In the great words of Sophia Petrillo, picture it. The United Kingdom, 2021. The government is causing thousands of deaths due to criminal incompetence, pro-Trump riots terrify fans of liberal democracy everywhere and a pesticide believed to kill bees has been authorised for use. And yet, somehow, by the good grace of Liza Minnelli, you’ve managed to cling on to your dreams and have decided to apply for drama school.
With the sector in crisis, everything currently seems muddled. But after the pandemic, we are going to need new artists with innovative ideas to do what we do best: reflect the world back at audiences, help us process our collective trauma, and to shine a light on unheard voices. That’s where drama schools come in- they’re there to produce self-sustaining, collaborative artists who might help shape the future of the industry.
So you’ve prepared your classic and contemporary speech, maybe even a song. Perhaps you’ve even rehearsed and developed a specific audition piece that a certain school requires- Central are currently asking all applicants to prepare a 30-90 second solo devised piece inspired by a painting.
Let’s just pause there for a second. In the middle of a global pandemic, you’ve heroically managed to create something. Maybe it’s a bit of storytelling, stand up, puppetry, mask work, sound scape, or a movement piece. The possibilities are endless. You’ve poured your heart and soul into getting prepared for auditions that could shape the rest of your life. You may have created different pieces for different schools. One thing’s certain, a lot of time, energy and hard work has gone into it. And now you have to pay to share it.
Usually, drama schools would be preparing to host in-person auditions. When I was a wee impressionable young thing, studying Performance Art (shoutout to Ron Athey) at drama school, I earned a bit of extra cash ferrying potential students to audition rooms, or giving them tours of the building on open days. Then we’d all get bladdered in the SU afterwards on Jack Rabbit rosé. Simpler times.
Except none of that is happening this year. The audition process has gone virtual and moved entirely online for most institutions. Some are promising unlikely in-person recalls, but the majority of this process is now being conducted via the internet. Most establishments have requested candidates prepare video auditions. That part makes sense.
Now, I am not here to re-hash old arguments about drama school audition fees. Most schools will very happily tell you what an expensive process it is to audition thousands of hopeful performers, and that’s why they simply have to charge. Giving the benefit of the doubt, could it conceivably be the case that schools aren’t making tonnes of cash to roll around naked in from students auditioning?
According to the Federation of Drama Schools, drama schools operate as non-profit organisations, which is why audition fees exist despite students paying to attend drama school each year, and this money goes towards the running of the school i.e. keeping the building safe and equipped with all the necessities, and paying teachers etc.
Let’s just imagine all that is truth for a second. Let’s say you have to pay additional administrative costs to run auditions in your building.
Then why on earth charge a fee for ONLINE AUDITIONS?
Before we get into this, here’s a full round up of what schools are charging for their online audition processes. I am happy to correct any unintended misinformation, but this is accurate to the best of my knowledge.
WHAT ARE THE SCHOOLS CHARGING?
RADA- a flat fee of £34, with no additional fee for recalls.
OXFORD SCHOOL OF DRAMA- £45, a single audition fee per applicant.
BRISTOL OLD VIC- There is an application fee of £25 for BA (Hons) Professional Acting.
ARTS ED- (Round 1) £15 / (Round 2) £30. For the Carol Vorderman’s among us, if you end up doing both auditions, that’s a total of £45.
URDANG- £45 for an administration fee (this is non-refundable).
MOUNTVIEW- they charge £20 for the online audition fee, and a further £25 for a recall. If you’re lucky enough to make it that far, that’s a total of £45.
GUILDHALL- a one off application fee of £35.
ITALIA CONTI- there’s a £45 audition fee payment here.
ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE OF MUSIC AND DRAMA- There is an audition fee of £35 to ‘cover the cost of arranging and delivering auditions’.
EAST 15- There’s a round one audition fee of £15.
LAMDA- A bit more detail here.
Round 1 (self tape)
£12
Round 2 (audition on Zoom)
£0
Final recall
£36
If you make it all the way to the end you can expect to cough up a total of £48.
LSMT- To complete your online application you’re required to pay an audition fee of £10 via PayPal.
ROYAL CENTRAL SCHOOL OF SPEECH AND DRAMA- Their audition fee is £40.
THE ROYAL CONSERVATOIRE OF SCOTLAND- They charge an administration fee of £55 per course.
GSA-
For a First Round audition the fee is £15
If an applicant is successful and invited to a second round Audition Workshop (presumably online again), there is an additional fee of £30
Audition fees for MA Acting and MA Musical Theatre are:
Single Round Audition fee £45
PPA- They charge £35 for a video audition. They have also arranged some free virtual workshops for students 16-24 yrs old from underrepresented backgrounds. Those taking part in the workshops will also receive a free audition.
