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When I was first chosen for a place at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy I couldn’t wait to get started and I was so excited about the fact that I’d even been chosen. When I started doing a bit of digging online to see what the course would be like all I could really find were the glowing American Musical and Dramatic Academy reviews, which was good news of course, but it didn’t really get to the heart of the issue as to what the experience would be like. As it turned out this experience would be like no other that I had ever lived and I wish that I had been a little better prepared. If you are about to embark on a course at a performing arts college, here are the skills which you’ll need to survive.
Hard Work
Every college could tell you that you need to work hard in order to survive but in the case of performing arts you really do need to give your blood, sweat and tears, often literally, in order to make it through. I saw so many people who dropped out of AMDA during my time there because they just couldn’t cope with the workload. Every day you will be honing your skills, working on projects, rehearsing and learning new things, it is intense and you must be prepared for that.
Tenacity
These courses are in place to show you what the world of performing arts is really like and whilst they do work hard on making your talent the best it can be, it is also about preparing you for a tough career. It is for this reason that you need to be very tenacious in your approach, you need to continuously pick yourself up off the ground after being knocked down, and this is where you will get the resolve that you need for your eventual career.
Listening
I have spoken to many friends who had professors who they didn’t like yet felt that there wasn’t anything which they couldn’t learn in a book, therefore they stopped going to lectures. In the case of performing arts things are not like this, you need to be able to listen carefully to your professors and any feedback which they may have for you. The teachers at AMDA and many other performing arts colleges have spent their lives in this field, working on huge and successful productions, so they know what they are talking about.
Focus
If you can avoid getting distracted during your time at college then you will do very well indeed, to be honest I don’t know how people had time for jobs or a social life at AMDA, I certainly didn’t have that kind of time. If you stay focused then you can make the most out of this experience and it will help you out greatly in terms of the direction of your career.
