Submissions open today (27th September) for The Luke Westlake Scholarship, which is awarded to a working-class drama student to support their last year of study and first year entering the industry as a performer.
The Luke Westlake Scholarship, is an award designed to provide an actor with financial and developmental support worth over £4,000 in their final year and as they graduate from university or drama school, and begin to navigate their way into the industry.
The scholarship was established in 2019 when the team behind JAM realised many actors were being priced out of their career once they left training. After spending upwards of £30k to learn their craft, actors need to purchase union membership, database subscriptions, materials for marketing themselves, and more; they often work zero hours jobs so they can duck out at short notice to attend auditions and can lack the contacts to get their foot in the door.
The acting industry frequently notes the lack of working class talent, but without support it is near impossible to get started. By reaching out to contacts and industry organisations JAM is delighted to continue to build the scholarship with yet more partners and prizes, to alleviate the financial and artistic burden and set another graduate up on a stronger footing for their first year in the industry.
Madison Stock won the first ever JAM scholarship in 2019, recently graduated from ALRA and has just finished shooting a guest lead on television series Holby City for the BBC. Last year’s winner Ayomide Adegun recently entered into his final year at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and says of the experience “The Luke Westlake Scholarship has helped me incredibly in the past 9 months. Financially and resourcefully, I feel on par with everyone that has come from a better social standing as me.”
Luke Westlake was a friend of the founding members of JAM, he trained with co-artistic directors Kristian Wall and Kyle Rowe at ArtsEd and had begun a good career with string of television credits including Luther and Dark Heart. Sadly in June 2020 Luke passed away. A diligent, fierce, working-class actor, he represents everything the scholarship stands for and JAM are very grateful to his parents, Bridgette and Lee, for giving their blessing to continue to run the scholarship in his honour.
Lee & Bridgette Westlake, parents of Luke Westlake, said: “We are delighted that the scholarship so kindly dedicated by MAD to the memory of our son Luke continues to grow from strength to strength. It is an amazing opportunity, and we urge all those eligible to apply. We look forward to seeing another excellent field of candidates and this year we hope to meet in person to celebrate the fantastic talent that we know will come forward.”
Actors currently in 2nd year at drama school or University are invited to apply to the scholarship via the JAM website (www.justaddmilkjam.com) and fill out the application, including a statement on what winning the award would mean to them and a 2min self-tape monologue. The shortlist is selected from all the applicants based on their answers and performance and shortlisted applicants then work with casting director Faye Timby on a second self-tape, which is then presented to a panel of industry figures who vote on a winner.
The panel includes Ian Aryeh (Resident Director for the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Showcase), Jaz Hutchins (Company Director of GoHub), Scarlett Maltman & Mary Burch BME (for Industry Minds), Liam McLaughlin, Kristian Wall & Kyle Rowe (for Just Add Milk), Faye Timby (Casting Associate for Sophie Holland Casting) and Luke Westlake’s parents Brigette and Lee Westlake.
