Opinion: Time For Drama Schools To Scrap Archaic Audition Fees

I'm 18 and sat in a cold corridor somewhere in the bowels of the RADA building on Gower Street. I've got my Shakespeare and my modern piece ready to go. It's my chance. After five minutes of acting and 10 minutes of conversation, it's over. I get the coach from Victoria back to Bristol and wonder all the way home how it went.

It didn't go well - no luck this year. £40 well spent.

That's right: just for the chance of going to this prestigious place, I paid £40 for an audition and then footed the bill for my travel to and from London. Oh, and multiply that by the five drama schools I auditioned for in that year alone.

Do you get feedback? Well I refer you to RADA's own words: "We do not routinely give feedback". Cheers then.

If I sound sour about my experience, it's because I am. Not about the result - I've gotten over that ten years on. I'm sour because nothing has changed. This opaque process still exists, and young wannabe actors are routinely charged £50+ for their chance.

As a caveat: some schools offer more than others. Central School of Speech and Drama at least gives you half a day - a workshop, a panel and an interview. Many also have schemes to waive the fee for certain applicants.

But here's the problem: it's completely out of step with the rest of the world. No job charges you to interview (and if they do you should run a mile). Nor do universities - Oxford even gives you free accommodation and meals if you're interviewed.

Yet drama schools seem to get away with it, almost unchallenged. I thought it normal back then; I accepted the fee with little fuss. But now, as a full-fledged adult, I resent them for taking my money just for the chance to be part of their school.

It's seems bizarre to me that drama schools can trot out an argument to justify the fees - about how much it costs to run auditions - which must apply equally to jobs and universities too. I wonder if the same drama schools that ask for a fee to audition for them would advise their recent graduates to pay to audition for their next job? I'd wager not.

I was fortunate; I could pay without much additional effort. But I'm white and middle class - I'm basically what theatre doesn't need more of. We need more diversity and more people encouraged to find a route in - the most established of which is formal training. Providing various schemes that make disadvantaged people fill in forms to assess their disadvantage isn't good enough.

Thank goodness some are seeing sense, and I was joyful at the news that one drama school in Liverpool is scrapping their fee. A recent Labour party report was unequivocal in its findings that the high audition fees were linked to a lack of diversity.

It's frustrating that so little seems to have changed even ten years on from my experience. It's 2018: time to scrap these archaic fees that are a stain on what can be some our best training institutions, and the lifeblood of the industry.

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