Beginners Acting Course

This Beginners Acting course offers a thorough, practical introduction to acting in a fun and supportive atmosphere. Each class provides plenty of opportunity to practice your new acting skills, under the eye of an expert teacher, making sure you feel confident and happy.

If you haven't been on stage since school, or have always held a secret dramatic desire, this course is the ideal place for you to give acting a whirl.

Acting Skills Development

Our Beginners Acting class is ideal for those with little or no acting experience, providing the chance to explore acting techniques in playful and practical way, while having fun and learning to be part of an ensemble.

Exact course content may differ according to the course length and students needs but topics covered generally include:

• Using environment, character and objectives to explore text

• Freeing emotion and finding connection with other actors

• Exploring the use of the voice and body in acting

• Finding the playfulness and fun in performing

• Building confidence for performance

• Rehearsing a scene from a play

• Being truthful in imaginary circumstances

• You will receive friendly feedback throughout

Something To Think About

Wearing comfortable clothes and bringing a bottle of water is recommended for obvious reasons! Scripts will be provided.

Beginners Acting Class Progression

It is recommended that if you are new to acting you take the beginners acting class twice with different teachers before moving on.

• Improvers Acting »

• Voice Training »

• Improvisation Acting »

We offer a 10% discount if you book 2 or more different courses at the same time.

How we approach teaching in the acting department

The best way to sum up the ethos of the Acting Department is to call it a “rainbow” approach, in that we give you a little bit of everything, from every reputable school of thought. That’s why you’ll find that our teachers cover everything from Method Acting and Stanislavski to Meisner and Augusto Boal, as well as using their own experience to illuminate a technique.

While there are some basic principles it would be foolish to deviate from, one of the best being, “learn your lines and try not to bump into the furniture” (attributed to Gielgud!), approaches can be as varied as actors themselves. What we try to ensure is that you all come away with a “toolbox”, and know what questions to ask of the script and of yourself when approaching a role, so that you can move towards an interpretation.

We also believe very much in the value of acting courses for developing life skills, irrespective of whether you want to pursue acting in a sustained way, amateur or professional. Just the simple act of getting up in front of people each week and trying out something new teaches you a lot about yourself and how you relate to people, and hopefully enables you to strengthen those areas you feel are weak and re-discover talents that had probably been asleep for a while!

Even if you’ve done quite a bit of acting at school/university or in amateur companies, don’t automatically discount starting a course at improvers or even beginners level. It will enable you to explore your acting without any pressure and expectations, and give you the opportunity to consolidate and support your talent with sound technique, filling in any gaps in your knowledge. It can be very enjoyable learning why the performances you already give are so effective, and help you avoid falling into any bad habits or traps.

You’re welcome to take any level of course a second time with another teacher (and we do recommend this), but we do particularly encourage students to take a second Improvers Acting course with a different teacher, especially if you’ve only done a short 6 or 8 week course. You’ll not only benefit from another teacher’s style and experience but it also gives you the chance to consolidate your understanding of all you’ve learnt and practice your skills, before classes notch up a gear on the Intermediate Acting course.