When Violet decided to enter the acting profession, the actress Ellen Terry, a family friend, suggested that she should adopt the stage name Vanbrugh. Violet's early success encouraged Irene to follow her into the profession, and she too took the stage surname Vanbrugh. Both sisters enrolled at Sarah Thorne's school of acting, based at Margate, which gave them a thorough practical grounding. Irene recalled "We played every kind of play there; comedy, farce, and drama of the deepest dye; while at Christmas there came the pantomime, so that the Juliet of a week ago might be the Prince Paragon of the Yule-tide extravaganza." The sisters played together in "As You Like It" at the Theatre Royal, Margate, with Violet in the lead role, Rosalind, and Irene in the smaller part of Phoebe. John Gielgud, a grand nephew of Ellen Terry, described the two: