Of all the arts, stage directing is the most intricate and fascinating and this course provides the most thorough and complete grounding in directing for any media.

One of the founders of the profession, Vladimir Niemirovitch-Danchenko, said:

• 'The stage director is made up of three parts. The director-interpreter of the play; he is also the one who shows you how to act and thus you can call him the director-actor or the director-teacher. The director-mirror, reflecting the individual qualities of an actor. The director-organiser of the whole production...'

This is to say that the main proof of good directing is the quality of the acting and of the overall production.

The stage director must take responsibility for all aspects of a performance. These include its social value, artistic image, script analysis, design, lighting, costumes, music and, most of all, the quality of acting. We will judge how the director's artistic talent is developing by looking at how he or she copes with all aspects of producing increasingly complex set exercises.

Every good director must understand the actor's creative process. We believe that if you can't act, you can't direct. That is why all students on the directing courses study acting to a professional public perfrmance level (it is also the reason why the first classes in directing do not take place before the first term of your second year).

As well as the subjects of the acting course, student directors will learn about the following:

• principles of directing
  directing exercises (beginning with a 10-second exercise and ending in a full-length play by the end of the course)
  introduction to opera and musical directing
  introduction to TV and film directing
  history of costume and stage design
  introduction to philosophy
  introduction to psychology
  technical drawing
  sound
  lighting
  stage management
  administration
  health and safety
  introduction to TV and film directing
  

Maths, physics, computing, biology, law and martial arts have also been chosen in the past by students in their third year of directing.

Main directing courses

You may only join these courses by auditioning for an acting course. You will study directing, in formal terms, on a directing module, which may take place only with an acting course.

Three-year 12-term directing day course

This directing course has at least 44 study weeks in each year. During your first year here you will see that directing puts much higher demands on you than acting alone. A director has a lot more responsibility and needs a lot more dedication. That is why, even if we accept you on to the directing course, you will need to confirm after the first year that you still want to study directing. If you do and you have achieved satisfactory progress, we will allow you to join the directing module.

Three-year 12-term evening, followed by one-year 4-term day course

In the second and third years of this course, we will teach you directing subjects on Tuesday evenings, and you will also work on your own directing pieces.