Advice for making the most of your time at drama school, including common mistakes and how to avoid them and improving your acting skills after graduation.
In the final instalment of this two-part special of The Spotlight Podcast, we talk to Charleen Qwaye (Co-founder and Director of Training, Fourth Monkey), Stewart Nicholls (BA Musical Theatre Programme Leader, Guildford School of Acting), Geoff Brumlik (Senior Acting Tutor, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School), Helen Mackay (Lecturer in Professional Practise, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and Christabel Clark (Acting Tutor/Program Coordinator, MetFilm School) about making the most of your time at drama school.
We discuss tips for thriving during your time at drama school, common mistakes and how they can be avoided, maintaining your skills once you leave drama school, and ways to keep yourself engaged with your community.
In case you haven’t done so already, make sure you listen to part one of this drama school discussion to get the most out of our panel’s expert advice.
From left to right: Charleen Qwaye (Headshot credit: Kim Hardy), Stewart Nicholls (Headshot credit: GSA), Geoffrey Brumlik (Headshot credit: Ian Jackson), Helen Mackay (Headshot credit: Robbie McFadzean), Christabel Clark (Headshot credit: Tony Blake)
A 37-minute listen or a full transcript of the episode can be found below:
Episode Transcript:
Ilayda:
Hi. Welcome to the Spotlight Podcast. My name is Ilayda, and welcome to part 2 about all things drama school.
Charleen Qwaye:
Hello, my name is Charleen Qwaye. I’m the co-founder, director of training, and deputy CEO of Fourth Monkey.
Stewart Nicholls:
Hello there, I’m Stewart Nicholls. I’m a senior lecturer, and I’m the programme leader of the BA Musical Theatre course at the Guildford School of Acting.
Geoff Brumlik:
Hi, my name is Geoff Brumlik. I’m head of the Master’s Acting programme, and a senior acting tutor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Helen Mackay:
Hello, my name is Helen Mackay. I am the lecturer in professional practise on the BA Acting course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.
Christabel Clark:
Hello, I’m Christabel Clark. I’m a tutor and programme coordinator at the MetFilm School in London.
Ilayda:
So, we’re going to jump to the second part of this discussion now, which is, assuming that a person has gone through the process of auditioning, found themselves lucky, ecstatic, et cetera, to be at drama school, what is the one piece of advice for how actors can thrive and make the most of their time at drama school?
I’ll carry out this by, if we can start with top-line stuff, just a sentence or two, just because I’m quite aware of time, and then, if we need to, we can dig into it a little bit more. But if anybody has something that immediately comes to mind, please do jump in.
Geoff Brumlik:
Don’t worry about succeeding, worry about learning. You’re there for that.
Ilayda:
Gorgeous.
Stewart Nicholls:
Don’t compare yourself to others on the course.
Ilayda:
Yeah, that’s a really good one.
Helen Mackay:
I think, look after-
Stewart Nicholls:
Eat, sleep, and drink.
Ilayda:
Eat, sleep, and drink.
Helen Mackay:
That’s exactly what I was going to say.
Stewart Nicholls:
Sorry, sorry.
Helen Mackay:
No, that’s brilliant. And that’s exactly what I was going to say, like, look after yourself, drink water, make sure you’re sleeping, take your vitamins, because it’s tough, the hours are tough.
And as much as people look at that on a website and go, “Yeah, I want that. Yeah, I’m really keen for that,” the reality of it is, it’s a bit like being an athlete sometimes. So, just being prepared to look after yourself is so important.
Ilayda:
Right. Yeah, just ultimately, you’re working with your instrument, so you’ve got to keep it looked after. And actually, your body is important, so is your mind, presumably, as well, because it’s a huge part of that instrument.
Charleen Qwaye:
That’s exactly what I was just going to say about your mind, but also your heart and your soul, because sometimes it’s so hardworking in these long hours and in this kind of really intense way that you forget what you are aiming for.
So, it’s always good to keep going to see things, going to hear things, being moved by things, because then it keeps the end-goal in sight or it’s part of the end-vision. Because I’m a bit funny about goals because it suggests there’s one answer. And I’m greedy, I like all the answers, I want everything available to me.
So, just making sure you keep the eye on the prizes, shall we say, so that you know every day why you’re getting up to do that class and you don’t feel like it, or it’s a really early start, or we’re teching or we’re on location and it’s just 5:00 in the morning, let me sleep.
