BA (Hons) Acting: Musical Theatre

BA (Hons) Acting: Musical Theatre

Central's BA (Hons) Acting (Musical Theatre) degree course provides you with the skills to work in classical and contemporary theatre, musicals, feature film, television and radio. Throughout the course, you will explore acting through a range of contemporary approaches to sung and spoken voice, movement and dance. As an actor, you will interrogate both musical and non-musical settings ranging from Shakespeare and the modern American realists to Sondheim and the popular musical. As the course progresses you will acquire the necessary skills for the realization of ‘character’ in both the transformational and heightened theatrical styles of both spoken and sung performance. The course has outstanding links with the performing arts industry and this is reflected in the wide range and high percentage of graduate employment. Students are entitled to full Equity status upon graduation.

Year 1 / Level 4 will provide you with the enabling conditions for you to reach a state of intellectual, physical and emotional readiness vital for the development of an effective actor’s working process. Learning and teaching strategies will focus on your own identification and awareness of acquired physical, vocal and psychological habits. The year will also introduce and advance DRAMA UK Competencies thus providing the means for you to acquire a personal / professional vocabulary combining theoretical, analytical and technical aspects of the acting process. As honors students you will be introduced to the notion of the reflective practitioner and are required to keep a Working Journal throughout the course. This level establishes a common understanding of Acting, taking a broad view of the many processes involved. It could be identified as being similar to a ‘foundation’ year. Year 2 / Level 5 Overview In this level you will focus on developing a solid foundation to your personal acting process through an application and interrogation of the concepts introduced in Level four, and your developing emotional investment in performance. Learning and teaching strategies will make considerable new demands upon you, and your anticipated mastery at Year One of a wide range of basic acting skills and knowledge’s will serve as the essential foundation to these new challenges. Having technically identified your own acquired physical, vocal and psychological habits, you will now be required to advance intellectual, emotional and performance competencies. You will be required to continue to develop your notion and experience of the reflective practitioner, in addition keeping a Working Journal. At Level five, you will be required to develop your own understanding of the links between the personal and the professional in acting, to recognize individual strengths as well as the limitations these might impose, and to explore the means to begin to experiment beyond these established parameters. Year 3/Level 6 Overview This level is conceived and structured in such a way as to enable you to reinforce, test and constructively critique the process of acting, and to broaden your range of technical and professional skills. The key focus throughout is the provision of a range of public performances, with appropriate casting choices made throughout such that you experience a range of challenges, but at different stages throughout the year. In your third year you will be required to take a substantial and individual professional / academic responsibility for your own development and demonstrate a greater capacity for high quality sustained independent work at this level. This is your ‘professional’ year – where you will demonstrate your understanding of industry standard performance. The year aims to replicate current professional practice, the artistic director placing total emphasis on the professional actor’s craft. The year will challenge your creative process with theatrically complex and demanding plays, music theatre and new performance projects selected from non-realistic and realistic modes of performance. You will be required to apply research techniques developed in year 2 and incorporate your own established personal independent routine of daily practice in your acquisition, investigation and interrogation of advanced vocal and physical skills.