About 2 months ago, me and my friend Lauren (she does acting with me too) did 2 LAMDA auditions. This happens every year, the college gets LAMDA (the London academy of music and dramatic art) to come down and examine us on 2 contrasting pieces(one modern and one dated e.g. before 1950). They do this because it will give us more experience when it comes to auditions and how the process works, so we can feel prepared for what could happen.
Lauren and I pieces were called 'Fault' which is one from the LAMDA audition material book (which we has to choose from) and we also did 'The Importance of Being Ernest' which is written by Oscar Wilde, we did the scene where Cecily and Gwendolen are meeting for the first time, i played Cecily as my lecturer thought that the character suited me more.
Lets just say the whole experience was rather tense. Because personally I've always struggled with my Diction which is how you pronounce your words. As i struggle to pronounce my T's and TH sounds in words. Because i was brought up in East London most TH sounds were replaced with the V sound or F sound. But i have been working on it by having a vocal routine which is helping my diction, i practice it on a Wednesday and Sunday evening.
But back to the LAMDA auditions.. the day went very quickly as there was a nice lady who was our examiner and we'd show both of our pieces in costume and using props. Then she would ask us individually questions about our knowledge of both pieces, i felt very confident when it came to the questions and it showed because i got full marks when it came to the Knowledge section. After we'd answer the questions the examiner then would test us on our knowledge of the stage. She would tell us to go to stage left, stage right, center stage etc. This may sound easy to you but the stage directions are set the way the audience see it so if she said stage right I would have to do the opposite because it would be my left but we'd have to go the audiences right, and that's how it works.
So overall i got a Merit( 3 marks off a distinction which is the highest grade) if i'm being totally honest i was very disappointed because i was so close to a Distinction and that i worked so hard. Through this process we also had to write logbooks of our process over 15 weeks, and let me tell you they're a pain in the but because we got marked on them too and they had to be VERY detailed! But good news for me is i actually got a Distinction in my written work which i was very surprised about because I've always struggled when it comes to writing especially in something that detailed.
Now its finished and i only have to wait till September until we start working on LAMDA auditions again.. what a joy!
