Advice to Candidates who audition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Auditions - advice to candidates

Audition Pieces: You should prepare 3 contrasting dramatic pieces of your own choice:

1. One must be in verse blank or rhymed from a play by Shakespeare or another Jacobean playwright.
2. One from a modern play written after 1956. 
3. One should be a lighter piece (i.e. not a tragic or serious piece) from any period. You should be aware that pieces by Victoria Wood and Alan Bennett are very frequently chosen by candidates. Poems are not especially helpful to the Selection Panel.

You should read the whole of the plays from which your pieces are taken so that you understand the character and the context properly. Television or film scripts are acceptable provided that the pieces you choose are monologues, not duologues.

Try to do your piece in your own accent. Choosing a dialect piece won't help you.

Please make sure your pieces do not exceed 2 minutes each. Any audience should be left wanting more, not less!

If you are also applying to one of those drama schools which set specific pieces for candidates, try and find something different for the Guildhall.

You should also prepare a short song which you can sing unaccompanied. This is not a major part of the audition; indeed, you may or may not be asked to sing at your preliminary audition. If you are, how you act it (i.e. tell the story) is more important than how well you sing it.

Note that the Department is unable to give advice about specific pieces. It is up to you to find and choose them.

Preparing For the Audition: It is probably helpful if one of your pieces is close to you in age and life experience.

Be simple and truthful. It is perfectly acceptable if you work on your pieces on your own. The Selection Panel are interested in what YOU have to offer, not a teacher's or a friend's interpretation of the piece.

During the Audition: Inevitably, you'll suffer from nerves. The Selection Panel understands this and, having had to face auditions themselves, will be sympathetic.

Usually, during the preliminary auditions, there will be a student or ex student to show you where to go and to help you. He or she will prompt if you 'dry', but make sure you have copies of your pieces with you.

There will usually be a table and a couple of chairs available should you need them.

Don't worry if the Panel stop you mid way through a piece or make notes and don't worry if the Panel do not ask you to sing or do your third piece. It may be more useful for the Panel to spend a longer time in discussion with you.