How to prepare for drama school auditions (2027 entry)

It is October, most drama schools are open for 2027 entry, and you have a speech you can say in the shower but not yet to a panel. There is a deadline in January and a row of browser tabs that all disagree with each other. One school wants a tape. Another wants you in a room. One wants Shakespeare, one has dropped it, and you are not sure which of those scares you more.

Below is how drama school auditions work in the UK, what they cost, and what the schools ask for, all from each school's own page, read on 12 October 2026 and linked. Dates and fees move, so use this as a map and confirm on the school's page before you pay for anything. If you are a parent reading over a shoulder, the dates and the money are your part. The speech is theirs.

How drama school auditions work in the UK

You do not apply to "drama school". You apply to each school, and each has its own rules.

Some take applications directly: RADA, Guildhall, Mountview and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which says it no longer uses UCAS. Others go through UCAS: LAMDA, Royal Central (in the main UCAS scheme, not UCAS Conservatoires), GSA, Rose Bruford, the Royal Welsh College (UCAS Conservatoires or Acceptd) and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. For most undergraduate drama courses applied for through UCAS Conservatoires, UCAS gives 13 January 2027 at 18:00 UK time and tells you to check each school's own site.

Most schools run three or four stages: a first round (a selftape, at many of them), a recall that is sometimes a second tape and sometimes live online, and then a workshop or a full day in person, where you work with the staff and the other applicants. RADA lists four stages: a preliminary selftape, a recall selftape, a short workshop and a full workshop day. Guildhall has three: a selftape, then two rounds in person in London.

Selftape first rounds are common now, not universal. Mountview's BA auditions are in person, with an online first round only for international candidates and exceptional circumstances. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland says there are no pre-recorded videos this year: first rounds are live, in person or online.

Where a cell says "check", I could not find the detail on that school's page. I would rather leave a gap than guess.

Fees, waivers and not going broke before you start

Add it up before January: the application fee, the audition fee, a train to London for a recall. It is more than the table suggests, and it often lands on people who have not earned anything yet.

Ask about waivers early. Mountview offers a full waiver below £15,000 household income, a 50% waiver between £15,000 and £21,000, and free auditions for Southwark residents, and says places are limited each year. Guildhall's Supported Application Scheme covers a free application, advice and travel bursaries for eligible undergraduates. LAMDA's Pathways Programme is for eligible UK applicants: members apply directly, not through UCAS, with an application fee waiver. You must join Pathways first, and its deadline is 12pm on 14 December 2026, almost three months before LAMDA's main one. GSA's university, Surrey, can waive the audition fee for some home students at state-funded schools or colleges who also meet its widening-participation criteria. The Royal Welsh College and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland both list fee waivers on their pages, and ArtsEd says waivers are available.

A short note on the US

The US works differently, and it is school by school. The National Unified Auditions let university BFA theatre programmes audition applicants at the same event, in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The site still shows last season's dates (New York 24 and 25 January 2026, Chicago 2 to 5 February, Los Angeles 7 and 8 February), so the 2027 dates are not up yet. The site says 25 university theatre programmes take part. Many US BFA acting programmes also ask for a recorded prescreen before they invite you to audition (DePaul's process is a video prescreen and a callback), so check each programme's page for its own prescreen deadline.

Drama school audition monologues: choosing two that work

Read each school's brief closely, because they do not agree with each other.

RADA asks for one classical and one contemporary speech, each up to two minutes. Guildhall asks for two contrasting speeches from published plays, one of them a dramatic speech in verse, and says you no longer need Shakespeare. Royal Central's 2026-entry page wants a classical speech from before 1700, a contemporary one written after 1960, and a short devised piece, and asks you not to take extracts from audition speech books. The Royal Welsh College says no poems.

A few things do repeat. Pick at least one character close to your own age: RADA, Guildhall and ArtsEd all ask for that, and it is easier to play anyway. Read the whole play, not the extract, because Central says that if you are recalled you must be ready to answer questions about it. Use your own voice and your own reading. Guildhall says it wants what you have to offer, not a teacher's reading, and RADA says not to copy anyone else's performance.

Do not worry about how original the speech is. RADA's 2026 admissions procedure lists that among its don'ts, and says it wants your own work, not a copy of someone else's performance. It does warn off characters who are mad, drunk or wildly out of control, because those speeches are hard to play. None of the schools will tell you whether your choice is right; RADA, Guildhall, Central and the Royal Welsh College say so outright.

For somewhere to start, there are monologues for women and men, and monologues for teens if you want pieces written for your own age. The free original pieces at /practice/monologues are good for saying out loud while you work out what suits you. RADA, Guildhall and Central all want speeches from plays, so treat these as pieces to warm up and test your range on, then find your two in a published play you have read in full.

Learn it until you can play with it

A speech learned as a fixed sound breaks the first time someone says "try that again, but to someone you are afraid of". And someone will. In RADA's workshop stage, a director works on your speech with you and watches how you take direction (its published procedure, for 2026 entry). Guildhall's final recall includes more detailed work on your monologues.

So learn what the speech is doing, not how it sounds. Decide who you are talking to and what you want from them. Draw a line wherever the thought turns. Run it standing, walking, whispering, with the intention changed on purpose, and then say it again as written. The method is in how to rehearse a monologue alone, and the rest of working without a partner is in the complete guide to rehearsing alone.

This is the part where you are on your own at eleven at night, wanting to run it again without asking anyone to sit through it. A monologue has no other character for blablabla to voice, so what helps here is the line visibility dial: paste the speech in as text and set it to the full text, then a hint, then first letters, then nothing, until the page has gone and the speech has not.

If you are working alone and feeling bad about it, Guildhall says it is perfectly acceptable to work on your monologues on your own.

Tape it before you apply

If your first round is a tape, film earlier than you think you need to. RADA gives you two weeks to upload after you apply. Its 2026 entry procedure says it cannot extend that and advises having the tape ready before you apply. Royal Central sets your tape deadline from when your application arrives.

You do not need a good camera. Guildhall's own advice is a phone, landscape, a plain wall, the light behind the camera and not a window behind you, with the whole recording no longer than six minutes: an introduction and two speeches, each up to two minutes. It also suggests having someone stand just to the side of the camera, out of shot, for you to talk to, or putting your eyeline slightly off the lens. A friend, a sibling, or a mark on the wall you have decided is a person.

How a tape works in general is in what a selftape is and what goes in one. Do one for yourself first and watch it back. Everyone hates this part. Fix one thing per take, not everything. Central's own tip is to rest well before you film, and it is better advice than it sounds.

The nerves, the money, and going again

You will probably not be told why. RADA, Guildhall, Mountview and the Royal Welsh College say they cannot give feedback on auditions, and a no with no reason attached is the unfair part of this process. Central is the exception: unsuccessful BA Acting applicants can ask for feedback, and the first-round email tells you how and by when.

What the schools say about nerves is kinder than you might expect. Guildhall's panel understands you will be nervous, an audition steward will prompt you if you dry in the second round, and you should not worry if the panel stops you midway, because it may mean they want to talk to you for longer. RADA says its intention is a relaxed and enjoyable day.

And you can go again. Guildhall says there is no longer a limit on how many times you can apply, though after an unsuccessful audition you wait for the next academic year. RADA allows one application per academic year. Every actor I know has a drawer of nos from rooms they badly wanted. A drama school no is one more. It is also not a verdict on whether you are an actor.

Whichever speech you pick, pick it as if the audition did not exist. In March, when it has been weeks since anyone emailed you and the tabs have finally closed, you will either still want to say it or you will not. Choose the one you still want to say.