Tom's Workshop

We worked with Tom and second year level three students on (date) for a physical theatre workshop. Tom is a student who attends RADA, a drama school located in London.

For the first part of the workshop, Tom talked to us and helped us to understand the process he went through to get into RADA and also his career in acting before that. He gave us advice about having a profession in acting and how we can help give ourselves a better chance at succeeding.

Tom told us that in the film and television industry, no theatre training is required. However, a lot of castings are based on appearance and is very competitive. The live performance and theatre side of an acting career is equally competitive but training is needed to learn skills such as how to project your voice properly.

For the second section of the workshop, Tom helped us focus our minds so we were one hundred percent involved in our acting and living in the present moment. One of the exercises we did was maintaining eye contact with a partner and using the concept of "I can hurt you and you can hurt me". This helped us see the reality of the other human being standing in front of us and how unique and significant they are.

We then chose a different partner and we were told to hug them. This was to establish the feeling of the other person, we cleared our minds and focused purely on the heart beat of the other person to help us focus.

After that, we focused on creating a relationship between two people. For example, when entering a room, you take a moment to notice the other person in the room. This creates an imaginary 'coil' between you and them. The coil is like a an invisible rope that connects two people. Therefore, when acting you enter a room, you notice who is there, react to their presence and then begin to communicate to them.