The intensive one-year MA programme trains postgraduate (or equivalent) students for a career in musical theatre.
It provides a direct link into the profession by combining regular class work and one-to-one tuition with practical opportunities.

The course has been highly successful in providing a multi-skilled training programme at the highest level in a professional environment. Graduates enjoy outstanding success in major West End shows and international productions.

Tailor your studies to suit your musical interests on our four-year Bachelor of Music (BMus) degree course.

THIS COURSE IS RIGHT FOR YOU IF…
You’re passionate about music and your specialism (or instrument). The BMus provides a solid foundation for a career in music, whether you’d like to be a performer, composer, teacher or to work in another related field.

CORE ELEMENTS OF THE BMUS
1. Principal study

This is the focal point of your musical development and includes individual lessons as well as a combination of masterclasses, performance classes, chamber music, concerts and everything else you do in your specialism. The focus for performers is on gaining experience in public concerts.

2. Artist development

We offer a wide range of activities, events and modules for you to hone your skills in studio recording and editing techniques, self-promotion and marketing, writing CVs, making funding applications, understanding the music business and working in arts management.

You can also get involved in Open Academy, which has an active programme aimed at helping people in the community. If you want to develop your teaching skills, you can study for the Academy’s teaching licence (LRAM), too.

3. Academic study

Academic study is essential to your creative and intellectual development. Core modules in Aural, Analysis and History reinforce your awareness as a listener, develop your interpretative abilities and extend your knowledge and imagination.
ONE YEAR COURSES – THE OPTIONS
The BMus is our main undergraduate course, but it isn’t the only one. We also offer three one-year options, which let you study at the Academy as an enrolled member of the student body without committing to a full degree course with us.

This means you’ll benefit from all the facilities offered to our degree students, including the library, computers and practice rooms, as well as enjoying a variety of performance opportunities.

1. Gap year course

This course is right for you if you love music but know you want to study something else for your main degree in future. It’s the ideal fit if you’re finishing secondary school (high school) and are looking for a gap-year opportunity, enabling you to reach a high level of achievement in music, while also allowing you to pursue another career path.
2. Organ foundation course

This is for gap-year students preparing for an organ scholarship at Oxford or Cambridge, or for those who want to develop organ and choral direction skills before starting formal university or conservatoire training.

3. Exchanges and study abroad schemes

The Academy has exchange and study-abroad agreements with conservatoires across the world. Placements are normally for a full academic year, although shorter times may be possible. This allows non-UK students studying for a music degree elsewhere to benefit from a conservatoire education as part of their degree studies at their ‘home’ institution.

This course is vocational and practice-based, using our state-of-the-art workshops, studios and theatres, and making use of the extensive opportunities to work on our many public productions and showcases.

Choosing from one or two areas of technical theatre or stage management, you will build on your skills and experience from your foundation degree to gain specialist knowledge and replicate working at high-level industry standards. Alongside our experienced teaching faculty, you will be introduced to practitioners from across the industry who provide additional insights into the variety of careers open to you and the skills and experience your future employers will be looking for.

You will graduate from the course ready to take on a range of roles across theatre, film, television, radio and live events.

You will also benefit from a professional development programme, as well as the RADA Buddy mentoring scheme, which supports your transition from student to professional with graduate ‘buddies’ providing professional advice, feedback and networking opportunities.

Students who successfully complete the FdA in Technical Theatre and Stage Management with a Merit or above at RADA will now automatically be considered for the BA (Hons) progression year. We also welcome applicants with a foundation degree or equivalent from elsewhere to apply for this course.

Places are available in a number of subject areas:

- Costume supervision
- Lighting (design and/or production lighting)
- Production management
- Sound (design and/or production sound)
- Property making
- Scenic art
- Scenic construction
- Stage management
- Technical management
- Video (design and/or production video)

Combinations of subjects may also be considered, for example:

- Property making and stage management
- Technical and production management
- Scenic construction and technical management
- Scenic art and property making

Our students learn by doing. Your training will be vocational and practical, focusing on preparing you for work in the industry. Career guidance and professional development sessions are given throughout the course. There are no academic essays or dissertations, our work is practical and collaborative. You will be asked to write a self assessment every six weeks and written work ranges from risk assessments to technical schematics as part of the training.

After a broad-based first year of training, your second year allows you the opportunity to specialise in the vocational area that interests you, choosing from stage management, lighting, scenic construction, technical management, sound, property making and supervision, production management, video, scenic art or costume.

From the outset, you will work on RADA public productions – we stage around 15 shows a year – as crew and/or operator. These productions are directed by professionals and usually involve professional designers. In your second year you will work in more senior roles (of which there are around eighty to choose from). Theses include: stage manager, deputy/ assistant stage manager, wardrobe supervisor, production electrician, lighting programmer, production sound engineer, production video engineer, scenery builder or project manager, production manager, technical manager, scenic artist, broadcast/ camera supervisor, props supervisor.

