STUDENT GUIDE TO DRAMA EDUCATION 2018–19 622704 ISBN 9781910622704 781910 9> SGDE1819-OL_001_Cover [APPROVED].indd 1 07/08/2018 15:29:22 BE YOURSELF BE AMAZING We are looking for creative, inspirational individuals to open their own Pauline Quirke Academy. If you have a passion for the performing arts and a desire to pass your knowledge on to the next generation, we would love to work with you. • No Franchise fee • Full administrative support • Professional assistance with marketing • Ongoing head office help and support What we want from you is your experience, skills and enthusiasm. Working with PQA means you focus on delivering exciting lessons and performances in the performing arts with your own team of teachers. For more information visit pqacademy.com or call 0800 531 6282 and ask for Kelly Jones YEARS OF BEING AMAZING SGDE DIGITAL.indd 2 08/08/2018 10:32:47 Student Guide to Drama Education 2018–19 Welcome to the Student Guide which offers you insight into lots of these things so to Drama Education. This guide that you can apply for Higher Education better is designed to offer advice if informed about what careers are available. This will you are thinking of applying to also affect whether you apply to university or to study or train in any aspect of drama school (or try your luck with both). the performing arts. This guide offers lots of practical advice about the Though many students hope to careers and courses available; preparing for your become actors, there are many auditions and interviews; and preparing yourself for a life and varied professions relating to the theatre business ‘in the business’. We round off with some recommended – you might want to consider directing, stage reading, so there’s plenty to keep you busy. management, or a technical or design career, or perhaps becoming an agent or casting director. Break a leg! You don’t have to specialise too soon, either: if you’re Sarah Lambie only in year 11 you might decide to pursue a course Editor Performance Contents Speak the speech, I pray you ... 43 Acting your audition song 46 Education & Administration Know thy self 48 What’s it like to study … 5 Listings 49 Firm foundations 12 Suppliers & Services Higher Education: the options 15 Out of the limelight 85 Tuition fees: the facts 16 Becoming a theatre director 89 Choosing and preparing your monologues 17 for drama school auditions Books to read 92 Listings 21 Plays to read 94 Listings 96 Extra online material The Student Guide to Drama Education is also available to read free online. The online version includes extra pages of listings content, featuring information on performance organisations, such as agents/managers and youth theatres; suppliers and services to the industry; and education and administration, listing the performing arts courses available around the country, as well as information on funding and support. Visit www.rhinegold.co.uk/SGDE for the extra online content. Editor Sarah Lambie Advertising executive Alisdair Ashman Editorial assistant Cameron Bray Printed by Pollards, Oak House, Falcon Road, Exeter Designer Hal Bannister EX2 7NU Production controller Ashley Reid STUDENT GUIDE TO DRAMA EDUCATION 2018–19 3 SGDE1819-OL_003 Intro_Contents [APPROVED].indd 3 07/08/2018 16:34:18 HIGH SCHOOL EDITION samfren.ch/UKChicagoHSE SGDE DIGITAL.indd 4 08/08/2018 10:32:48 Education & Administration What’s it like to study … … Directing Paul Kmiec Mariagrazia LaFauci an assigned play. I was so grateful to be Did you know what you working with some of the most incredible wanted to do as an practitioners in the world. occupation before you started the course? Did that What did you find most change during the course? challenging? Directing is my ultimate passion, but I The final director’s showcase at the end am also interested in dramaturgy and the of the year was the first chance we had work of an artistic director, and both of What course did you study at to create our own work. We’d learned those passions sharpened through my time what institution? so much that we wanted to put into at LAMDA. I want someday to provide I completed the MA Directing course at practice, but it’s impossible to cram all of a platform for artists to connect and LAMDA in Autumn 2017. that learning into one rehearsal process. collaborate with communities in order to I chose a very ambitious piece to take tell a location-specific story that honours Why did you choose that a big risk and push the limits of my the connection between actor and audience. particular course? capabilities. It would have been wiser to I was glad to have received encouragement I wanted a holistic approach that didn’t choose something that fit better within that