Acting

Students are allocated to a pathway according to their programme to introduce ideas relevant to their studies. The module introduces some of the broad over-arching themes and concepts – historical, cultural, social, political, and economic – that affect and inform the production of art, design and/or craft.

In this module, students will explore and put into practice the work they’ve learnt so far through the rehearsal of scenes from a play by the European Naturalists, for example Chekhov or Ibsen or may even be stretched to include other naturalistic writers, such as Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansbury, August Wilson or JB Priestley where appropriate. Students will engage with the sensual use of language as a means of creative expression. Rehearsals will foster a practice that demands research and observation, a willingness to experiment, and a confident integration of movement, voice and acting classes in the creation of character, relationship and given circumstances.

In this module, students will begin to explore the work they have been learning in their acting classes through the rehearsal of a scene taken from a piece of contemporary realism, for example Simon Stephens, Leo Butler, Joe Penhall, Dennis Kelly, Roy Williams, Moira Buffini amongst others. The assessment will be formative and will include the presentation of a workbook journal, to provide context and a focal point to the student’s journey through the work. Students will be encouraged to work towards an increasingly secure application of the processes and methodologies to which they have been introduced in earlier stages of the course and to achieve convincing and appropriate character transformations, relationships and playable objectives.

This module builds on the work of the first term and complements the Rehearsal Project 1: Contemporary Realism. In this module, students will continue to develop the principles of the actor training with a transition of emphasis from notions of self to playing character. Students will work with improvisation, psychological gestures, as well as exercises based on the work of Uta Hagen, Stanislavsky and Michael Chekhov. Students will also be introduced to and familiarised with acting in front of the camera.

In this foundational movement module, students will develop core competencies in movement and embodiment while beginning to understand their unique physical acting process. The focus is on fostering presence, intentionality, and awareness of how the body and movement inform character, storytelling, and the craft of acting. 

This module establishes principles that help the student experience the breath in two ways: as an impulsive, natural response to a stimulus, a need to express and communicate freely, without tension or over-control; and as a dynamic, living actor’s resource that supports the voice physically, and that carries the voice’s expressivity. Taking methodologies and pedagogies from Kristin Linklater and Patsy Rodenburg, the module encourages students to reassess habitual usage and to lay the foundation of new habits which will build released, supported, expressive voices that respond to imagination and creative impulse.

In this module you will begin to work on the foundations upon which the training is based: you will apply imagination, curiosity and energy to free yourself from habit and to experience working with openness, impulse and sensation. Throughout this work you be exploring notions of self. Part of this module will involve working as a full cohort, experiencing through song and movement, the physical, spiritual and psychic demands of the ensemble. In parallel with this, you will work through a series of Stanislavsky and Hagen based acting exercises, to set up the fundamental principles of the training, including playing from impulse, sustaining objectives, generating characteristics and being a sensuous human being in the space.

This module is delivered and assessed by individual programmes and relate directly to students’ personal practice and the contexts that inform making in professional art, design and/or craft practices. The module asks students to begin to form a critical understanding of their own practice.

Students will integrate more advanced movement practices to build their repertoire, applying their learning to characters, scenes, and theatrical productions. 

This module is designed to address the particular needs of a year group and involves the rehearsal and presentation of a classical or contemporary theatre text. It is a bridge to the third year and an opportunity for students to present a number of performances in a black box studio theatre to a public or semi-public audience. It will provide students with an experience of performing a role more than once or twice and will enable students to reinforce their established working methodology. There will be a possibility of taking this project on a local tour of schools.

Building on the work from term 1, students will look at development of character for screen work. Through workshopping and improvisation they will create their own characters and then lead to creating scenes for those characters to work with. The training shifts more towards preparing the actor for professional industry standards and challenges and students will explore what they as actors need to bring in order to be ready to film, how to manage a character’s journey whilst working out of sequence and in a non linear pattern and how to sustain a character’s living, breathing inner life in a pressurised filming environment.

In this module students will engage with the practical, emotional and technical demands of Shakespeare’s plays. They will learn how to speak verse, work with imagery and metaphor and apply what they have learnt in the Actor’s Craft throughout the first year to complex text. Students will work in a rehearsal environment on a cut down version of a Shakespeare play and explore the psychological and spiritual dynamics of his characters and their relationships. Emphasis will be on assimilation of technique, heightened language and extreme character objectives. The work of this module will be deftly supported by the work in other classes including voice and movement.

This module builds on poetry work introduced in the first year. Having been encouraged to explore physical, instinctive and creative approaches to consonant, vowel, syllable, word and thought, students’ understanding is broadened out to the Shakespearean sonnets, where they respond to challenges of verse structure, including meter, rhyme, enjambment and caesura. Drawing on work from practitioners such as Linklater and Patrick Tucker, the module aligns with other principles of voice work to build a robust, creative discipline that enables the actor’s speech to become varied and expressive in response to ever more complex and heightened impulses, thence to foster a growing ability to approach any text with confidence and creativity.

In this module, students will apply their craft and experience to the demands of acting for screen and television in a rigorous and detailed way. Following on from the first year introduction to acting for camera, students will work with experienced professionals with ongoing experience at a high level of the industry to learn a variety of techniques, experience being in front of the camera, critically evaluating the work as well as rehearsing scenes from extant television and film scripts.

For ‘Contextualising Practice 2: Critical Analysis A’, students can choose to study up to two thematic sub-units to develop their contextual studies in new directions. The CP2 Critical Analysis modules encourage students to develop their critical analysis skills gained in Level 4 to further investigate the broad over-arching themes and concepts – historical, cultural, social, political, and economic – that affect and inform the production of art, design and/or craft.

This module introduces students to the demands of public performance and the need to develop their work in a context that requires high levels of discipline, imagination and professionalism. Rehearsals will operate in exactly the same manner as they would in the profession: each play will rehearse full-time for 4 weeks and perform for an extended period over one or two weeks. Students work alongside a team that includes a production manager, wardrobe supervisor, stage manager, professional designers, lighting designers and other technical staff. Each production is fully realised and performed in the new Theatre before a paying audience and invited guests from the profession.

This module provides further opportunities for students to develop their work in front of a public audience. Play choices tend to be more ensemble in nature and this challenges the students to collaborate in the telling of a story and to call on the ensemble skills of the first year. Each play rehearses on a full-time basis for 4 weeks and performs over one week. Each production is fully realised and performed in the Theatre before a paying audience and invited guests from the profession.

In this module, students will create a piece of work, which may involve devising, directing, writing or choreographing a piece of theatre, tv, radio or film – a project that will involve actors but in which the student themselves is unlikely to act. They will be supervised by a member of staff but the emphasis will be on independent study and rehearsals. Supervisors will expect to be regularly included on the development of the work and invited in to rehearsals. 

This module supports students in their work towards the production of audio and visual recordings, which form a major part of their portfolio as professional actors. Upon completion of the module students will have demonstrated their skills and ambitions towards future employability through their technical discipline, imagination and professionalism in formats appropriate to their future career plans.