Madeleine Matthews is a 3rd year student on the BA Professional Dance and Musical Theatre programme.
How did you develop an interest in Musical Theatre and Dance?
I developed an interest from listening to CDs in the car with my grandmother, we used to sing Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat and the Sound of Music and then she took me to see the shows.
My school did big budget productions so I was really lucky to be a part of those.
What kind of things are you involved in outside your course?
Outside of my course at Urdang, I’ve been a member of the Diversity and Inclusivity Working Group as the representative for women and female-presenting concerns at Urdang. We meet regularly to discuss any issues within the student body, and this contributes to my interest in social issues, politics and feminism that I address in my dissertation and in my spare time too.
I also work part time at a pizza restaurant and I think the part time jobs you do as a student are so informative for your acting because you really see such a broad scope of personalities and characters in hospitality, especially in London with everyone’s different accents and backgrounds.
What is your favourite theatre show in London?
My favourite show right now in London is the revival of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, it is a quirky and fierce telling of quite a dark story, and is aesthetic and boundary pushing and has the best songs.
Could you tell us about your track?
I am on Track C which is the track that focuses mainly on singing and acting with dance as a support.
We look at acting through song, how to tell a story and convey a character’s emotions and then we have singing technique and repertoire classes to choose our material, assess its suitability and work out how to sing it with technical accuracy so it sits well in our voices from an authentic place.
The dance we do includes ballet, tech and musical theatre jazz, street and contemporary.
What would be your top tip for applicants for this course?
My tip would be to pick your material wisely, finding something that suits you and your casting that shows you off, and also has a place in the industry in the direction it is heading in – there are a lot of revivals right now so if you enjoy golden age musicals, lean into that.
Also dress showing your personality, be smartly dressed but if you like a bold lip for example, wear your favourite red lipstick (that’s what I do.) Also make sure you know your material inside out, it doesn’t matter if you mess up a song or monologue as being able to pick yourself up and keep going is a skill a lot of us are still learning in third year!
What do you plan to do after you graduate?
I am currently auditioning for various cruise lines, performing on a cruise is something I would love to do as I want to travel the world in my early twenties whilst performing. Then I’ll be working my part time waitressing job in a pizza chain until I book a job in the West End!
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