Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Study Details: MA 1 year full time; MFA two years, full time.
As a student on the MA or MFA Advanced Theatre Practice at Central, you can expect to:
Benefits of the programme
Develop experience from extensive workshops with leading professionals, learning to research and extend your own practice, launch a company, make new work, and, on the MA, finally take this to an audience beyond Central
Extend the roles of performer, director, writer, designer, dramaturg, puppeteer, musician, artist, or creative thinker in new and unexpected ways within a supportive atmosphere of discovery and innovation
Explore the interdisciplinarity of performer practices, performance composition or scenography, through learning skills, exploring processes and experimenting with techniques. Become involved in web-based technologies and digital media, building on the tradition of theatre making as a communicative medium of exchange, or inspired by the current wave of experimental directors, explore the distinct roles of director or performer working with text in contemporary theatre
Become involved in new technologies, digital media and virtual techniques or, inspired by the current wave of experimental directors, explore the distinct roles of director, performer, or puppeteer (of object theatre) working with text in contemporary theatre
Have opportunities to take work made on the course to festivals and events outside the School, for example, Camden People’s Theatre, Istropolitana Projekt (Slovakia), Zlomvaz Festival (Prague), Marathon Festival (Jerusalem), Blalystok Festival (Poland), Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Prague Quadriennale
Join a network of distinguished alumni, including winners of Olivier, Total Theatre, Irish Times, Deutsche Bank, Rolex Mentor and Protégée, JMK, Allen Wright, Linbury and Evening Standard Theatre Awards, changing the way we work and think about theatre
Have excellent opportunities, if undertaking the MFA, to work for an extended period with a number of distinguished external companies. You will be part of a carefully selected group who wish to pool your resources and imagine the theatre of the future.
Cutting edge practice and thinking is the norm at Central. Exciting research activity ongoing in this area and led by Dr Duska Radosavljevic can be found here
You will normally have good knowledge and experience of at least one of theatre-making discipline (i.e. performance, directing, writing, design, dramaturgy, puppetry, music, visual art), together with a strong desire to bring this expertise to an experimental theatre-making environment.
Alternatively, you may be an outstanding individual from another discipline, with an evident desire to explore interdisciplinary practice.
You should normally have an undergraduate degree in a relevant field, (drama, theatre or performance studies) though applications from students of other disciplines will be considered. Applications for the accreditation of prior experience in lieu of academic qualification will also be considered where appropriate.
An offer will normally only be made after interview.
We particularly encourage applications from groups currently under-represented in higher education, such as students with disabilities and members of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups. Find out more information on Central’s commitment to equality and diversity.
English Language Requirements
Applicants for whom English is not their first language are required to prove their English language proficiency by gaining an overall score of 7.0 in an IELTS test, or equivalent. Applicants are advised to gain this certification as early as possible and more information can be found through the English Language Requirements page.
Interviews
As part of the interview process you will be asked to make a short video which involves you in activities and presentations similar to those of the interview day. While you are making your video, you are asked to keep a journal, using the template you have been given. Your video should contain the following elements:
A short introduction to camera, telling the viewer a little about yourself and why you have applied to the MA/MFA Advanced Theatre Practice programme, this should be no longer than 3 minutes.
Your video should show, in a single unedited take, the entire process of you making the work as well as the two-minute resulting performance or presentation (25 minutes of footage maximum). Once again, it’s important to emphasise that the panel will not be expecting miracles! Just a few ideas in progress, and an ability to work with other people.
The Course Team understands that your work will not be as deeply worked or as polished as would be the case if you were given a longer period of preparation.
In addition to the above, you are asked to choose one of the following ways of presenting yourself and your work
If you are selected for an interview for a place on the Advanced Theatre Practice MA or MFA, you can expect the following:
Applicants will usually be seen as part of a group. You will remain together for much of the day, and will have a chance to learn more about the course and ask questions. You will find the day quite relaxed, informal, and hopefully enjoyable.
Each year Central hosts a number of interviews outside of the UK, with a team of tutors from Central travelling to meet applicants. The international interviews are designed to replicate the London-based interview experience in every aspect (other than a tour of our site).
For fees and funding options, please visit website to find out more
Graduate employment and career pathways include:
in companies including: the Royal Court Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Camden People’s Theatre, Theatre503, Hampstead Theatre, English National Opera, High Tide Festival, Complicite, Frantic Assembly, Shakespeare’s Globe, MKA Theatre of New Writing Australia, Melbourne Theatre Company and National Theatres of Finland, Iceland and the UK.
In the first year of the MFA, you will join the MA students for Terms One to Three.
The MFA then extends into a second year beginning in October, enabling the development of further projects and professional connections outside the School. Working together during this initial period of creative growth, you will develop experience from the intensive workshop atmosphere of Term One, through learning to research and extending practice in Term Two, to launching a company or the approach to making new work in Term Three.
You will be supported in this process of growth and development, gradually enabling you to become a stronger, more articulate practitioner, better able to work flexibly and constructively with others, extending the boundaries of theatre and how it might be seen.
Term Four of the MA focuses on taking work to an audience of choice beyond Central.
The MFA second year deepens and extends this opportunity for independent professional development beyond Central, while still retaining a degree of contact and guidance from tutors. An MFA top-up year for those with an existing MA in this subject is also available.
Assessment
Practice is evaluated throughout the first three terms through continuous assessment of contribution to the rehearsal/development process, combined with essays reflecting on this work in the broader context of contemporary theatre practice. Peer assessment also forms a part of the evaluation process.
The course prepares you for the Sustained Independent Project. Those undertaking the MA will take a performance work that has been made with colleagues to a documented encounter with a public audience during the summer.
MFA students will choose from a list of possible approaches and means of documenting your work, undertaking a more developed and independent version of the Sustained Independent Project beyond Central during your second year.
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama is a small specialist institution of the theatrical and performing arts within the University of London....
