Orla Hughes of County Wexford Youth Theatre shares her experience of NAYD’s recent Audition Clinic for youth theatre members:

On Monday the 21^st of February I was one of eight participants to work with Alan King in NAYD’s Audition Clinic. The workshop was for youth theatre members who had an interest in auditioning for acting colleges. Everyone was applying to different places UCD, RADA, DIT and The Lir. But we all had the same goal, to improve our monologues.

We warmed up and played a few games. A beneficial exercise we did was one where Alan asked us questions about the character from our weaker monologue. He asked basic things about the play, for example:

When is the play set?

Is this monologue in the beginning, middle or end of the play?

Who are they talking to?

How would your character stand?

What emotions are in each line?

These challenged some of us to find out more and think more about the background of our characters. I found this helpful and it made me realise I need to know my character from my Classical monologue better. If I don’t know much about who I’m playing, no audience will find my character believable.

After this we set to work  getting up one-by-one and performing our monologues for each other. We saw everything from Shakespeare to a crazy guy who was over-protective of fruit! Even when it wasn’t your turn, the comments other people got were useful for learning.

Each person went home with a better understanding of what they were doing and what they needed to work on. I found it a really worthwhile day and would like to thank NAYD for organising the workshop.

Orla

If you couldn’t make the workshop, but want some tips for your audition, we have added an Advice Sheet on Auditioning to the Advice Centre of our website.