directors are also practitioners and the adhere to one particular method or the parameters and the limited timeframe role need not be so strictly defined. style of theatre. At LAMDA a number of we were given. However, I think I learned different techniques and methodologies more from my struggles and failures What is it that you do now, are taught. Also, directing students had to attempting to do this challenging project and what are your plans for take courses alongside the actors. I believe than I would have had I just done the future? it’s important to have an understanding of something safe, easy, and successful. I founded Trinacria Theatre Company actors’ process, in order to respect it and in Messina, Sicily, which is all about speak their language. What did you like about the cross-cultural exchange and community institution? story-sharing. Most of my family still What were the entry Even after graduating, we are continually lives in a tiny village in Messina. Over requirements? there to support one another, see each the years there has been mass emigration After an application online, there were other’s work and collaborate. It seems like due to crippling economic conditions two separate interviews and a final at least once a week, I’m sitting down to and natural disasters; the communities recall. They’d given me the option of coffee with a former classmate who wants here feel invisible and forgotten to the two different scenes, one classic and one some feedback on an artistic idea they’re rest of the world. However, it is a region from a contemporary play. I was assigned developing and vice versa. of extraordinary natural beauty and two actors and given a studio. For forty incredible history that goes all the way minutes, I directed the actors in the scene Do you feel that the course back to ancient Greek mythology. We aim of my choosing while a panel of tutors has equipped you with the to reframe this location as a site of retreat from LAMDA observed. At the end of the appropriate skills to work in and residency for artists and this summer session, I sat down to an interview with the theatre industry? we will be going to Sicily to do outreach the panel for about twenty minutes. The industry is constantly evolving work with the community. and just when you think you’ve got it What did you enjoy most figured out, the rules are shifting and the What advice would you give about the course and why? very definition of skill or the notion of to someone when picking a The projects were the best, and we did success is suddenly different to yesterday. course? so many of them. In the evenings and at All you can do is define those things Ask all the questions you have! As much weekends we were in workshop sessions for yourself and then work towards as they are interviewing you, you are also with professional practitioners on a variety those goals. LAMDA helped me put up interviewing them. Everyone grows and of topics. We did script analysis reports, goalposts for myself although they will learns in different ways. The ethos of how devising workshops, presentations on probably shift and change as I develop as a school works is important so investigate theatre practitioners and companies, an artist. But I can stand by those goals the principles of education that that dramaturgy, and we collaborated with and go after them confidently, which I school offers. Know yourself, know what a third year designer from the Design think is possibly the most important skill you want from your program, and ask BA at Royal Welsh to create a design for LAMDA’s given me. what you need to know. STUDENT GUIDE TO DRAMA EDUCATION 2018–19 5 SGDE1819-OL_005-011 What's it like [APPROVED].indd 5 07/08/2018 16:38:28 BA (Hons) Contemporary Performance Practice Three distinct courses: > DRAMA, APPLIED THEATRE AND EDUCATION > PERFORMANCE ARTS > WRITING FOR PERFORMANCE Information: www.cssd.ac.uk/drama-applied-theatre Apply for 2019 entry through UCAS: www.ucas.com CSSDLondon DRAMATIC TRAINING DEGREE COURSES IN: Acting Actor Musician Creative Producing Lighting Musical Direction Musical Theatre Scenic Art and Prop Making Site-Specific Theatre Practice Sound Stage Management Theatre Directing Theatre for Community and Education NOW IN PECKHAM Find out more mountview.org.uk • 020 8881 2201 SGDE DIGITAL.indd 6 08/08/2018 10:32:49 WHAT’S IT LIKE TO STUDY … … Acting Jak Malone Nicolas Dawkes What course did you study at What did you find most Did you know what you what institution? challenging? wanted to do as an I studied acting at The Liverpool Institute A challenge I faced was keeping up my occupation before you For Performing Arts (LIPA) training during holidays and rest periods.