Seventeen year old Rhianna Merralls is one of 16 young people to be accepted into The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) Youth Company this academic year.
RADA Youth Company provides access to drama training and performance opportunities for young people aged 16-20 who live in and around London. The group of students, 7 male and 9 females, meet on weekends for workshops led by RADA professionals and alumni including movement tutors, voice coaches and actors.
Rhianna, who is studying for her A Levels in Drama, English Literature and Geography at St Clement Danes School and is also a member of the National Youth Theatre, is loving being part of the Company.
“It’s such a great opportunity. My drama teacher Mrs May helped me with the application and audition process. We are taught all sorts of things, we started off with Alexander Technique which helps with our movement. We learn acting skills, get to watch the final year students perform and at the end of the course we do our own public performance in the house theatre. We have help with preparing monologues and auditioning for drama school too. The group has become good friends already – we’re all there for the same reason!”
“The RADA Youth Company provides a creative, enthusiastic and non-judgmental environment where young people can meet and work together over the course of a year to learn and develop performance skills.” says Youth Company Director Philip Sheppard.
“The Youth Company is a wonderful opportunity that teaches young people to be well organised and encourages structure as much as artistic flair” adds Movement Tutor Katya Benjamin.
This theatrical training is a far cry from the acting Rhianna has been doing over recent months with Steve Coogan’s Company Baby Cow Productions. As a cast member of a new TV series, she spent the summer filming scenes which will be screened on Sky Atlantic in the near future.
-“I’m lucky that I got to work with such a friendly cast and crew and that my agency helped me audition for it. My character is seems quite shy and awkward, but this was fun to play, because we really are polar-opposites of each other. I had an amazing time and got to lie on the beach a lot, learnt how to play darts in between takes and had loads of food which is always a plus, but nevertheless it was still a job so we had really early starts and late finishes, which was quite tiring.”
But Rhianna didn’t miss out on her A Level lessons
“The school are very supportive. I went in to classes on occasional days and the teachers sent me work. I‘m in a Facebook chat group for all of my subjects so I felt like I was in the loop all of the time!”
www.rada.ac.uk/
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