Fourth Monkey student selected as Spotlight Prize Finalist
We are delighted to announce that one of Fourth Monkey’s BA (Hons) Acting graduating students, Chelsie Lockwood, has been selected as one of twenty finalists for the 2023 Spotlight Prize – congratulations, Chelsie!
An annual event that has been held since the 1950s, The Spotlight Prize gives selected graduating finalists from drama schools and universities across the UK the opportunity to showcase their talents in front of a panel of industry professionals and an audience including leading industry figures, helping to establish professional performance careers in the process.
Previous Spotlight Prize finalists have included Ben Whishaw, Jodie Whittaker and Gwenoline Christie, and previous winners and nominees have included Jim Broadbent, Judi Dench and Edward Bluemel.
As a school, we are both thrilled and incredibly proud to see Chelsie included in the 2023 finalists, particularly as 2023 is only the second year of nominating a Fourth Monkey student for the annual prize.
Speaking of Chelsie’s nomination, Fourth Monkey’s Artistic Director Steve Green said:
“The school community are so proud of Chelsie in reaching the Spotlight Prize final; and in only our second year of entering the competition she effortlessly personifies all of the best qualities of the actors we train at Fourth Monkey. This also of course celebrates the work of our training team’s unique philosophy and pedagogy, and we extend our collective gratitude to our Director of Training Charleen Qwaye and her inspirational practitioner team in their contribution to Chelsie’s journey.”
Originally from Essex, Chelsie is training on Fourth Monkey’s BA (Hons) Acting accelerated degree and will graduate in September 2023.
We sat down for a chat with Chelise to celebrate her nomination as a Spotlight Prize Finalist and learn more about the process being selected, as well as about how training with Fourth Monkey has helped her in her creative journey…
Congratulations on being selected as one of this year’s Spotlight Prize finalists! How are you feeling now that the announcement has been made?
I’m really excited! I can’t quite believe it, so I’m kind of the in the excitement but also the “oh my god, it’s actually happened” place, because you never think that it’s going to happen.
I think it’s mostly excitement – it’s an opportunity that I wouldn’t normally get, I feel really honoured to have this opportunity and to go and meet all the other finalists, and to put myself out there in a way that I wouldn’t normally be able to.
Tell us a little about the process involved – which audition monologue did you select and what appealed to you about this speech?
So, Fourth Monkey chose a student in the second year to represent them for the Spotlight Prize and they put me in contact with Stephanie Hume, the school’s Industry Liaison Manager.
We met up via Zoom, and I brought to her loads of material, loads of monologues, that could be a contender for the audition speech, and we just had loads of chats, loads of discussions about it, and we settled on a speech called “Lungs” by Duncan MacMillan which I really loved. Then I sent it off and I just…waited for about a month.
It was quite a nice, easy audition process as I had the time to do it as a self-tape in my own way. Stephanie (the Industry Liaison Manager) and I went into a lot of detail; I stayed behind after training for a few Friday evenings just to make sure that it was the right voice for what I wanted to say. With the self-tape, there’s no introduction so I couldn’t chat about myself, so I had to really find something that was authentic to me and that was a good representation of me without chatting away about myself!
What aspects of your training with Fourth Monkey were most helpful in preparing your Spotlight Prize entry?
I think it has to be the casting side and learning about you as an actor – what stories and what characters and how you want the industry to view you was massively important and really helpful with this Spotlight Prize. I had to choose a monologue that was my casting and was something that I wanted to voice; it was a way that I wanted to be shown to the industry and at Fourth Monkey, we go into so much detail about you as a person, you as an actor, and what journeys you want to go on into in the industry.
We do so much work on casting, especially in our Professional Preparation classes, and so much work on finding what makes you different, what makes you stand out but also finding what boxes you go into, because there’s loads of stereotypes in casting and sometimes leaning into those is really helpful. Because there are stereotypes on screen and in theatre, and just understanding yourself so much that you can go: “yep, I can do this, this, this and this and they all feel like my second voice”.
It’s about owning yourself and not changing yourself to fit something; it’s just you and what characters that could fall into without changing who you are – what feels natural, especially for things like this.
