Acting with Musical Theatre Foundation Course

Acting

This module will equip you with an acting ‘toolkit’. You will be introduced to the key principles and key terminology of Stanislavski’s system, as well as explore the methodologies of other leading pedagogues such as Meisner and Hagen. You will be introduced to textual analysis as a central stratagem for gleaning information about the situation, character, and relationships from the story.

This strand will also focus on the ability to ‘play’ in the present moment, assisting students in going deeper into the craft of responding from impulse.

Classical Text

This module aims to confront the actor with the challenges of classical text, which contains heightened or poetic language. You will be introduced to the linguistic devices used in Shakespeare’s work, and explore how, through embodying these clues, you can gain a deeper intellectual understanding to the text, as well as a visceral emotional connection to the words.

This strand is designed to help you find the psychological and emotional three-dimensional truth of heightened characters and epic texts.

Ensemble Singing

You will develop your musicality, musicianship, and explore what it means to be part of an ensemble through examining a variety of musical theatre genres and historical, contemporary, and cultural styles. Sessions will focus on the key areas of complexities of harmony, listening, dynamics, accuracy, how to be guided by a conductor, and how you can seamlessly synergise as a group. This work will be combined with skills that explore the vocal anatomy and vocal production within a group setting, and how this contributes to the complete sound picture.

Acting Through Song

You will approach this strand as an actor; the emphasis of the work will be on ‘telling the story’ via the medium of song. You will learn how to prepare the material as if it were a script, engaging in detailed textual analysis and actor research to ensure you have sufficiently fuelled your imagination with given circumstances, character intention, and sufficient knowledge of the subtext to embody a three-dimensional life effectively.

Singing Tutorials

You’ll have 10 X 30-minute individual singing tutorials, which provide a platform to apply the learned principles of vocal anatomy and vocal production, as well as look more closely at your own voice and skill set. These sessions will help develop confidence in an intimate setting, enhancing and expanding your unique range and areas of expertise.

You will build and work on your collection of songs featuring a range of styles, periods, and historical and cultural landscapes to meet the industry’s expectations and further audition requirements. 

Term One

This work will begin by introducing you to the physiology of the vocal anatomy, helping you gain a greater physical, emotional, and intellectual connection to your voice. You will be asked to consider, analyse, and celebrate your speech system as a starting point for future character work. The work will focus on deepening your relationship with your breath, expanding capacity and control through increased flexibility and support of the ribcage and diaphragm. You will adopt several practices and techniques to warm up in preparation for all acting work, be it theatre or screen. 

You will apply this knowledge to poetic text, culminating in a class sharing where you will select and perform a poem you connect with. You will be encouraged to explore topics and themes that celebrate your social, cultural, ethnic, and economic background.

Term Two

This term will continue to work on releasing any unhelpful tensions that inhibit the fully functioning, free voice, further equipping you with a greater range of exercises to employ within your warm-up. You will experience opening the resonating ladder and developing vocal flexibility. 

The term will culminate in a class sharing of a storytelling project; you will work in small groups and select an epic myth, legend, fairy tale or piece of folklore from any culture or time to capture and perform the spirit of the piece using the full creative expression of your voice. 

Term One

The first term will include fundamental to advanced exercises (dependent on your ability) that develop flexibility, strength, control, isolation work, and compound steps to enable the development of routines/combinations in various musical theatre styles. 

Term Two

This term aims to enhance further your technical and expressive proficiency through a wide range of dance techniques, as required within a professional rehearsal process and within the audition processes for Musical Theatre courses. You will learn a different dance routine each week, requiring increased skill under decreased time. This choreography will vary in style, genre, and historical/ contemporary/ cultural context, calling on various skills and expertise.

This term will further equip you with the tools and knowledge to take responsibility for the preparation of your own body, and the confidence and awareness to continue to confront individual limitations and extend beyond them. You will be expected to independently start fusing the strands of your training and practice maintaining truthful, appropriate characterisation throughout performances.