ROSE BROFURD- Aren’t charging for the first round stage, but otherwise intend to charge fees ranging between £25 to £55.
MANCHESTER SCHOOL OF THEATRE- Here you do not have to pay to audition! Hurrah!
THE MTA- free here too.
*There may well be other institutions who aren’t charging for online auditions. I’ll happily add them to the list when I find them.
why?
So if you’re auditioning for drama school this year you can expect to pay between ten and fifty five quid per school you can afford to go up for. This quickly adds up. That’s a lot of cash to fork out for the privilege of being locked down in your home auditioning in front of a screen.
Most of the schools listed have FEE WAIVER SCHEMES. Each school has a slightly different criteria, but it usually looks something like this. You can apply for your fee to be waived if you’re a UK student who is entering higher education for the first time, and fall into this criteria:
You attended a state school
and one or more of the following:
Your family income is below a certain amount.
Your home address is in a neighbourhood with low participation.
You will be considered to be a care leaver when you begin your training.
You meet the school’s Widening Participation and Outreach criteria.
All of the schools require students to complete extra admin/jump through hoops in order to engage with the process. The schools are placing the burden back on to the students already facing access barriers. You come to us. Despite the audition waivers, hard-working, talented folk will undoubtedly still fall through the cracks.
Back to the numbers. The first thing that strikes me about those fees are that they appear pretty arbitrary. At best, it seems like the schools have decided what they feel is reasonable for their individual process. At worst, it screams of what can we get away with?
Any fees at all for an online process should be minimal and cover the time of the panel watching the video. Time that would already be built into a drama school’s usual annual schedule, I might add. Regardless of this, the fee does not need to be FORTY FIVE BRITISH SODDING POUNDS.
I had a little look at PPA’s available audition slots.
I’m not sure how many slots per audition date there were to begin with, but let’s be generous and say each of the fourteen available dates had only 20 slots. With a £35 application fee, PPA make £9800 off of people’s dreams. Ten grand is not a life-changing sum of money to a big institution, but the numbers that I’ve just played around with are just the tip of the iceberg. My instincts tell me that a move to online auditions actually makes the work of the schools cheaper and easier; plus auditioning online means that they can actually audition more people now if they choose to. The very fact many of those slots have been allowed to be ‘over booked’ should indicate something.
Look, Higher Education is in crisis, and costs will no doubt have spiralled during the Covid crisis, including big spending increases and investment to improve online learning and ensure everyone can access it, and more support for mental health and wellbeing. Staff are going above and beyond to make online learning happen.
However, let’t not forget it is still prospective students that the drama schools are burdening with audition fees. University students, at all levels from freshers to graduates, have been woefully treated by the government during the pandemic. To them being blamed for the spread of the virus, becoming cash-cows for landlords, and facing pressure to head to campuses under the illusion that it was going to be something approaching normal, when that was, quite frankly, always a lie.
It’s no wonder calls for Downing Street to cancel student debt accrued during the pandemic are growing. If the government had spent the summer preparing to make our education settings safe for both teachers and students instead of paying us to go to Wagamamas on a Monday, then we might not be where we are. But it is what it is.
What I’m trying to say is, this online audition fee reeks of the attitude that students are merely consumers to be loaded with debt and then cast off into an unstable future job market. Students at drama schools will have already had their studies impacted immeasurably. Students I’ve spoken to have an overwhelming consensus that they are not getting the training that they paid for. With everything moved online and the majority of training now taking place over zoom in living rooms, there needs to be more done for the current students value for money as well as for prospective students. At this point, to expect applicants to still pay to audition just doesn’t seem particularly compassionate to me.
With drama schools reluctant to share data surrounding auditions, it’s hard to measure how much they earn from the process vs. how much they spend, but something’s definitely fishy here. Call me cynical, but do we really need to charge someone to send across two or three 90 second video clips of them singing in their bathroom? You’re paying for the privilege of being considered. It’s elitist and the schools need to do better.
HELPFUL RESOURCES:
OPEN DOOR- Open Door know how difficult and expensive the process of applying for drama school can be. Open Door help young people by giving them the support they need to go to auditions feeling prepared, confident and without any worry of financial strain. And it’s all free!
Stage Scholarships- In 2021 The Stage is partnering with six performing arts schools and training institutions from across the UK to offer more than £160,000 worth of training.
The dos and dont’s of self-taping drama school auditions.
Happy New Year! Love Ben xx
ONE OTHER THING!
This week’s One Other Thing was the fact I watched Pooch Perfect on BBC Two-a dog grooming reality competition television program. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t think it’s entertaining to watch dogs get shampooed on telly whilst Sheridan Smith cracks jokes with her cohost (a dog called Stanley), then I feel sorry for you.