Young Company

The Almeida Young Company is designed for 18-25 year old aspiring actors and theatre-makers, looking to gain experience in acting, performing text, and making new work.  

We are looking for participants who have not undertaken formal drama school training and are not represented by a professional agent.  

Participants should be at least 18 at the start of the project and have completed secondary education. 

For the first round of this process, we are asking for a short self tape.

Please include the following three elements in your self tape – please ensure that the self tape is no longer than five minutes in total:

1) Tell us a little about yourself. 
2) Why would you like to join the Young Company and what do you hope to get out of it?  
3) A learnt audition speech or monologue no longer than 1.5 minutes. It can be a speech from a play or film.  

You will then need to submit a link to your self tape via our application form. The link below needs to be an unlisted Vimeo or YouTube link format ONLY. Please do NOT send us a WeTransfer link as it will expire. Please double check to make sure your link is accessible to us. 

We will not be able to accept any applications received after the deadline of Mon 24 Feb at midday. 

Audition Top Tips  

• We encourage you to prepare your speech without anyone else’s help or direction. We want to see your interpretation of the character and understanding of the speech.
• Make sure you are well lit, and we can see you. We encourage taping in natural daylight or using lamps/box lights if you’re in a darker space. Aim to avoid any shadows. 
• Make sure we can hear you properly. Test film a couple of lines and watch it before you go for a take. 
• Film with a friend so you can direct your speech to another person. Have your friend stand behind the camera just off to the side.  
• If you are editing a text where another character interjects or combining two chunks of text, make sure it flows. 
• Have a limit on how many takes you do – try not to overdo it! More often than not the first few takes will be the best ones.  
• Be yourself, relax and have fun.

The Almeida Young Company is completely free to take part in – and we are also able to offer travel expenses for participants if needed. 

The Almeida are committed to supporting young artists with access requirements. If there is anything you would like to let us know that will support you through the recruitment process or the project, you can do so by emailing us at participate@almeida.co.uk We can support alternative formats for application and can discuss how best to support you through the process.  

Auditions will be in an accessible space. Most of the Young Company rehearsals will take place in the Almeida Rehearsal Rooms in Islington. This rehearsal room is step free, with an access toilet on the same level.    

Application Closing Date: Mon 24 Feb 2025 at midday 

Audition Workshops: Sat 22 Mar (daytime) and Sun 23 Mar (daytime) 

Rehearsal Period: This is likely to be six weeks of rehearsal in evenings and weekends across April-June, culminating in performances on Sun 25 May, Fri 30 May and Sun 1 Jun. We will send through a full list of dates if you are invited to audition.