#OnceAMonkey - Frida Caecilia Rødbroe, Class of 2022
We love learning more about the creative journeys our graduate actors and artists take once they graduate from Fourth Monkey! As our BA (Hons) Acting – Class of 2023 prepare to share their final public performance seasons this summer before stepping out into the industry, we caught up with some of our most recent Acting graduates to share their insights into life as an early career artist as well as how they have found exploring and establishing their identities as performers and what advice they would share with anyone thinking about applying to audition for Fourth Monkey.
Here, we chat to Class of 2022 graduate Frida about what appealed to her about Fourth Monkey’s approach to actor training, the creative projects she has been working on since she graduated and what is next on the horizon…
Introduce yourself! Tell us what you studied at Fourth Monkey plus a little about your background.
My name is Frida Cæcilia Rødbroe and I graduated the BA (Hons) in Acting at Fourth Monkey in 2022. I am originally from Denmark and I moved to London in order to study. I am a musician as well as an actor and creative and in my spare time I make indie horror films with my friends back in Denmark and also I like swimming.
What appealed to you about actor training with Fourth Monkey?
I went to one of the free taster workshops before applying, and the thing I gelled with the most was the rock and roll attitude towards actor training that Fourth Monkey has. I liked that the school felt fresh and young, and I loved how they encourage their students to think about how we can develop and revolutionise the creative industry as we prepare to walk into it.
What do you remember about your audition day? What stood out for you?
I remember for the first time at an audition feeling allowed to fail. Often with auditions you have 10 minutes to do the monologues you’ve spent months preparing and that’s it, which is a huge amount of pressure on those 10 minutes! Because the audition for Fourth Monkey is a day-long workshop, you get to shake off the fear and anxiety and just focus on doing the work and having fun with it!
Tell us about training with Fourth Monkey – what were your favourite classes, performances, and projects that you worked on?
Training at Fourth Monkey was such an intensely wonderful experience. I don’t even know where to start! I fell in love with Meisner very quickly, because it focuses on listening to your scene partner and what is in that particular moment, meaning that none of it is about you as an actor or what you’re doing, which I found extremely freeing!
Training in my second language is an extra challenge that I had to learn (and am still learning) to navigate, but as with all things Fourth Monkey’s nature is to celebrate each of our differences and encourage us to utilise those things in our craft. I think that’s one of the most valuable things Fourth Monkey taught me as an artist – that what I bring to a project is uniquely valuable and just right for me.
What direction did you imagine your creative career would take when you started training with Fourth Monkey? Has this changed since you graduated in 2022?
I didn’t really have one specific thing I wanted to do, I think in many ways I was just happy to do acting. I did know that I wanted to use my musicality and my love for all things music and movement, and I knew that I am interested in art that pushes boundaries be that politically or artistically. But honestly, I am still very much in that discovery phase of my career where I’m feeling curious and adventurous in what projects I want to work on, which, right now, is a really fun place to be!
You recently appeared in La Maupin (directed by Suzy Catliff) at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in London – tell us a bit about this project and why it appealed to you?
So, this was the first show I got to work on after graduating, and it’s been almost too good to be true. Those things that I knew I wanted to do, I got to do: This is a queer, folk, actor-musician musical about this incredible gender non-conforming person of history’s life, which has hugely been forgotten. The script and music by Olivia Thomson is just divine (so divine that she won an OFFIE award for it!), Suzy Catliff is a powerhouse of a director and the team is beyond inspirational.
We initially had very limited rehearsals in which to do fourteen musical numbers completely scored by the five actors who are also on stage all the time as well as telling the entire life story of this person who lived A LOT. It was frankly insane and I only think we managed it because of how incredible the entire ensemble is. I feel honoured to have worked and to continue to work on this beautiful show, I could not have asked for a better debut.
What did you find surprising, inspiring, or even challenging about working on La Maupin and what did you learn about yourself as a performer in the process?
As I said, the ensemble we had for La Maupin was insanely inspiring!
Because of the amount of text and music we had to learn and stage in a short amount of time, I properly saw how important a good ensemble is to create a good show. In a show of five people in such an intimate space that the Lion and Unicorn Theatre is, there is nowhere to hide, and you cannot bullsh*t your way through a performance. You have to be present, you have to be truthful, and you have to be able to trust your ensemble. This is all something that we focused a lot in our two years of training at Fourth Monkey, but experiencing that out in the ‘real’ world was a real ‘oh, NOW I get it!’ moment.
Do you have any exciting upcoming projects that you are able to tell us about?
I do! We are taking La Maupin to Brighton Fringe Festival this May – the dates are 12th and 14th May and you can find more info and book tickets here.
I have also just started rehearsals for a tour of Macbeth with Drama Impact Theatre Company. I think it will be a really cool take on the play and I am excited to be playing one of the Witches. We’ll be touring in June and July, and you can find more information about this tour here.
Finally, what advice would you share with anyone who is thinking about auditioning for Fourth Monkey?
Do it!
If you have been inspired by Frida’s insights into life as an early career actor, check out our undergraduate audition information – everything you need to know about what to expect from an audition day with the Fourth Monkey panel plus how to submit a direct application via our website for September 2023 entry!
