AN ASPIRING actor from Dublin who is trying to raise funds to do a course at a prestigious acting academy in London has promised would-be sponsors she will get them access to the red carpet and remember them in her Oscar acceptance speech – if she ever hits the big time.
More than 3,000 students audition for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art every year and only 28 are accepted. Just two or three of the places routinely go to Irish students; this year, Sarah Madigan from Swords, Co Dublin, is one of them.
The course starts in just six weeks but she does not have the funds to cover the €11,000 she needs for fees, let alone the €1,000 a month she will need for food and rent for the two-year course.
In order to close the gap between what she has and what she needs, Madigan has launched a sponsorship scheme based around a Facebook page and is also planning a range of fundraising events, including a comedy night in Dublin over the coming weeks.
She said yesterday she had raised about €5,000 from friends and family so far but needed a whole lot more if she was to live the dream. She is now working her way through some of the biggest companies in the State in search of sponsorship.
“My parents are helping as much as they can but I can’t really ask too much more of them,” she said, adding that the 12- to 14-hour days demanded of the students meant she would not be able to get a part-time job.
“If I don’t raise the funds this way, I will have to try and get a loan but I am not sure how attractive I would be to a bank at the moment.”
She is promising her would-be sponsors “twice-yearly letters detailing my experiences” on the way through drama school. When it was suggested that this did not seem like a great return for any sponsor, she stressed that it would be “a long letter, beautifully written on the finest of notepaper”.
She is offering to promote corporate donors through her Sponsor My DreamFacebook campaign and promised them access to any red carpets and premieres where she might find herself as a result of her course. "When I hit the big time, I will make sure my sponsors get the best seats at all the premieres."
She described herself as “a very ambitious person” and said it “would be very, very hard if I was to get this close to my dream before having to let it go because I can’t afford it”.
“I know that people might think I am being very cheeky but this is not going to be handed to me on a plate and, let’s face it, God loves a trier.”
