Feasible or not?

[zooropababy]

Hello there

Comments

[annaonthemoon]

I don't see why you'd have issues with your age. I'm 29 as well, and I know that I can get a student visa if I choose to go back to school.

If you're not already a member of UK-Yankee, why not try over there? Honestly, it's always my first stop for information! http://talk.uk-yankee.com

[zooropababy]

Think I'll be heading over there to join up! Thanks for the tip :-)

[ptork66]

I would also x-post to nor_am_uk here on lj as well. Group dedicated to Americans studying in the UK.

[zooropababy]

The specificity of LJ never ceases to exist; guess I've something new to add to my flist - thanks and will do so :-)

[gatty]

Just as a point on being a mature student applying to acting school - they're probably more likely to accept you, over younger less experienced actors. I have many friends who have progressed to acting schools in London, but only after several years' break. In the opinion of many of the acting schools I have encountered through them, an applicant of 21/22 does not necessarily have the life and world experience to explore real depth as an actor. That's just their opinion, I know, but I suppose it's just a way of trying to point out to you that they might prefer you now, at 29, than if you'd applied eight years before!

[zooropababy]

Thanks for the reassurance! I guess my major fear about it is that I've been out of the business for a couple years; moving every six months for your partner's job makes it difficult to settle into finding a theatre to join :-(

Now that I'm single and don't have someone else's career to worry about though... Time to get back to where I always wanted to be. Now I just have to figure out how to make it happen.

[raketje]

This isn't necessarily true. I am a vocal coach and I have several students going through the drama school auditions right now. Two of them are older (one 29, one 34) and it is doing them nothing but harm. The schools tend to want people that are younger with less experience that they can mold into what they think an actor should be, rather than those that are older and a bit wiser and likely to speak out (not my words - my 34 year old student was actually told this by Guildhall, RADA and LAMDA).

[gatty]

Ah, hmm. It seems to be a very specific margin they're looking for then, as several of my acquaintances have been rejected by the three schools you mentioned on the grounds of being too young (21/22) but were accepted a year or two later. I wonder how much of it is just dealing with huge amounts of applications. Interesting contrasts of experiences though!

[caramel_betty]

I'm an American citizen, but my grandmother was born in Hull. When she emigrated in the early 1920s she had to renounce her British citizenship, so I think that helps me with nothing.

From Britain's point of view, she probably didn't. Dual citizenship Brit/Americans existed for a long time before the USA formally accepted the existence of dual citizenship. You'd say you were giving up your citizenship of Britain when you swore the oath to some other country, and Britain would basically ignore you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law#Renunciation_and_resumption_of_British_nationality

However, that probably doesn't help you if whichever parent wasn't registered as British:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law#Acquisition_of_British_citizenship

[zooropababy]

Nope, he wasn't registered - born in the US and has spent his entire life (spare one summer) in the Philadelphia area. Interesting about Britain ignoring the renouncements though; she spent the rest of her life convinced she had cut all official ties...

[sparkofcreation]

The US certainly tries to give that impression. They're less insistent about it now, but they still won't recognize your former citizenship after you get US citizenship. But they can't force another country to revoke a foreign passport--though some countries (not the UK) will, if you take US (or other) citizenship.

[raketje]

Where are you thinking of staying when you get over here? I don't want to put you off, but the entrance to London's drama schools is more competitive than ever right now, and they are accepting mostly young students they can mould, because they feel the older students are either experienced enough or wise enough that they won't benefit the same (and they want to be able to turn people into their idea of what an actor should be, which is harder to do with older, headstrong people). I know several people going through the process, and I know that at least for RADA there were something like 3500 applications for 40 spots. If you did a degree at a non-drama specific school and did part-time or seminar-type classes at places like RADA to balance out the training (anyone can go without application to most of those, if you can pay the fees) that might be the less competitive, more mature-student friendly route to take

[zooropababy]

I was looking specifically at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts - (I've studied in Liverpool before actually for a different degree at the same uni), mainly because I liked how the ran the programme in the past, and am quite comfortable with Liverpool after having lived there for three years. Whether or not I'll recognize the city after being gone for eight years is another matter, but... if this all works out I'll come to that when I have to. The other reason I'm thinking of LIPA is that I know they've accepted American students onto the acting route before, so I may well have a chance at getting some decent dialect coaching from lecturers who are used to a Mid-Atlantic mess (I'm unsure as to the acceptance rates at RADA and the London schools for Americans

[zooropababy]

Would you mind if I friended you, btw? We seem to have quite a bit in common.

And out of curiousity - what did you study at Liverpool? If it was archaeology I'm quite jealous; archaeology and the arts are my two loves, and they have quite the programme,

[raketje]

Yep, that's fine!

I studied Archaeology at Liverpool Uni. I did my MA there. It was good, but I didn't put as much into it as I should have..