(Image credit: Max Curtis; Roberto Zucco)
Tell us a little about your training with Fourth Monkey – what have been your favourite classes, performances, and projects that you have worked on over the last two years?
I have LOVED my training; I’ve loved it and I can’t believe it’s nearly over! The two years go so quickly, I didn’t think I would be in my second year and it would just feel like it’s been a few days since I joined.
I think my favourite thing here was our first Contemporary Show, Roberto Zucco – our first open house performance and it felt like the two years of training were coming up to these public performances, it had all led up to these performances.
We had such an amazing cast and crew and the feeling of having a live audience in was like, this is what we’ve trained for, we have trained for moments like this. It was just lovely; it was such a special moment to share with people that you’ve spent so long with – you’ve spent every day with these people, you’re finally seeing some work that is like, this is why I’m training, this is what I want to do when I leave, and it gives that little skip in your step! This what all those Voice lessons, and Movement lessons and stuff where you’re sometimes not sure why you’re doing it doing finally all make sense and you feel like a professional, you feel like this is professional work – you feel like actors, not just actors in training. It’s a really good feeling.
(Image credit: Max Curtis; Roberto Zucco performance)
What are you most looking forward to about the awards for the Spotlight Prize when they take place in July 2023?
I think it’s mostly that I’m going to be working with loads of people that I’ve never worked with before.
There’s a few people who come in and workshop our monologues with us, and I would never have had this opportunity if I hadn’t done it so learning new things from people from all walks of life that I’ve never really encountered before and then also acting alongside some amazing other actors from all the other schools and interacting with them, learning about their journeys, what they’re doing and just seeing some really good work.
That’s what is so exciting, I’m going to see some really inspiring people and just have an opportunity that I would never have had if I had never done it, and that is what I am most looking forward to.
What are you most looking forward to as you prepare to graduate and start your professional career later this year?
I think… I’m most looking forward to seeing where my journey is going to go in the industry, and what work I’m going to be doing, finding my voice within this crazy, massive industry, and finding where I fit into it and being proud of what I’m going to do.
I’m excited just to be busy, to be working and to look back on my training and that I have the confidence and the skills as well as the support. Even though I leave, you’re still here – you’ve still got Fourth Monkey with you, and I think that’s such a lovely feeling that I will always have people holding me.
I’m just excited to do what I want to do – I want to work, I want to be busy, I want to be doing some amazing work and I just hope that I find my place and my voice and my reason for doing it.
What advice would you give to anyone who is thinking about applying to train with Fourth Monkey?
If you’re thinking about coming to Fourth Monkey, I would say two things…
First, be yourself! Don’t pretend to be what you think they want you to be, come into the building and just celebrate you, right from day one, because that’s all they want. In order for you to learn as much as you need to, and grow as much as you need to, you need to just start from you and who you are, not putting on any masks or not guessing what they want, you have to be you. I learnt that towards the end of first year and I wish I accepted myself right at the start, because you are your own product. As an actor, you are your selling point, so you have to celebrate that.
The second thing is be prepared, and be excited, to fail. Everyone fails and I think there’s some stigma around being scared to fail in front of people because it’s embarrassing or whatever it is. With Fourth Monkey, you get celebrated when you go wrong, because when you go wrong, you can get even better and you’ve just to be prepared to be in a space where you’re going to be supported and held with the fact that things are going to go wrong, you’re going to fall flat on your face and that’s absolutely fine because that’s what training is.
Training is falling and picking yourself back up and then growing, and Fourth Monkey are so good with holding you with that and celebrating everything you do – whether that’s a fail or an amazing thing.
Chelsie and the other 2023 Spotlight Prize finalists will perform at The Spotlight Prize Awards on 18 July 2023 – best of luck to all involved!
Fourth Monkey’s BA (Hons) Acting – Class of 2023 perform their industry-facing Showcase at the Arts Theatre in London’s West End on 26 April.
A full company performance celebrating the work of our talented graduating students ahead of their final Study Block at the Monkey House this summer, we can’t wait to see them in action!
Inspired by Chelsie and our Class of 2023? You can learn more about our BA (Hons) Acting degree plus get everything you need to submit an application to audition here.
