So you've carefully selected a good range of speeches for your drama school auditions – and checked the audition requirements of each of the schools that you're applying to. What's the best way to prepare them? Simon Dunmore proposes the following strategy for each speech, before you begin to learn it.
Who are you? You must bring your character's life history (gleaned from the play and supplemented by your imagination) into your performance. Most of what you ‘bring' won't be obvious to your auditioners. However, it will be immediately obvious if that ‘life history' is not present. Just as 90% of an iceberg is underwater, a similar proportion of a good performance is also hidden — but must be there, underneath, to support that performance.
Tip Carry a small notebook around with you so that you can jot down new ideas as they occur to you. As the character (i.e. in the first person) write notes of all the bits of information (big and small) that you find in order to build his/her life.
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