Ok, so now for a rejection story… Mountview! One of the ‘Top 3’ degree schools for Musical Theatre in the UK, and as you can probably tell already I didn’t even get a recall! Though to be fair it really wasn’t the place for me and I didn’t get that “Whoa! I love it here, I really imagine myself here!” vibe.
It’s now based in Peckham, a rather dodgy area in my opinion and one I didn’t really take a liking to anyway, and the new building is very updated and modern but I personally found it gave off a very cold, industrial feel that probably came from the concrete walls and size of the space. The audition in general however, was a very pleasant one. We were firstly taken upstairs after registering to a room where we were held and were told what we were doing first. We were told to split ourselves into 2 groups, one group who considered themselves ‘more advanced’ in dance and the other group who considered themselves ‘less experienced.’ I went in the group who was ‘more advanced’ so I did dance first while the others did singing and acting.
Overall, I absolutely loved the dance call! We did a really thorough warmup with this really fit guy who I really really recognised, and we learnt the most basic technique exercises ever. They were literally as easy as ‘step kick, step step, step kick, step…’ and so on. We did those in twos and the two guys on the panel marked us on that. They did some jumps with the boys and then asked if anyone could do any tricks (which I must definitely cannot do). Then we learnt the most enjoyable, fun, old school Musical Theatre dance ever. It was to a song from ‘The Life’ and we were told to be ‘pimps and hookers’ which I loved. The routine I felt was taught at the most perfect pace for me personally, so not too fast but also not too slow (I would say somewhere in between 10 and 20 minutes?) and the style of it was just divine. I mean the musical ‘The Life’ was first performed on Off-Broadway in 1990 so it was that proper late 20th century style of jazz. I loved performing that dance and I truly miss it with all my heart R.I.P. No but on a more serious note to be honest, it was a very good routine to audition people with because you really had to go for it and perform/act it because otherwise the style of the entire dance would have been lost and the energy level would have just plummeted. You performed the routine at the end in groups of 4 in front of both of the panel members and you danced it twice. After they told us to stand facing the front and to talk amongst ourselves while they discussed what they thought. The dance I must say was my favourite part of the day, though what I found interesting was the fact that the dance call wasn’t necessarily an actual reflection of the school because for all the first rounds the majority of all the panel members were all freelance professionals who didn’t actually teach at Mountview full-time, giving a reason why I recognised the really fit guy the good jawline so much.
Next, both groups reunited and we waited around a bit which left me some time to run through my two songs and monologues. Ten of us were then taken to another room to do the acting call. This was where we did our monologues in front of each other in numerical order. He said that we weren’t allowed to clap and that he would most probably stop us in the middle of our second monologue if he had heard enough. When it was my turn I decided to do my contemporary monologue first, (Rose’s monologue from ‘Eigengrau’ as per usual) mainly because I had clocked on that he would ask what the play from your first monologue was about and not the second one, plus I didn’t have much clue about the background of Joan of Arc (Henry VI), so I went with that plan. I was surprised though when he let me perform the entirety of my Shakespeare monologue considering he stopped everyone else, though to be fair I think I just really liked Joan of Arc. When all of that was done, we went and did the singing. The day before I had a complete meltdown about my contemporary song as I had long story short not learnt what the sheet music had written on it which was fun, though to my great relief I was told we only had to do our legit! So I sung the OG ‘My Lord and Master’ from the King and I which I thought went really well. The best part of the singing call though I must say was finding out the man playing the accompaniment was Stephan Sondheim’s ex boyfriend! I mean, what?? Anyways, the man on the panel asked everyone the exact same questions; ‘So do you play any instruments?’ ‘Any music theory?’ and ‘So what have you been doing this past year?’ which was fine I suppose. I had heard many mixed opinions on Mountview, one that said they were very impersonal and technical the way they worked and I could understand that, but I also understood that because you were going up in front of everyone else they wouldn’t have had time to have a lovely little private conversation with you because everyones there in the room all ears and eyes open.
Once that was done we were taken downstairs to join the longest q&a ever with some of the students of Mountview. I mean they were really nice people and it was helpful but all I really wanted to do was socialise with people who I recognised from other auditions, eat my peanut butter protein balls and go to the toilet but that wasn’t going to happen. But that dragged on until a rather patronising women came in to call out numbers, there were going to be 3 groups; yes for a recall, yes for a recall for the foundation and a no group. Each of the different groups were then taken into different rooms and told if they were successful or not, just like the X Factor… again, very impersonal. Haha, lol I was in the no group surprise, surprise! At first I wondered whether I had misheard my number or they had forgotten to call out my number leading me to go up to double check someone hadn’t got it wrong (they hadn’t), but then I realised that actually when it comes to Mountview if you don’t get recalled for most of the time it doesn’t actually reflect on your ability as such. Like when schools say, ‘Oh we’re only looking for potential and trainability and not the finished product!’ but then take a tonne of people who actually are amazing already. Mountview on the other actually sticks to their word and if they think you’re ‘too polished’ or ‘moulded’ as such they will not take you. Like you’ll see loads of people who have already go to Artsed or GSA who never got past the first round of Mountview because you just weren’t what Mountview were looking for, and not because the school thought that they were shit. Essentially, Mountview is trying to build a company. Mountview likes to completely strip back their students to the point where part of the uniform is to not wear any makeup and if you already have a strong identity they can’t do that so their form of training wouldn’t work for you which wouldn’t be beneficial for either parties. Plus they only recalled 10 people out of over 100 people and it takes an average of 3 years to get a place so that’s fun. But really, I know I did my best and it was really good audition experience and I did really enjoy my day even though I got rejected :D.
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