But making sure you look after your body, but you look after your mind and you look after your vision, take care of it, because it’s easy to get lost when you’re working so hard and you’re knackered and it’s just, or maybe you’re poorly… So, just make sure you take care of your vision and you do things that inspire you and you put yourself deliberately in those places.
Stewart Nicholls:
I think Charleen’s absolutely right there, it’s hard work, acting. It’s a really hard profession, but it’s hard work. And I think sometimes students come and it’s been their hobby, and suddenly it’s their profession, and they don’t realise what hard work that is.
And it’s that first year of a three-year course where you suddenly realise, “Oh, this is harder than I thought,” and you’ve got to find ways of navigating that as an individual.
Ilayda:
Yeah, I really relate to that. Christabel, were you about to jump in?
Christabel Clark:
Yeah, I think also to keep sight of why you’re there, and check in with yourself regularly. It’s easy for drama school to become this bubble, and it becomes your whole world because you’re there all the time, every day, and things become a big deal and you’re working really hard, and sometimes you might get caught up in this trap of trying to impress your peers, trying to impress your tutors, trying to be the perfect student.
And actually, you want to be there to learn. It’s your time to make mistakes, to experiment and do stuff that flops and fails, and learn from the failure. Nothing is really failure. It’s all learning. And this is your time to push those boundaries, test out different styles, different characters.
Really, really push yourself without trying to impress anyone, because there’s a whole big wide world out there. And when you get into there, your whole world opens up.
Ilayda:
Yeah. And it’s lovely that you mentioned the drama school bubble because that was literally going to be my next question, which is, it’s a well-documented, often-talked-about concept, this idea that you spend anywhere from a year to three years very rigorously working on the craft, and meeting incredible teachers and directors and mixing with other actors, and then all of a sudden it’s over.
And you are out and you’re in the real world and fending for yourself, for the most part, and trying to navigate an industry that’s very famously quite difficult. What advice would you give to people who might be struggling with the loss of that drama school bubble? How can they ease that potential shock and feel like they have a handle on things?
Helen Mackay:
Yeah, I’d love to jump in. This is a conversation I actually had with someone the other day, and I think there’s probably lots of answers. This is just one offering. But we were talking, and this word came up quite recently about structure, that throughout life, throughout school, and then drama school, whatever your path, there’s structure, someone structures your time.
And there’s something really, we all joked about it earlier, like, “Oh, I wish… We would like that structure.” And actually, that was a really hard thing for a lot of people who suddenly become freelance, of just going, “It’s Wednesday, what do I do,” and going, “Okay, how do we learn to,” if this works for you, it might not, but, “How do we learn to structure our own time,” and to go, “Okay, does this work for us?”
And I had a conversation with someone about that yesterday, and it really helps me certainly. I’m part-time, but I’m also a freelancer, and I’ve been a freelancer for 17 years. And for me, the one thing that helped me certainly with my mental health, that got me through those times, was giving myself a structure, whatever that was, getting involved in things.
And that structure, for me, certainly was involved with other people so I wasn’t letting other people down. Yes, I’m going to join that group and we go there on a Wednesday, and then we’re going to meet here and do this. Or I might go to a gym class or I’ll go to the cinema.
I remember having a Cineworld card, because I could afford that. And I was like, “At least every day I know that I could go to the cinema.” That’s something I can do. So, for me, I think that that’s one offering that I would give up would be, look at how maybe structured your life has been, and is the issue that it’s not so structured now, and how can you take control and ownership of that.
Ilayda:
That’s beautiful, yeah.
Charleen Qwaye:
So, I think Helen’s right in the fact that that’s probably very individual for every single school. So, I’ll be specific about Fourth Monkey. And I think this is where our genuine, one of our tenants of community in ensemble is the thing, because we have our alumni, I think they’ve call themselves Legends of Monkey, or something, and there is a proper community, that once you graduate, you have something.
And I think when Steve and I created the school in 2010, it was something that we felt really passionate about because it’s real. Transition is really hard. And coming out of this structured environment, for some people it’s not a thing, but for others it really is.
So, we have, the nature of our BA course, like I said, we act, make, move, and collaborate, but that is a genuine thing. So, when the students graduate, they have a creation that they have in their hands that they can pursue that and drive that forward in the meantime.
