Acting Courses

The study of Acting is fascinating by any standards and the object of the course is to give you the means to create characters for any director, in any style and for any situation

Full-time (Day) Acting Courses

We offer three full-time acting courses held during the day:

• Three year 12-term course
  
• Two year 8-term course
  
• One year 4-term course

Full-time (Evening) Acting Courses:

We also offer two full-time evening courses:

• Three-year 12 term course
  
• Two-year 8 term course 
  

The course is centred upon a core-acting syllabus (See 'Core Syllabus' below), with the addition of many other subjects relevant to professional development. With an approach rooted in the Stanislavski system we will show you the fundamentals of the craft from your first term

From there your path will be to hone your skill throughout the course so that by the time you have participated in directors showings, internal assessments, outside productions, productions by visiting directors and international festivals you will be ready for the profession. Combined with a range of workshops given by visiting directors, lecturers, termly tutor reports and assessments, it is easy to see why the acting course is likely to be one of the most demanding, fulfilling and eye-opening times of your life

Core Syllabus:

Attention

We will teach you to focus your attention where you and the director have decided it should be. You will learn to move your attention without thinking about it

Inspiration

Have you ever thought that playing the same part again and again might become boring after the excitement of a few opening nights? No job is ever boring if you are inspired and the same is true of acting. By the end of the first term you will know how to become inspired before a show, rehearsal, or at anytime by using a simple technique

Free-body (Relaxation)

It is quite common in the theatre for an actor to say to a director that what he or she is doing feels "awkward". This is because the actor's body is not used to the movement or posture he or she is being asked for. You can free your body from holding onto or picking up habits which are useless for an actor, and prepare it to accept the new character's physicality. Having learnt how to do this, you can create characters with any kind of physicality with much more ease

Purposes

Everything we do in life, whether it is soothing a child, scratching our neck, sending money to a charity or robbing a bank, is to achieve a purpose - to make ourselves happy. We are unaware of most of our purposes but they are what stage characters should be based on. As the course unfolds you will learn how to understand purposes and how to hold the purposes of the character you are playing. You will also aquire the ability to see what purposes characters have in plays

Creating a Character

By the end of the course you will not only have a very thorough understanding of what a character is, but how to create one in any timescale: from a few seconds at an audition, to 8 weeks of rehearsal. The range of Acting exercises chosen on the course are designed to slowly build up the Actor's skill and versatility from simple exercises to more complex pieces, culminating in full productions. Continuous guidance, whilst building on other stage skills at the same time (Stage Combat, Dance, etc), will ensure you are fully prepared for the profession

Students at the Academy are given many opportunities to be involved in public performances. In the fourth term of each year, all students take part in at least one full-length production

The Academy has three public showings per year of directors' and actors' work for invited guests. On alternate years the Academy takes several shows to the Edinburgh Festival and to the bi-annual Podium Theatre Festival in Moscow (See EVENTS and PLAYS). As the acting course runs alongside the directing course, acting students also have the opportunity to perform in directors' pieces throughout the year