Not many places we can get to that offer sixth form performing arts and those few that do I have no clue if they are any good or not!

If you do the 3 year diploma it’s level 6 which is the same level as a degree but without the academic content. So if you want to then afterwards you can top it up to a full degree with a 12-18 month distance learning course.

If the training your DD is getting now is good then there is no harm in staying at home, doing A’levels and continuing with acting, singing and dance lessons. Get signed up to an audition preparation course in the summer holidays next year with places like GSA or Arts Ed. Apply for NYMT at the end of this year to do their shows in 2025 to gain valuable experience. Investigate doing some singing lessons or workshops with people with strong West End contacts - look at ‘beginners call’ on instergram run by Carrie Hope Fletcher and Joel
Montigue. Or look for lessons by ‘Vocal balance’ or their teachers. Do some drop in jazz classes at pineapple or dance works. All things that add knowledge, understanding, resilience, confidence.

level 6 diploma is instead of a degree - one or the other. But if you don’t qualify for funding of diploma then go for a degree course. Options could be:
Wilkes, GSA, Urdang, Bird, Performers, Italia Conti, PPA, EDA, Royal Welsh, Scottish conservatoire, central school of speech and drama, trinity Laban and probably a few I’ve missed out!

If auditionees are not in full time training from 16-18 before auditioning for degree courses they have to add in lots of extras to be able to compete. It’s a tough gig, not only are the successful ones very talented, they are also resilient, put themselves out of their comfort zones to learn and improve and need to understand exactly what they are getting themselves into. Getting into degree courses is hard, but that’s the easy part - getting agents and jobs is tougher still.

It’s a minefield, although we do have a performing arts sixth form that could have been doable my son had never shown that much of an interest so he has done a levels ( photography, sociology and film studies), all of his drama has been extra curricular and had never been on stage before 2022. I do think we started on a back foot, and had no one to guide us through the process but he has degree offers so it isn’t impossible (although as a boy in the industry it is slightly “easier”)

Thank you for all your advice! Yes DD is doing so much out of school now that really I don’t think it will be possible to continue all of this during a’levels really. Next year GCSE will be hard enough. She is in a couple of good associates programmes, Two regular dance / mt schools (and all the shows that involves) and extra singing lessons. It adds up to all weekend every weekend and 3 after schools a week. Any weekend days we might have free she does extra intensives and workshops.
Also she really doesn’t want to do alevels. Everyone we know in dance is either homeschooled now (able to take many opportunities all day / have agents at 14 and are already getting work) or planning to leave at 16 to dance full time. A’levels won’t do anything for dance / performing and I worry she will get left behind really. I know it’s different for the acting world
Good advice about singing!

That all sounds very good. My DS would not have been interested in A’levels either. I gave him one shot to audition at degree level and only for a few top schools (my thinking was if he wasn’t good enough to get in straight away then it would be too difficult to make it as a career) so to give it the best shot we decided he needed to immerse himself in full time training after GCSE’s. Luckily it worked for him. He did home stay while at EDA which really worked well. Some kids did weekly home stay then went home at weekends, we were too far away to do that. He settled well and got used to it quickly. There is a college in Milton Keynes who do similar to EDA who are also very good, there of course is Brit school too.

Thank you for your reply!
with the home stay, how did he get in to EDA as I know placements likely won’t be all that local possibly?
Such a big step leaving home at 16 although we are near enough to come home at weekends.
There is a PA sixth form (dance focus) fairly near us and leavers do go on to Wilkes, addict bird and laines etc. just wondering if the quality there is good enough as I only have that to go by- I’ve not been in this industry myself! How can you tell if somewhere that offers level 3 diploma is ‘good enough’ training at 16-18? Just by leavers placements?

My daughter is just finishing a two year BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts at a local specialist 6th form. She's had the time of her life. She's had fabulous opportunities and has quite a few offers for MT degree courses and is on a waiting list for one of the top drama schools. We've got a dilemma as she can't decide which way she wants to go. I would highly recommend this route as you're learning skills you need for the future instead of being bogged down having to work and study for A-levels. She's done 3 shows a year with this school in a reputable working theatre. All her friends are going to good performing arts schools in September unless they are deferring for a year.

He auditioned and got an offer within about a week I think, they then sent a questionnaire to ask our preferences re homestay and matched us with someone who was offering what we wanted. We went to see her and she was a caring lady so we agreed. He stayed there for the 2 years. It was a bus ride away but in Second year he had a car. Some of his friends changed home stay after first year as they wanted something different.

I had no issue with him moving away from home (but of course all families are different) his brother went to board at Tring at 14 so 16/17 seemed fine to me.

I think to work out if they are a good 6th form/BTECH course it’s a case of getting info on where everyone got offers going forward from the previous 2 years, not just a few, but everyone, go to a show, go to an open day, speak to the students about the real day to day running of the place, not just the marketing spiel - you want positives and negatives. Then of course at audition, how did they feel, what’s the vibe of the place?

Thank you very helpful. Did you just ask for the info about where everyone got offers? I wasn’t sure how readily they would hand that out. EDA I think would be incredibly hard to get into esp for girls so need to be realistic

If they are not giving the info freely then that rings alarm bells. EDA publish that data ready and very proud of their stats. The other college I was trying to think of was Arts1 in Milton Keynes, have a look as a comparison. Local colleges may offer fabulous training, just depends where you live, where we live there were no viable options - we went to see the local college show who was offering at level 3 extended BTECH - so on paper the same as EDA, oh my word the standard was appalling, I felt embarrassed for the college, the students were so uncomfortable on stage it was truly awful, that was when I said to DS he could go to EDA if he got in.

Agreed, it is tougher for the girls as the competition if tougher but equally, there were a few on DS course who weren’t amazing to start with but developed beautifully. My view has always been, you don’t get in if you don’t try so try for what you want - what’s for you won’t pass you by.

Hi! I see you have had replies to this but to add- my daughter was 18 when she went to EDA post A Level, then went to Bird at 19. She loved EDA but Bird was a better fit for 3 years. She went to Bird as a Dancer-Singer-Actor and left as an Actor-Singer-Dancer!

Oh wow how interesting that she changed! Which course did she do at 18? How long ago did she do the course and also did she find doing alevels held her back in terms the amount of day to day practical dance others that had gone to college at 16 were doing?

It was very unexpected when she changed! Bird streamed her on to their Actor Singer pathway and she was initially dismayed- but they turned out to be absolutely right :)
At 18 she did a one year foundation course. I can only speak from her/ our experience but I think that is probably designed for pupils who did As as opposed to a BTEC who typically would be hoping to go straight in to a three year course. Foundation is tough though- they spend the whole year trying to secure their next move.

My dd has accepted a Foundation in MT at Italia Conti. She did apply for full degree courses but is pleased to have secured this as a test to see if she really wants to do the 3 years. She’s also juggled the audition process with A levels (drama, Psych and Spanish .. which was a lot to deal with . She appreciates she’s got to start all over again re applications but it’s got to be easier when you are in training and with the right people than trying to record videos in the kitchen ! Good luck to everyone doing exams

I think this has been the toughest thing! Auditions and self tapes (with no real clue what he was doing), shows and extra lessons, a levels and travel to college. I’m exhausted never mind him! Good luck to your daughter xxxx