My Screen Acting and Creative Technologies audition experience

William Dixon, Screen Acting

I felt rather nervous before my audition, as the university was my first choice and I didn’t want to make any mistakes. Once I got into the audition, I felt very calm, as Darren Mapletoft was very reassuring. He complimented me on my choice of monologue and allowed me to perform the monologue twice, with the second time allowing me stand up and explore the location the character was in. I felt respected and allowed to show off my acting skills.

I was grouped with people who were being interviewed/auditioned for some of the courses in the Creative and Digital Technologies department. I remember having a talk from the lecturers, where they broke down the course content. They then did a fun little game about continuity, having to remember things the lecturers had done and said in the talk. We then were put in pairs to work with someone else to recall everything that the lecturers had said which was a great way to get us warmed up for our auditions and get to know others that you may end up on the course with!

I was then taken with the other people who were auditioning for the Screen Acting and Creative Technologies course, I briefly spoke to them, but I didn’t have long as I was up first up to audition. After the audition, we returned to the lecturers and had to say why we wanted to go to Chichester.

I had auditioned at a few other universities with a monologue, but they were with groups of people so I didn’t feel I got a good connection with the lecturers, as I did with Darren. Other times I just did a ‘taster session’ as an audition, which I didn’t enjoy as it made me realise those universities weren’t right for me.

Doing the audition just reaffirmed my desire to go to the University of Chichester as I was able to walk around the campus and see lovely parts of Chichester afterwards. It made me relaxed as everything I was promised on the Open Day was reiterated on the audition, so I felt I knew what the course entailed.

My advice for other people going to an audition for the Screen Acting course is:

• Remember that you’ve been asked to audition, so you already have an advantage over other people who perhaps weren’t chosen. So use that as positive motivation to keep yourself confident on the day.
• Be prepared to explore your monologue in a variety of ways, as the person auditioning you might ask to see different variations on the same piece.
• Come with knowledge of the Tech Park and course content, in case you are asked any questions about why you chose this University!
• Also come with some of your own questions, so you can get a deeper understanding of the lecturers and the different modules.
• One thing I did was bring a disk containing a series of short films, showing my acting and filmmaking abilities, I’d definitely recommend this if you want to stand out from the crowd!