Our arts management training equips students with the skills and experience needed for a career in the creative sector. This unique programme develops resilient, work-ready and sought-after graduates that can succeed in a fast-paced and ever-changing industry.
Why study arts management at RWCMD?
- Industry facing: our course reflects current practice as it is delivered by a team of professionals who all still work in the industry, as well as guest specialists who visit throughout the year.
- Employability: we are very proud to have maintained a 100% employment record since 2013, with students continuing to secure related jobs within three months of graduating.
- Focus on industry experience: you’ll have opportunities to gain that all-important work experience as it is a key course focus. We have a comprehensive work placement programme and arrange placements for all arts management students, both in our multi-venue arts centre + within one of our 30+ external partner organisations.
- Conservatoire-based training: you’ll learn within a music and drama conservatoire and world-class arts centre which provides unique opportunities for arts management students to collaborate on projects across the college and work with visiting artists/companies.
- Choice of three specialist pathways: choose from creative producing, orchestral management or general arts management as your area of specialism, depending on your interest and career aspirations.
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.
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.
Prepare yourself for a successful career in Stage Management by studying at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Our BA (Hons) Stage Management degree provides in-depth, practical training; we aim to produce confident graduates who are ready for a successful career in the industry as soon as they leave us....
Prepare yourself for a successful career in Stage Management by studying at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Our BA (Hons) Stage Management degree provides in-depth, practical training; we aim to produce confident graduates who are ready for a successful career in the industry as soon as they leave us. You’ll gain authentic industry experience while developing the vital skills needed in each role of a stage management team.
As a participant on this programme you will join a vibrant and diverse community sharing in a journey of professional enquiry designed to enhance your practice as an arts educator.
This part-time 180-credit programme provides a unique opportunity for arts educators to upgrade their teaching qualifications and obtain a Masters qualification that has been designed to develop teaching skills for the arts. It is delivered on a part-time basis through a blended learning model, which includes a mix of face-to-face sessions, online sessions, one-to-one tutorials and independent study (distance students can study the programme fully online, accessing the face-to-face sessions through a video conferencing platform).
The programme is designed to allow arts education professionals to integrate their studies within their professional teaching contexts. The process of professional enquiry that underpins all modules requires students to engage in a sustained critical analysis of their teaching and arts practice in order to identify and address their own developmental priorities at each stage. The programme culminates in a self-designed, self-generated, major-scale project that is intended to help students make a significant contribution to their learners and their professional sector. As such, we are looking for individuals who are ready to engage their creativity in developing and evolving innovative approaches to their practice as arts educators.
The programme is designed to appeal to individuals who have a role as an arts educator within a formal education context such as a:
- GTCS registered primary teacher*
- GTCS registered secondary teacher*
- Further Education lecturer/tutor**
- Higher Education lecturer/tutor**
- Visiting Guest Tutor in a school
- Instrumental Music Instructor
- Teacher in an International School
- Lecturer/tutor in an International Higher Education context**
- Early Years educator
Or within a UK or International informal context, such as a:
- Community Arts Tutor
- Participatory Arts Tutor
- Private Tutor
- Dance Tutor/Teacher
- Tutor in a pre-HE organisation
- Freelance Teaching Artist
For all participants, the programme can be used to develop knowledge and skills as an arts educator and to build an evidence-base to demonstrate commitment to their professional learning in designing and delivering learning activities
On the Writing for Performance course, you can:
- Develop skills for writing for performance practices
- Create new performance work and explore innovative forms of writing for solo performance, verbatim theatre and devised theatre
- Work with award-winning playwrights, arts practitioners and directors
- Position yourself as a writer within the performance process
- Explore a broad curriculum that is centred around socially engaged performance practices and the dramaturgical skills of writing
- Develop your writing skills in different community contexts in the UK and abroad
- Study alongside students on the BA DATE and BA Performance Arts programmes, offering a vibrant meshing of writing and live performance art at undergraduate level at Central.
You will work with a variety of high profile writers, arts practitioners and directors, encountering a diverse range of innovative performance practices that use writing for performance in different ways.
On the Drama, Applied Theatre and Education (DATE) course, you can:
Perform in, direct and devise theatre, explore performance that takes place outside traditional theatre environments. Make theatre to change lives and inspire change in communities . Build industry contacts worldwide through placements and outreach projects. Develop skills in areas such as facilitating, devising, directing, performing, playwriting and filmmaking.
Applied Theatre at Central is highly regarded internationally and the Drama, Applied Theatre and Education (DATE) is a world leading course that will train you as a highly adaptable theatre maker. You will focus on performance making in diverse settings such as community centres, parks, prisons, pupil referral units, refugee camps, hospitals, playgrounds, schools and nursing homes, in the UK and abroad. Such innovative work aims to bring about change in communities and participants from all walks of life.
We believe that excellent professional applied drama theatre makers are skilled practically, intellectually and come from a diverse set of backgrounds themselves. We work with you to help you meet the challenge of developing your practice and intellectual abilities. You will have the opportunity to develop skills in areas such as facilitating, devising, directing, performing, playwriting and filmmaking.
These courses offer specialist, vocational teaching in the field of movement for actors and production practice for movement directors. Bespoke movement placements at Central and in other professional theatre settings, such as other conservatoires, or theatre, opera or film organisations (both in Britain and internationally), are a key part of the course.
There are opportunities for the development of individual movement specialisms and their application to the work of actors. Tradition, experience, eclecticism and innovation epitomise Central’s understanding of movement training for the theatre, and these unique courses have been created in that spirit.
These courses offer specialist, vocational teaching in the field of movement for actors and production practice for movement directors. Bespoke movement placements at Central and in other professional theatre settings, such as other conservatoires, or theatre, opera or film organisations (both in Britain and internationally), are a key part of the course.
There are opportunities for the development of individual movement specialisms and their application to the work of actors. Tradition, experience, eclecticism and innovation epitomise Central’s understanding of movement training for the theatre, and these unique courses have been created in that spirit.
This course combines intensive movement-based studio practice, collaborative facilitations, seminars, and a shared research unit with other MA students which creates a learning environment that encourages personal exploration, collaboration and critical reflection.
The Sesame approach is underpinned by Jungian psychology and draws together Laban movement, play theory, Billy Lindkvist’s work with movement with touch and sound, and a mythopoetic approach to the psyche.
There is also the opportunity for immersive practice in the key subject areas of Laban movement, myth, movement with touch and sound, and drama. This is allied with studies in developmental and analytical psychology, specifically the work of Jung.
The group process is central to the student experience and supported by a weekly session across the first three terms that explores interpersonal dynamics between members and draws from group analytic theory.