So, this idea of making artists is a fledged being, if you like, in this Fourth Monkey working environment so you’ve got things to do, but also, as part of the exit programme that we have, you have a plan. And we talk it through with a tutor or with a member of staff.
We talk it through with the student, “Okay, what are you going to do? How does it look? You’ve got all your materials as an actor, obviously, but you’ve also got maker tools, genuine maker tools. Are you going to put that on at the Vaults?” We’ve got a lovely relationship with the Vaults, for example.
“Are you going to do something? Where are you going to go next? Does that make sense?” And I think… I’ve made it very clear to all the students, we are a relatively small school within the drama school, if you like, landscape. And we know everybody’s names, but they also know that I like red velvet cake.
And so, if you need to come in for a conversation, if you’re feeling a bit lost or a bit low, let’s have that conversation. Come in and speak to us. It feels like the safety net goes, I think, when you graduate from drama school. And it’s something that we were very, very passionate about because we saw that people fell off because there was no support mechanism.
Again, the ensemble company that we have, sometimes it’s, “Bring that person in, let’s do something with that talent that we kind of invested in and they’ve invested in us.” And it doesn’t have to just be acting. We also look at making producers and that people understand how to produce their own work and to market their own thing.
So, I think it’s all of those things, but it’s going to be so unique to every single drama score, but at Fourth Monkey, it’s deliberate designed to kind of cushion that as much as possible-
Ilayda:
Right.
Charleen Qwaye:
… as much as possible.
Ilayda:
Yeah. And what I’m hearing from both things that Helen and you, Charleen, have said is that it comes back to having people around you, whether it be having yourself held accountable by turning up to your gym session with your buddy, or having a cohort of fellow creator/actors who might be willing to start something just for the sake of it, just to keep the brain engaged and the body active. And-
Charleen Qwaye:
And knowing who you are as well. Sorry, I should have said that. I didn’t mean to jump in.
Ilayda:
Yeah.
Charleen Qwaye:
Sorry. But knowing who you are, because if you’re the kind of person that knows you need structure, it’s vital that you do it before you get to that point. And part of our drama training is the fact that you do get to know who you are. We have a module called Who Am I? And it’s so important at play, discovering what moves me. We have all of these projects.
So, you’re doing that from day one that you come in the building so you really have an opportunity to know who you are by the end. Of course you’re going to be ever-evolving. We all are. But you’ve got really clear mechanisms in place and you’ve exercised that muscle enough to develop that further.
Ilayda:
Yeah.
Charleen Qwaye:
And these things keep you feeling secure.
Ilayda:
Yeah.
Stewart Nicholls:
One of the things we do is a piece of writing, actually, in the 3rd year where they have to write a professional development plan for their five years after drama school. So, they’re actually thinking ahead rather than the reflective essay on what they’ve done.
So, they’re thinking ahead, even to the simple things like, you have to have a job, you have to put food on the table somehow. And actually, there’s nothing wrong in that. We’ve all been there. And the reality is, and they learn this through professional development classes…
Because we always joke, triple threat, but there’s a fourth thing, and that’s understanding how to be a self-employed professional person is actually just going, “Well, actually, I am gonna have to work in a pub, I am gonna have to temp. And how do I navigate my auditions around all that?”
And actually, everyone has to do that when you’re an actor leaving. So, it’s just knowing that they’re not on their own. Everybody that leaves drama school is in exactly the same boat. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve trained in musical theatre or applied to contemporary or acting or ballet, it doesn’t matter, you are all leaving and going to auditions with the same people.
So, you’ve just got to accept that everyone is going to be that self-employed person, and they will have to find their way to navigate it. And the best way to do that is to make sure you chat with your friends, I think.
Ilayda:
Yeah. I think-
Geoff Brumlik:
Spot on.
Ilayda:
Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Geoffrey.
Geoff Brumlik:
I was just going to say that I think that, yes, we do a written document too, and it’s huge. You have this vision when you leave school that you’ve got to be prepared that that just somehow can leave you. So, you need it solidified so that it’s a touchstone.
I also think to expect, to anticipate it, that we talk to people about saying, because you see, you don’t feel like you’re failing when suddenly, because you feel like you’re set for the biggest success in the world as you step out of theatre school, and then the floor falls out from under you.
