Acting & Performance BA (Hons)

Your first year of study will involve exploring the many facets of performance, both physically and theoretically, and examining the connections between stage and screen acting.

Acting Skills 1
You’ll be introduced to a basic set of skills to provide a robust foundation for the course.  Movement and voice workshops, practicing various approaches to text and stage combat form the basis of this unit.

Stage Screen Connections
In this unit, you'll develop your contemporary screen acting skills and be introduced to filmmaking techniques including editing, shooting, camera, lights and sound. You'll experiment with creating, performing in and making your own short silent film. Alongside these skills, you will be introduced to the lenses of critical theory to begin your analysis of film and stage work.

Approaches to Acting
You’ll learn the theoretical and practical approaches to creating a role and begin building a toolkit of approaches to acting, which will enable you to work with a variety of directors, theatrical styles and screens.

Exploring the Play
You’ll explore the uses of improvisation and techniques, as an actor, for developing improvised performances. This unit gives you the opportunity to undertake a self-directed piece of work in small groups.

Acting Skills 2
You’ll develop your practical approaches to acting from Year one, advancing your creative and technical skills and learning how to connect with your audience.  Movement studies continue, you’ll be introduced to applied voice skills (singing and recorded voice) and creative script writing.

American Theatre
Using examples of scenes from the plays of American writers, you’ll explore the underlying themes and methods writers employ to create meaning and depth in their work. You’ll explore how you, as an actor, interpret and translate these intentions into performance.

Social Realism
The different ways in which filmmakers, writers and directors use real-life stories, events and people to make drama, and it relates to you as an actor, is explored in this unit. You’ll debate the relationship of social realism to politics and how it, as a style, affects your work.

Violence and Revenge
This unit introduces you to speaking Shakespearian verse involving the most violent and vengeful scenes Jacobean theatre has to offer. These are performed in a festival style which you will be producing. Alongside this, you will be studying violent films from the viewpoint of cultural debate and active citizenship.

Study Abroad (optional)
Students may choose to study abroad during the latter part of the second year.

Your final year is about ‘making it your business’ and sustaining your career after graduation – you’ll make a short film and finish the third year with a live performance.

Professional Development
This unit focuses on the business of acting and how to apply your acting skills to practical approaches to help you make your way in the creative industries. You will create a website and a personal or business plan including 30 opportunities for work, either as an actor or as a small company.

Dissertation
After choosing a subject related to your course, you’ll undertake a period of thorough and sustained research on that subject, towards the production of a structured written piece. This is an excellent option for those wishing to pursue an academic career.

Or

Practice as Research
As with the dissertation, this is a sustained research project however, this project involves you making work as part of your research. This option is suitable for those wanting to make work after graduation.

Performance
Led by professional directors, you will work on a film performance and a stage performance. These productions and films will be the culmination of your journey from Year one to Year three.

This course offers the opportunity to study abroad for part of your second year. To find out more about studying abroad as part of your course please see the Study Abroad section:

• Study abroad information

Taught by lecturers with professional acting or directing experience, you’ll quickly learn what it takes to be an industry professional. Our degree course is designed by professionals to train contemporary actors, and our valuable industry links include:

• Farnham Maltings
• British Actors’ Equity
• Drama UK (the body that oversees drama training across the country).

Alongside (or as an alternative to) theatre, TV, radio or film work, a portfolio career for the professional freelance actor may also include:

• Acting in corporate films, and live role-play in business training
• Forming a company to create and stage your own work
• Commercials (film or audio)
• Voicing computer games and animations
• Creating original material for Image Capture projects
• Community projects such as theatre in schools.