MGA offers performers who have already completed a full-time training course but have realised that they are not adequately prepared to compete for work opportunities within the industry the opportunity to join current MGA third-year students on the degree courses and ‘top-up’ their training to the BA (Hons) qualification.
MGA currently offers three courses for students at this level:
- Musical Theatre
- Acting
- Dance for Commercial Performance
The three-year BA (Hons) Degree in Dance (Commercial) is designed to provide individuals with the skills, knowledge, and creative ability to gain and maintain lasting careers as a professional commercial dancer.
This linked with our extensive industry contacts provides our students with all the tools to thrive in the world of dance.
Where will this course lead?
At the MGA Academy of Performing Arts, we prepare our students for sustainable successful careers within the dance industry through hands on, vocational based training.
Successful completion of this course can open doors to numerous amazing progression routes, with previous graduates finding employment opportunities in many industry roles including:
- UK & European Theatre Tours
- The Cruising Industry
- Music Concerts & Tours
- West End Musicals
- Music Videos
- Choreography
- Teaching
- Film
- Movement Director
Students have also progressed onto Postgraduate study upon completion of this course
The three-year BA (Hons) degree in Acting is designed to provide individuals with the skills, knowledge, and creative ability to gain and maintain lasting careers as a professional Actor.
This linked with our extensive industry contacts provides our students with all the tools to thrive in the world of acting.
At the MGA Academy of Performing Arts, we prepare our students for sustainable successful careers within the Acting industry through hands on, vocational based training.
Successful completion of this course can open doors to numerous amazing progression routes, with previous graduates finding employment opportunities in many industry roles including:
- Actor
- Theatre maker
- Presenter
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
- Acting/ Drama Teacher
- Casting director
- Agent
- Choreographer
Students have also progressed onto Postgraduate study upon completion of this course.
The three-year BA (Hons) degree in Musical Theatre is designed to provide individuals with the skills, knowledge, and creative ability to gain and maintain lasting careers as musical theatre professional performers.
This linked with our extensive industry contacts ensures our graduates are set to thrive in the Musical Theatre world.
At the MGA Academy of Performing Arts, we prepare our students for sustainable successful careers within the Musical Theatre industry through hands on, vocational based training.
Successful completion of a course can open doors to many amazing progression routes with previous graduates finding employment opportunities in areas including
- West End Musicals
- UK Touring Shows
- Cruise Contracts
- Rep Theatre companies
- Writing and Directing
- Film and TV
- International Performance Contracts
- Education
Students have also progressed onto Postgraduate study upon completion of this course
Acting BA (Hons) at Drama St Mary’s is a rigorous, full-time course that equips you for a career in acting.
- Drama St Mary's - unlike other drama schools - does not charge an audition fee
- Free pre-UCAS applications auditions and interviews with constructive feedback
- Central London showcases
- Drama School Training in a university context, offering personal support and tutorial supervision
Why study Acting?
This course helps you develop practical, holistic acting skills. Our new blended learning delivery model looks to maximise face-to-face contact, with the majority of work scheduled in our campus studios. Face-to-face teaching is supplemented with a full programme of online learning activity. We regularly review our offer to ensure that we can continue to work in a COVID-secure environment and students can expect in excess of 18 hours of scheduled classes each week.
Our Voice and Movement classes develop the core skills you will need as an actor. Acting classes hone your imagination, technique and stage and screen craft. In the Performance classes you can be playful, experimental, spontaneous and collaborative. The Contextual Studies stream investigates where your work fits into the wider world, both past and present.
In your first year you will build a firm base for your training. This serves as a base for developing your craft in year two through in-house productions and workshops. In your final year you begin your career with public productions, links to industry professionals and a graduate portfolio.
This innovative fast track, two year degree combines the best of University education with the best of Drama School training in order to produce the future generation of theatre technicians who are not only technically competent but alive to the changing creative demands of this fast moving industry.
- Drama St Mary’s offers Pre-UCAS interviews and auditions that give you feedback before you apply through UCAS.
- A range of scholarships are available for undergraduate students.
- Taught by theatre professionals and academics.
- Employment-focused course.
Why study Technical Theatre?
This programme's two year structure is unique within St Mary’s University.
The United Kingdom has an International reputation for its innovative work in the theatre and associated Creative Industries.
Across the globe technicians and designers trained in the UK are pioneering new ways to reimagine space, tell stories and solve the logistical problems of managing live performance.
A training in technical theatre will equip you with both the design skills and the technical knowhow to work across a broad range of skills within this exciting and fast moving industry.
Gain practical experience in 11 production roles with our specialist training that opens up a diverse range of career paths in the entertainment industry.
This specialist programme offers you hands-on training in stage management, stagecraft, technical theatre, event production and event management.
It provides opportunities for you to gain practical experience in a variety of production roles within a working environment that closely reflects that of the professional theatre and its related industries.
You’ll start by learning all the core skills needed to work on productions. Training in stage management – which revolves around organising and coordinating a live performance – includes a series of practical sessions. These will deepen your knowledge and understanding of the roles of assistant stage manager (ASM) and deputy stage manager (DSM) and include projects in prop making and sourcing.