And I think to say, that’s part of the deal that you need to anticipate that there will be this period after you go that will seem like chaos in a small way. And it’s not that you’re failing, but you need to be prepared to manage that, because I think it’s what everybody says, that everybody experiences that.
And I think it’s also just knowing that it’s part of the transition and it’s not, if you were a better actor, you would just step straight into representation and a brilliant career. It’s as much part of the deal with anything else.
Ilayda:
I totally, totally agree. I wish that somebody at some point when I’d left drama school had reminded me of that, because it really felt like I had jumped off the diving board into a swimming pool that was full of no water and just concrete and a bed of nails, which sounds melodramatic, but go figure.
Helen Mackay:
It sounds painful.
Ilayda:
But all of these things, I think, are really useful for people to hear, that actually, you leave drama school and it’s okay to have a job. In fact, it’s smart to have a job. You leave drama school, and please, stay connected to your peers. Please remember that, actually, you will feel a little bit rubbish for a bit because for better or worse, you’ve had the time of your life learning the craft for three years or however long.
And it brings me back round to this question of, say you’ve been using your brain, your body, you’ve been immersed in the craft for X amount of time, you leave, and then yes, you’re keeping busy by maybe trying to create stuff or having accountability buddies, or just whatever, but how can you keep your instrument as an actor active and exercised while you are out of drama school and looking for work? What might be some good resources for support, community, keeping your skills engaged while you are out in the world post drama school?
Charleen Qwaye:
So, again, I think that’s to do with continuing your professional development. And any artist must always do that. And so, again, it’s, how do you do that? So, you find those opportunities to do short courses somewhere, you find the…
Also, if you haven’t got the money, what’s lovely, I think Helen mentioned it earlier about, you can make yourself a bit better actor if you’ve got the tools because you’ve got a phone. So, you can just film things, you can do self-tape challenges. I think the monkeys do that already. Sorry, we call our students monkeys, that’s what we do.
And so, they have these self-tape challenges. They keep that muscle warm because also, the memories is a muscle. And you get the audition lastminute.com and all of a sudden you’ve forgotten how to learn lines because your head hasn’t been in it. So, it’s doing things that make you feel like an actor.
But again, if you haven’t got that, find your own peer group or you’ll find part of the community reach out. And you won’t be the only one feeling that way. But for sure, look up short courses, look up, I don’t know, residencies anywhere you want in the world, why not? Let’s go crazy. Look up these residencies, find them.
Do other things that develop yourself as an artist, whether that’s writing, whether that’s film production, whether that’s, I don’t know, pottery, I don’t know, fill your boots, do your thing, but keep adding to, keep adding to. Dancers, it’s their mentality. They know they have to do bar, they know they have to do their vocal warmup.
Pianists the same thing, they have to do their scales, arpeggios. But I think sometimes with actors, they think, “Oh, no, no, it’s fine, I can just turn it on and off.” And actually, you can’t really, not if you are aiming up here. And I think even city things like theatre, the voice work is so important.
Yeah, sometimes you have a mic, mostly now you have a mic, but you still got to be able to use your instrument properly, you’ve still got to keep that muscle nice and strong and ready to go at all times. So, again, it’s just about being creative. Find these places, immerse yourself in them, create your own, you know?
Stewart Nicholls:
It’s really hard, isn’t it? I was going to say, I think it’s just really hard when you leave drama school, particularly for musical theatre, because you want to do your dancing, you want to do your singing, but yet that costs a lot of money if you want to do it properly, because you want to go to the right teachers.
And I just think it’s a really hard question to answer for any of us, because in the end, a lot of this stuff we can say, “Oh, yeah, create your own work and do all this kind of stuff,” but that’s really hard because that costs money as well. So, I don’t know what the answer is. Does anyone? I don’t know.
Christabel Clark:
I’m a massive advocate for not making yourself feel like you have to pay more money. And I really do believe that there is always an alternative. Yes, you might not be able to attend that class, but there’s stuff online. You can have your own regime that you practise in your two-metre square of floor space that you have where you live.
If you just believe that there is a solution, you will find it, and you will find it without a cost to yourself. The internet is such an incredible resource, like YouTube, there are vocal warmups that you wouldn’t have to pay a penny to do other than whatever your monthly broadband fee is, and have that as your routine.
