My Two Years on One Year Part Time at GSA
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019 at 2:36 pm | News & Events
Student Blog: My One Year Part-Time Experience
“If I could give anyone who once said to themselves “l want to be an actor” advice, it would be to have no regrets when it comes to auditioning for this course.”
At some stage of all of our lives we are asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Some people say a firefighter, a doctor or a ballerina. For me, I always said
“When l grow up l want to be an actress.”
I started at the GSA back in 2016 and I haven’t looked back since. I started in Performance Year and then decided to study Advanced Performance Year afterwards because I didn’t want my experience to end! At the beginning I remember asking myself, “Am I able to do this?”, “What if no one likes me?” and “What if I don’t fit it?”. I had all these negative thoughts because for most of my life I was told l couldn’t do things or I would never be able to do this. But on my first day of coming to the Gaiety School of Acting the first thing the director of the School Patrick Sutton said to me was “You can be and do whatever you want”. And ever since then I carry that with me everyday. From then the Gaiety School of Acting became my second home.
Coming in 4 hours a week was my escape. All my worries and fears disappeared as soon as I went through those doors and I still get that feeling today. I discovered a lot about myself not only regarding my acting skills such as improvisation or stage combat but l also learned a lot about myself personally. GSA made me feel like l could do anything. In my first year I wrote my own monologues and duologues – something I didn’t even know Icould do. To see words that were once just a memory being spoken on stage: my confidence level rose and l went from being the girl who never raised her hand to answer a question, to the first hand you see in a group full of people.
Our final showcase in Performance Year was the first ever time my parents had seen me act and even now they speak about it. That would have also been the first time l got to embody a character and that was a feeling like no other. Still to this day Portia Coughlan stays with me. Seeing the pride through everyone’s eyes both on and off the stage almost felt euphoric and l never want to get rid of that feeling.
Advanced Performance year was a little different. I learned that the tiniest piece of information, such as how you move on stage, your different delivery of a line and how you are in charge of keeping the audience’s attention and as we called it “not to drop the ball or lose the will to live” because if you do, your audience will too. I loved that feeling of being in charge.
Even though the part time courses are 4 hours a week the work you need to put in outside of GSA is vital. Thats when you get creative and understand what the story your telling is about and who the person is your playing. Get to know that character inside and out. How do they move? How do they say this line? all of these things become the most important part of a script. Its not just getting the lines down its creating another person you can become and for me, that is one of my favourite parts of coming to the GSA – I can leave Sorcha behind, her worries and fears, and become someone else.
If I could give anyone who once said to themselves “l want to be an actor” advice, it would be to have no regrets when it comes to auditioning for this course. Don’t come out of that room and regret not saying a line a certain way or not doing your monologue or duologue in the most dramatic way you imagined, because that’s when you get noticed and that is who the Gaiety School of Acting will remember. Trust me. I know.
If, like Sorcha, you want to take centre stage in your own life, you can register for One Year Part-time at the GSA now. Auditions will take place this Summer, with the new year beginning in October.