Your stagecraft sessions will explore the skills you need to mark out rehearsal rooms and stages, construct and fit-up basic scenery, and operate stage machinery such as hemp and counterweight flying systems. You’ll also gain technical knowledge of lighting, sound, video and electrical systems. Health and safety training is embedded throughout the course as well.
But it’s using your skills in a range of real-world experiences that forms the foundation of your training. Throughout your course, you’ll take part in 11 production placements – predominantly with the Richard Burton Company, our in-house theatre company – however, three of those could be within professional UK theatre production companies.
Through intensive practical and performance-based training delivered in a conservatoire setting, this course provides a challenging introduction to the theory and practice of performance-related design in preparation for a career in the theatre and/or its related industries.
First year modules introduce a broad range of practical skills including technical drawing, CAD, Sketchup, model making, pattern cutting, costume construction, millinery, tailoring, scenic art and props-making. Practical projects include collaborative Costume, Props and Puppetry.
A Foundation of Design module during the first term, provides structured introductions to the theoretical and professional processes relating to research for design, practical design development, and the realisation of finished designs.
Research skills are developed through lectures, seminars and field trips focussing on important developments in the history of theatre, art, architecture, design and costume. You will be required to present your research through seminars, essays, and a third-year Research Project.
In the spring term of the first year, you will work individually and as a part of a team to create a ‘costume as performance’ event in collaboration with stage management students.
A series of conceptual and specialist study projects then enable you to apply your skills and explore your creative identity unhindered by practical limitations. You will design set and costumes for a classic text in a given traditional theatre, working with a tutor in the role of director and with additional staff providing practical guidance. You will also explore puppetry techniques, equipping you for possible placements within the large-scale, site-specific productions staged each summer by the Design for Performance department.
Under the guidance of your tutors, you will identify particular strengths and interests to develop through advanced skills classes, conceptual projects and performance-based work throughout the second and third years.
As a member of a team on College productions, you will be expected to shoulder increasing levels of responsibility as you progress through the second and third years of the course. In the second year, you will work in roles such as design assistant, scenic artist, prop maker, costumer maker or milliner, depending on your area of specialism. During the third year, possible roles include that of designer, or a senior role within the realisation team for a College production.
The third provides you with the opportunity to undertake work placements across the industry. The final module of the course is the development of your professional website and the presentation of a major exhibition of your practical and project work, collated and refined over the three years. You will work individually and as part of a group to create a showcase for potential employers in Cardiff and in London.
Through intensive practical and performance-based training, this course enables you to develop the skills, knowledge and experience required to sustain a career in professional theatre and its related industries. The training develops students’ physical resources – voice and movement – enabling them to respond to the wide range of demands made upon the modern actor. Rather than adhering to any single philosophy of actor training, the course seeks to bring many influences to bear on your work, encouraging you to be able to make informed choices about various approaches.
First year modules introduce professional rehearsal practice and explore fundamental approaches to acting through daily classes and rehearsals. You will receive a thorough introduction to voice and text work, movement skills and singing. You will also begin to investigate the specific practices and demands of the film and television industry. Through Reflective Practice, you will build a toolkit for survival as an actor in industry.
Through second year modules, you will explore accent and dialect work, develop your individual song repertoire, explore physical theatre and learn a series of dance sequences. Performance-based projects introduce the world and language of Shakespeare, approaches to comedy, musical theatre and radio acting. Further training in acting for screen culminates in the realisation of short films. A collaboration project will give you the opportunity to work with musicians and create a piece of theatre that engages with the community.
In the third year, you will be given the opportunity to assimilate, develop and integrate the skills acquired in the first two years, through rehearsal and performance of a series of full-length plays under professional working conditions, as part of the Richard Burton Company. Each student will undertake five consecutive performance modules, encountering a variety of roles, styles and venues. One of the performances will be part of the RWCMD's NEW season. You’ll work with a professional writer, dramaturge, and director within the process of a commissioned play. Students will interrogate and workshop the writing over the course of the year before, entering an intensive five-week rehearsal process where the piece is rehearsed and staged. NEW season performances will take place in Cardiff before touring to a London venue.
The new Self-led module introduces you to the process of devising and creating your own work. In the first and second years, you will have the opportunity to perform your work as part of an internal festival. In the final year, you can continue to develop your work and realise this into a fully stage production which will run alongside the NEW season (available to four students).
Throughout the course, you will take part in a series of practical classes and seminars designed to orientate you towards the world of professional acting and offer strategies for finding employment, with particular emphasis on audition technique.
During the third year, you will perform in Actors Showcases in Cardiff and London to an invited audience of industry professionals, including agents and casting directors. North American students also have a US Showcase in New York City.
Our BA (Hons) Applied Theatre aims to inspire the next generation of passionate and skilled theatre-makers. Our focus is on developing the skills and understanding needed to create compelling new performances and theatre projects with purpose. We are concerned not only with how we make theatre, but also why.