And I also believe in not pigeonholing yourself. So, get interested in the world, listen to podcasts, learn about science, learn about politics, learn about the environment, talk to people, get interested, because all of this just builds yourself up as a person, and makes you more resourceful, gives you creative ways.
You’re a creative person, you find creative ways to work around whatever challenges you personally have and you are coming up against. And yeah, I really believe that I think sometimes young students and graduates can feel they’re not enough, or they can feel insecure. “I’ve just graduated, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
But you do. And trust yourself. And don’t let people tell you that you still need to spend money because you are not good enough. I think that’s a myth, and that you just don’t have to. There’s always a way.
Helen Mackay:
I was just going to pick up really quick, and I think there’s fun to be had there. I remember years ago living in a flat with two other girls. We were all actors. And we used to have this thing called Accent Hour, which was 5:00 to 6:00 in the evening while we were making dinner. And that was Accent Hour.
And someone would pick an accent, and that’s what we would do. And it was just one of those things that we did to keep ourselves going. And although there was obviously a lot of fun, and then we’d send voice notes, all that kind of things, but there was something about that that just reminded you that, actually, it’s fun. It doesn’t have to be a chore of, like, “I’m doing this.”
Little things like that that would… I do it now when I’m maybe reading stories to my little girl, and you just go, “Oh, yeah, this can be fun.” It’s something. It’s something to keep it going. It doesn’t have to be the massive things. There are tiny things that can help your creativity as well.
Charleen Qwaye:
I just going to add in things like local theatre. It’s a massive part of our community in this industry. Local theatre needs help, it needs support, and we are a part of that. And if you’re ever stuck, there are so many local theatres that would lap you up in a heartbeat. And there are things that you can do, for sure.
And I think what you said, Helen, that made me laugh because I thought when I was doing my muggle job, I was on a call centre, and they’d be like, “Who’s the… Charleen, is that you again on the…” Do you know what I mean, using a different accent.
And I’d be doing it all the time because I knew that that was a muscle that I needed to flex. And finding these ways that celebrate who you are, how you do something is just as important as the community that you are a part of and that you contribute to.
So, finding these really cool, quirky ways that maybe sound really crazy or really silly, that actually are not really crazy or really silly, but really creative. We’ve talked about these gorgeous courses that we all offer, if nothing else, it should be teaching us, or teaching the students, or our graduates how to be creative, how to think outside of boxes, how to fortify who they are, and establish themselves as individuals, independent thinkers.
Let’s empower that, let’s harness that. So, do whatever craziness that you think is going to help you, that actually serves your craft, that serves your talent, that continues to honour it past the three years that you spent in drama school, or the two years or the one year, whatever it may be. But it should be fun, it should be fun. And work to who you are in your strengths.
Geoff Brumlik:
I just want to point out the one thing about this, the difference that a number of you have pointed out, it’s really important. I think it’s way easier, however you do it, to motivate yourself rather than thinking of it as maintaining your skills, which is I think a very depressing concept, think of it as growing your skills, that if it’s a process of learning as opposed to just saying, “I’m gonna do my vocal exercises so I don’t get worse.” It seems like a small thing, but it’s part of the pleasure in it, I think, that many of you have touched on.
Ilayda:
Right. In essence, so much of what everybody said today has been about, once you’re in drama school, please remember to enjoy it, please remember to not constantly be comparing yourself, and please remember to actually play, and learn how to fail gracefully and with humility, and or…
And why should that stop once you leave those four walls, metaphorical walls of the institution ultimately. I certainly know from my personal experience, the moments that I got pent-up about, potentially failing or sucking at something, was immediately when everything else felt worse as well.
Whereas, when I was having more fun trying to just “f” around and find out, everything started to flow better. And it sounds like the general ethos that has been the major riding theme of this entire conversation has been, like, remember, it’s something that is hard work, but it’s also love and passion and gratitude for being able to do it.
And be there, and presence, and all of these lovely words that are just going to sound like sound bites now, so I’m going to stop talking. What is a common mistake that you often see actors at drama school making, and how can people avoid this mistake?