Song And Dance – Terms One and Two

These sessions will focus on the integration of dance, acting, and song, developing the unification of skills and techniques required of a contemporary musical theatre performer in a variety of performance contexts and environments.

You will learn how to apply theory, contextual understanding, and character analysis to the rehearsal and performance of a routine and it’s accompanying song. These sessions are designed to expand repertoire and develop you as an artist, asking you to engage in the underlying themes and broader socio-political messages to devise material. Students will be at the forefront of developing, assembling, and refining the creative ideas behind the choreography to tell a straightforward, impactful story through movement.

There will be a presentation every half term. Each half term will explore a different, distinctive style, for example, Rogers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, Contemporary Musicals, and Period Musicals; specific content will be tailored to the cohort.

Mirroring industry practice, you will be given constant feedback on all areas of your work and learn to develop and act upon these notes in the moment and outside of the rehearsal room.

Term One – Pure Movement

You will learn to unpack your physical habits and tensions and inquire how you can work from a place of ease, flow, and release gently and kindly. You will learn what it means to be in a state of ‘readiness’ as an actor, flexible and open to the offers in the space, with front-footed presence and awareness. 

Once this state of ‘active engagement’ is established, and the actor implicitly understands their own body as an instrument, the classes will start introducing the ‘Laban efforts’ as a tool for characterisation and transformation. You will experiment with what you can emphasise, remove, or replace in your physical habits to create character- and how these alterations to our physical self can inform and enrich how a character thinks, feels and behaves. 

The term will culminate in a class sharing of your personal physical interpretation of a character from the given text based on the Laban efforts. 

Term two – Animal Studies

 The term will focus on ‘Animal Studies’, how you can make creative and specific physical choices to create character, and how, because of these external choices, the internal life is enriched.

You will first select an animal that feels ‘close to you’ in terms of rhythm, weight distribution, speed, how space is occupied, and its relationship to other creatures. You will then select an animal that feels ‘far from you’ and devise a character from this standpoint.

The term will culminate in working in pairs on scenes selected by the tutor, where you must identify, embody, and perform an animal you feel captures the spirit of the role. The animal must be sufficiently ‘invisible’ and serve to enrich the inner and outer life of the human being portrayed.

Term One

In this term, you will be introduced to the basic concepts of screen acting. The work will centre around ‘self-tapes’, as this is the first-round requirement for most drama schools. You will practice acting techniques and experiment in front of the lens, gaining confidence, ease, and trust in performing naturally.

Term Two

This term introduces you to the technical processes involved in filmmaking. You will practically explore how to write, produce, perform, and edit a short film created in small groups. Classes will support you in gaining a practical understanding of the range of technical and production roles required to make short films. You will be prompted to consider the social, cultural, and ethical implications of the work you are making – and the impact it will have on the world around you.

The module will culminate in week 5 by presenting the completed short films at an internal film festival.

Term One

This term’s work is all about embracing improvisation and performing spontaneously with others. You will learn to respond to the impulses of your body and imagination freely, and joyfully; trusting your instincts and resisting a need to plan. You will also learn to value the offers of others as precious anchors to the present moment and appreciate how the embracing of these ideas will both connect you as players, clarify the narrative, and please the audience. You will apply this work to pre-written texts and explore how improvisational tools can reveal insight into character, world, and relationships. At the end of the term, you will perform an improvised scene in pairs to the rest of your class, with stimuli provided by the tutor.

Term Two

During this term you will learn how to build stories. Gaining a tacit understanding of how to construct a scene’s beginning, middle and end, ensuring you include enough conflict, stakes, character, and resolution. You will write your own dialogues from these improvisations and gain the opportunity to edit and refine your work after performing it to an audience. The term will end with the sharing of these self-written scenes in small groups.

This part of the course will build your confidence in auditioning. It will help you to choose audition material that works to support you in being playful and connected in your performance and it will explore your options when you leave the course.