As a student on the MA/MFA Creative Producing programme at Central, you will:
- Real-world creative producing opportunities to develop knowledge and skills
- Networking through placements with leading theatre and arts organisations, masterclasses and industry mentors
- Student-led collaboration with writers, actors and designers on other Central MA/MFA courses
What is a Creative Producer?
The entrepreneurially skilled and culturally literate producer works in dialogue with artists to create performances and festivals, run venues and companies, manage projects, raise funds and investment, and negotiate commissions.
Central graduates have become successful producers, among them Sir Cameron Mackintosh, a name synonymous with Britain’s global pre-eminence in musical theatre, and David Jubb, whose pioneering work at Battersea Arts Centre characterises the vibrancy and originality of London’s contemporary fringe, or ‘off West End’ scene.
The courses offer real-world creative producing opportunities within Central’s production calendar and with extensive industry partners, enabling you to build on your existing practice. These skills are in ever-increasing demand in a competitive production environment.
You will undertake masterclasses in producing with key industry leaders and innovators and take an active role in the organisation of events, productions and projects, underpinned by a solid critical understanding of the cultural industries and creative producing skills, relevant theory and current research in the performance field.
While learning, you will also gain a career head start by building a vital network of industry and peer contacts.
These courses are suitable for:
- experienced stage managers or production managers who wish to develop as creative producers
- those already engaged in creative producing activities who wish to extend their knowledge in the field
- business graduates with an interest in performance arts applications
- experienced theatre or performance artists or graduates who wish to produce their own work and gain entrepreneurial skills
- arts graduates who wish to instigate or curate the work of others.
As a student on the MA/MFA Creative Producing programme at Central, you will:
- Real-world creative producing opportunities to develop knowledge and skills
- Networking through placements with leading theatre and arts organisations, masterclasses and industry mentors
- Student-led collaboration with writers, actors and designers on other Central MA/MFA courses
What is a Creative Producer?
The entrepreneurially skilled and culturally literate producer works in dialogue with artists to create performances and festivals, run venues and companies, manage projects, raise funds and investment, and negotiate commissions.
Central graduates have become successful producers, among them Sir Cameron Mackintosh, a name synonymous with Britain’s global pre-eminence in musical theatre, and David Jubb, whose pioneering work at Battersea Arts Centre characterises the vibrancy and originality of London’s contemporary fringe, or ‘off West End’ scene.
The courses offer real-world creative producing opportunities within Central’s production calendar and with extensive industry partners, enabling you to build on your existing practice. These skills are in ever-increasing demand in a competitive production environment.
You will undertake masterclasses in producing with key industry leaders and innovators and take an active role in the organisation of events, productions and projects, underpinned by a solid critical understanding of the cultural industries and creative producing skills, relevant theory and current research in the performance field.
While learning, you will also gain a career head start by building a vital network of industry and peer contacts.
This course provides an opportunity to explore applied theatre via one of two specialist pathways: Drama in the Community and Drama Education or Drama and the Criminal Justice System. Each pathway is designed to support current practice at work, or a particular field of interest in applied theatre and drama.
Students will develop their own practice and scholarship, learn key practices in applied theatre, engage with new ideas in the field, undertake project-based study examining specific professional work with a range of client groups, or specialise in working with people whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.
The course receives substantial support from The Leverhulme Trust. This unique funding of over £138,000 a year for the next three years (from 2019) is specifically to enable both MA and BA applied theatre students to undertake projects and placements in the UK and abroad.
As an active participant in the MA or MFA Advanced Theatre Practice, you will:
Participate in workshops with leading professionals;
Learn to research and extend your own practice;
Launch a company, make new work, and 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;
Build on the tradition of theatre-making as a communicative medium of exchange, i.e. through working with digital media.
If an MFA student, you will have excellent opportunities to work for an extended period with a number of distinguished external companies.
As an active participant in the MA or MFA Advanced Theatre Practice, you will:
Participate in workshops with leading professionals;
Learn to research and extend your own practice;
Launch a company, make new work, and 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;
Build on the tradition of theatre-making as a communicative medium of exchange, i.e. through working with digital media.
This course does not train actors, but develops a practical understanding of what it is to act, enabling graduates to work as actor trainers and coaches, drama and theatre practitioners, and directors of actors. Students are introduced to the principles and practices behind the training, education and support of actors and performers developing their practice.
Teaching methods include tutorials, group seminars and workshops. Practical sessions are designed to enhance understanding of acting processes and skills in pedagogy, together with associated study of contemporary issues of performance including theatre, film and television.
This course does not train actors, but develops a practical understanding of what it is to act, enabling graduates to work as actor trainers and coaches, drama and theatre practitioners, and directors of actors. Students are introduced to the principles and practices behind the training, education and support of actors and performers developing their practice.
Teaching methods include tutorials, group seminars and workshops. Practical sessions are designed to enhance understanding of acting processes and skills in pedagogy, together with associated study of contemporary issues of performance including theatre, film and television.
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.
The CAST training course, recognised by the British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth) will appeal to Arts therapists, psychotherapists, counsellors, play therapists and dance movement therapists who are seeking a supervision training that offers a sound theoretical base and a unique combination of experiential and theoretical modules to fully support the creative approach to supervision.
Regular supervision is a requirement of the Health and Social Care Professions (HCPC), BADth and all counselling and therapy professional bodies. Its function is to provide an objective overview of the dynamics present in the therapy relationship. Supervision monitors ethical standards and practice and encourages professional development.
CAST is a long established supervision training designed by a dynamic team of HCPC registered creative therapists and supervisors with many successful cohorts following it’s opening in 1998. 2018 saw this innovative and popular course move to Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
The programme is delivered over one year with 120 contact hours and is designed to allow time for reflection and integration. Learners are required to be in personal therapy for the duration of the training.
On completion of the course you should expect to:
• attain the experiential and theoretical tools necessary to work as a clinical supervisor
• develop confidence to utilize creative methods within a supervisory relationship.
• gain the experience, skills and guidance to enable you to set up a supervision practice.
You will be introduced to theoretical knowledge and essential practical skills needed for a career as a theatre director.
Through practical workshops, working with other short course students (e.g. Acting - Working with Text and/or Acting - Shakespeare), group sharing and critiquing you will explore:
• how the actor’s process works
• ways to realise text in performance
• critical analysis of the work of other directors
• developing, planning and delivering your own directing exercise.