Geoff Brumlik:
I think it’s possible to get into a mindset of being really driven, especially if you’ve had to be driven to get into acting school, you’ve had to put a lot of energy into it. And I think it’s easy to fall into a really narrow thinking, and I need to really do this. And it’s focused on wrong, as opposed to… You are going to be learning while you’re there no matter what.
And you may not, on a day-to-day basis, go, “I’m getting better,” but I think you need to let go of grasping the reins with both hands and leaning forward, and just allowing yourself to discover what you’re going to learn while you’re there, rather than feeling like you need to always be pushing forward, which I think is eventually counterproductive.
Ilayda:
Love that. It sounds like, someone else said it earlier in the question about what’s your number one piece of advice for how to thrive, and I can’t remember who it was, someone said, “Don’t compare yourself too much,” because you’re ultimately driving down your own lane, so just drive. Drive as well as you can, and…
Stewart Nicholls:
I think another thing is not to be blinkered. I think it’s very easy to come in as a first-year on a three-year course and go, “Well, this is what I do, this is my thing,” and not actually realising that, if you open your eyes up to so many things, you are actually capable of doing a lot more, so that when you leave, you’re really, really, really employable because you’ve got so many more strings to your bow.
So, just being really, really open-minded, and actually sometimes going, “I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s good, but I don’t know why I’m doing it, because actually, I know, as a student, I wanted that,” and then six years down the line when I left, to go, “Oh, that’s why I did that class.” So, I think just being really open-minded is really important.
Helen Mackay:
Yeah, I think that’s brilliant. I think a great acting note I was once given that relates to this is, don’t play the end of the play at the start. And I think that really resonates with me, with students that maybe come in, and suddenly they’re already looking at what’s going to happen when they graduate.
And of course there is an element that you’re looking forward and you’re moving forward, but I think sometimes I watch people miss the moment, I watch people miss beautiful, incredible moments because they’re already thinking somewhere else. And I’ve done it myself, absolutely.
And just being present in the moment and going, “Wow, I’m in an amazing place with some brilliant people and we did some brilliant things today. Great, now let’s go to the pub,” and not worry too much about what’s going to happen in three years.
I think that’s something that I am trying to work on in life is just trying to be more present and enjoy each moment for what it is. And I see it so often. And a lot of the time I’ll say, “So, what are you doing this weekend? Just go and do what you wanna do. Be present in this moment and really relish it.”
Christabel Clark:
I think, again, being present, and I think if we dig a bit bit deeper, if we look at the world, if we look at our educational system, it’s quite hard to be present because you’re just getting things coming at you all the time. So, actually, being present is quite a thing to ask of people.
But I think you are absolutely right. You can miss things just because you were looking too far ahead. I think another thing, and I can speak on this because before we were accredited, we were not. And so, the introduction, if you like, of assessment has sometimes meant that students look for their mark for that assessment, and then they lose sight of the bigger picture.
If we’re creating artists, don’t worry about that assessment mark. Let it take care of itself. It’s a snapshot of your journey. And so, contextualising it, not minimising it, not doing that, but understanding that the long journey is here. So, you might as well get as much richness, as much discovery, as much play, as much exploration as possible on the journey.
But I think, sometimes, particularly when you’re coming from A-levels, or what have you, you’re so used to having to succeed, you cannot even countenance the idea of failing. But no, fail spectacularly. Be the best failure possible. Go for it. That’s what we’re here to do.
But sometimes it’s really so well ingrained in people that failure is such a scary thing. But why? You’re human, that’s what we do sometimes. It’s no problem. So, I think definitely being present, I think just knowing that this is a journey that you are on, so don’t let something curtail that or put a boundary on tha.
But also, just allowing yourself to transition from being in a school environment, if you like, to being in an artistic, creative, independent, empowered environment, which is maybe quite a mind transition that sometimes I think we forget. We’re taught to succeed and that success is the thing that you strive for, but actually, you suffocate everything else that comes along your way to make your journey much richer and much more profound.
Ilayda:
Okay. Oh, yes, Stuart, go ahead.
Stewart Nicholls:
I’m totally with Charleen there in that, actually, failure is something that you learn more from. It’s unbelievable. And we are doing that in a negative way. It’s just, something doesn’t go quite right in the class, just go, “Oh, actually I’ve really learned that. I’m not gonna do that again.” So, it’s a really good way of learning.
