Millions of young people share the dream of achieving success on the stage but each year only a select few secure places to undertake performing arts training at theatre and drama schools. Each week, I receive emails from aspiring performers who are dedicated to pursuing a career in the performing arts. How do I find the best training opportunity? How do I submit a good application to a drama school? and How do I achieve success at audition?

These are just some of the questions you may be asking. The first major stage of making a successful application to drama school is finding the performing arts training programme which is best suited to you at this time. Focus on your current performance skills and your career aspirations. For example, if you can sing and act but not dance and you want to be a ‘triple-threat’ musical theatre performer, don’t apply for a course which has a crucial dance component. Instead, I would recommend finding a one-year foundation level course which will help you to develop your dance skills or focussing on your singing and acting skills and finding a courses which just focuses Dramacool  on these disciplines.

Once you have done your homework into the courses which suit your skills, requirements and career aspirations, you can think about submitting your application forms. In my experience, the people who apply for ten or even more courses in the same year are less successful overall than those who focus on three or four applications. So I recommend narrowing your choices down to the courses which you think are most suited to you at this time and then focussing on submitting excellent application forms for these institutions. Your application form should be completely truthful about the skills and experience you have in the performing arts – any enhancement of the truth will be spotted as soon as you start to perform at audition.

Your opportunity to impressive the admissions team reading your application form is in your personal statement. Spend time getting this right – it’s really important! Make sure you demonstrate your reliability, commitment to the arts and strong work ethic which are important traits of all performing arts students.

In addition, you should highlight special performances and projects you have done and, importantly, indicate why this has made you a stronger performer. Unique performance skills are also worth mentioning even when applying for the more traditional drama schools. When you get your audition date, begin preparing right away.