Expert advice for Oakham's Drama students...

Published by Oakham School on Tuesday 9th of February 2016

Drama students from Oakham School had the opportunity to hone their audition technique with expert advice from Old Oakhamian director and writer Thomas Hescott. Around 30 students worked on their audition monologues with Thomas, across two sessions. He also taught them some helpful warm-up exercises and gave advice on how to stand out in a group audition. Thomas, who left the School in 1996, trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and on the National Theatre Studio Directors Course. He was previously Staff Director at the National Theatre (2004-2005), Resident Director at Chichester Festival Theatre (2005-2007), Associate Director at Y Touring (2008-2009) and Director and Project Manager for Heat and Light at Hampstead Theatre (2010-2011). He also writes regularly for The Stage and sits on the board of Stage Directors UK. In 2015, he directed The Dark Room – a short film featuring David Mitchell, as well as OOs Miles Jupp (98) and Matthew Baldwin (96). The film has been selected for the 2016 London Short Film Festival. He is the co-author of Outings, along with Matthew Baldwin, which is currently on national tour, and he will soon be directing an episode of Eastenders. On the previous day, the Drama department welcomed Stevie Thompson from the Rude Mechanical Theatre Company, who ran a lively commedia dell’arte mask workshop for Sixth and Seventh Form Drama students. The workshop was a practical exploration of the ‘commedia family’, their physicality and characteristics, which led to students devising their own cannovacci (scene). Director of Drama Gilly Norell said, “At Oakham, we believe it is incredibly important to give students the opportunity to work with professional practitioners. The fact that so many Oakhamians have gone on to work in the industry, such as Matthew Macfadyen, Miles Jupp and Greg Hicks, means that students can feel inspired and confident to follow in their footsteps.”