And the other thing I think is, when sometimes you’re in a class and you’re a student and you’re watching someone else deliver something, you actually learn, sometimes, more from watching than from doing. And I think that’s quite hard to understand when you’re 17, 18, 19.
But it’s something that I think we certainly say to our students all the time in audition classes, “Particularly watch what other people are doing. Learn from that, how they’re holding themselves, how they’re delivering. That’s just as important as you being up there doing it yourself.”
Charleen Qwaye:
There’s a lovely quote about that which says, I think it was Picasso, it’s on our wall actually, in this building, it says, “Good artists copy, great artist steal. Be a great artist.” That’s the lesson. Steal it, take it, make it yours, own it. Yes. That’s what we do every day.
Ilayda:
Amazing. Okay I think we’re pretty much there, managed to bring it in at just under two hours. Apologies to everyone. This was much more like a panel rather than a sort of flowing conversation than I would’ve liked, but obviously there’s a lot of us here, so I had to make it as such.
Thank you all so much for your contribution and your incredible insights. Does anybody else have anything to add just before we wrap up or…
Christabel Clark:
There is actually one thing that I would love to maybe have said earlier in terms of graduates finishing, and I’m just quite passionate about this, because I think a lot of actors finish drama school and feel a bit lost. And first thing they do is they need money. So, they go and take on any old job they can find, and that’s fine.
But often, they’re in this mentality of this real rat race, like, they’ve been working really hard and really fast to get into drama school and then to be at drama school, and the pace is so heightened. And then, when everything drops down and takes a step back, they can feel really lost.
And what I would encourage people to start getting the mindset of is that it is a marathon, not a sprint once you graduate. If you truly have a passion for this business, if you want this to be your career for the rest of your life, you are looking ahead to the next 30 or 40 years. It’s a huge breadth of time.
And try and encourage them not to feel they have to take on a job that they hate and that they find soul crushing, because what that can often lead to is this sense that every audition they have has to be their ticket to a better life. And that’s an awful lot of pressure to put on yourself for every audition to save you.
So, I’d like to say to our students as they’re approaching graduation, make a list, on one side, of all your hobbies, your passions, things you just love doing. It may or may not include acting. Well, it probably will include acting, but it may include other things as well as acting is the idea. And then, a list on the other side where you can list your skills.
So, these might be things, these might be skills you’ve been trained on throughout your drama school, your university experience, these might be skills you had from earlier in life, these might be second languages, anything. And wherever those skills and those passions align, wherever you can see patterns or draw connecting lines between the two, there’s a spot where you could potentially have a job or make money doing something that you enjoy, something that isn’t going to suck the energy from you.
You might end up that way finding your own side hustle or launching a business, or anything like this, and that could feed into your acting career. It might take you in a different direction or it might just support the thing that you are already passionate about.
But for people not to feel that they have to live small, they have to endure until they get saved by an acting job, but actually to feel that life is much bigger and much broader than that, and that they don’t have to just be one thing, that they can be many, many things.
Ilayda:
Thank you. Just as a final follow-up to that, it reminds me of, I think I was watching something with Brian Cranston, the Breaking Bad/Malcolm in the Middle actor, and he was saying that he used to go into auditions being like, “Yeah, I need to get this job. It’s my ticket out of this other sucky job that I have.”
And then, when he reframed it into, like, “No, I just wanna go in and do a good job, like, I just wanna be a good actor because I’ve got other stuff going on outside this as well,” he said that that shift in how he approached auditioning and the work fundamentally changed how we started doing auditions as well. So, yeah, I think it all comes to a head in that way.
So, thank you all so much for such a lovely, stimulating, insightful conversation. I really, really hope that whoever’s been listening has found it useful. And yes, hopefully our listeners will be able to find themselves at various drama schools across the country having followed some of this advice. Thank you.
Stewart Nicholls:
Thank you.
Geoff Brumlik:
Thank you.
Christabel Clark:
Thank you.
Charleen Qwaye:
Thank you.
Ilayda:
And that’s it. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. If you would like to find out anything more about some of the topics covered, then you can always head to the News and Advice section of our website. Also, you can find us on Instagram using the handle @spotlightuk, where you can find plenty more content, tips and advice for all things related to the performing arts industry.
Take a look at our website for more episodes of the Spotlight Podcast and more drama school advice.