You will also undertake a professional placement in your second year for up to six weeks with a theatre company, organisation or practitioner. Recent student placements have taken place on shows including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Secret Cinema, and at venues such as the National Theatre, Old Vic, Young Vic, Glyndebourne Opera, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Royal Court and English National Opera .

Rich and diverse in its scope and facilities, the course combines in-depth technical instruction with insight into the organisational, management and collaborative skills that form the core of successful work in theatre and other areas of the entertainment industry, like film, radio, television, conferences, events and other commercial ventures.

We encourage personal development, considered reflective practice and strong individual growth because these are the skills that will support you through a complex, high-pressured and rewarding career.

RADA also regularly hosts guest speakers, comprising leading figures from a wide range of industries and walks of life – from politics and arts, to photography, neuroscience and religion.

Students benefit from a the RADA Buddy mentoring scheme, which supports your transition from student to professional with graduate ‘buddies’ providing professional advice, feedback and networking opportunities.

Although the Foundation degree is intended as a complete vocational training in itself, students who successfully complete the FdA and acheive at least a Merit will now automatically be considered for the BA (Hons) progression year - enabling students to deepen their specialist knowledge further in one or two areas of technical theatre or stage management.

This vocational MA/MFA programme builds on and extends the work developed on our ground-breaking BA (Hons) Actor Musicianship programme, drawing on our strong links to theatre makers, directors, choreographers, writers, musical directors and performers involved in the development of this innovative area of theatre practice.

Taught through vocational training, practice research and project work, it aims to develop interdisciplinarity as a core theatre making tool, with a focus on innovation and work that responds to audience, place and space.

Why choose this course?
• From Bradford to Broadway, actor-musicianship is now part of mainstream theatre culture, whilst remaining connected to its roots in the alternative theatre movement.
• This unique MA offers you the opportunity to explore how to integrate the skills of music-making and acting in performance. Equipping you to create and perform work that contains the visceral power and poetry synonymous with actor-musicianship.
• Rose Bruford College was the first to develop an actor-musician training course and is regarded as the world-leader in this field with a long history of graduates working at the forefront of this area of theatre practice.
• Explore how musical and acting processes can interrelate and feed each other.
• This course offers an intensive and in-depth exploration of how musical and acting processes can interrelate and feed each other. Creating work that is both music as theatre and theatre as music.

The programme’s strong ties to industry partners will be further enhanced by an exploration of place, space and community. Asking how this most inclusive of theatre forms can continue to engage audiences of all ages; developing and building on the origins of the actor-musician movement as an alternative and progressive theatre form, with a history of creating surprising and engaging live theatre experiences in all sorts of places and spaces.
Connected to London and Kent and with an international reputation, our Sidcup campus offers an ideal location to explore how actor-musicianship can continue to play a part in both international mainstream theatre and work that seeks to enrich and develop new and hard to reach audiences.

Location: Sidcup

Reasons to study Stage and Events Management
• Experience a variety of roles on a range of productions and events both in College and in London venues.
• Develop relationships with, and an understanding of, other disciplines; including lighting, sound, set construction, costume and prop-making, marketing, outreach, venue and site management, administration and finance.
• Sharpen your creativity and management skills whilst collaborating with students from other programmes to deliver diverse performances and events.
• Extend your learning through research, secondments, work placements in the industry or a period of study abroad.
• Share classes and projects with students from other programmes to learn about the cultural, performance, arts and events industries and how to use experimentation, enquiry and creative research in your work as you prepare to build a successful career.

Career opportunities
Adaptable and creative practitioners, graduates from the Stage Management Programme, from which this programme has been developed, have gone on to work in a wide range of fields: theatre, dance, opera, television, festivals and corporate events. They have also moved into sound and video for live performance alongside arts and venue management roles.

“It prepares you very much for the industry and the way they’ve built it as a technical course, your level of training is like no other.” Anthony Norris-Watson
Deputy Production Manager, The Old Vic Theatre

Location: Sidcup

Reasons to study Audio Production:
• A comprehensive programme covering audio and music production, and sound design for live music, theatre, film,TV, radio, games and VR/AR.
• Develop technical skills and creative awareness, and explore your interests through taught classes and a wide range of creative projects.
• Specialise in audio engineering, recorded and live music production or sound design for theatre, film, TV, video games and VR/AR.
• In your final year, study for a technical BSc or a creative BA qualification.
• Benefit from our extensive network of industry experts who will work with you on projects as you learn specialist skills.
• Build your knowledge through industry placements.
• Deliver your own personal or collaborative projects inside and outside the College.
• Share sessions with students from other programmes, to learn about the creative, media and performance industries.
• Develop your professional practice and identity in order to build a successful career.

Career opportunities:
Graduates will enter the industry equipped to work as music and audio producers, live and studio mixing engineers, sound designers, sound artists and studio and production managers.

Location: Sidcup

Reasons to study American Theatre Arts
• Our curriculum responds directly to events in the world beyond the campus, placing your creativity, social engagement and activism centre-stage.
• Your training by a diverse group of practitioners covers a comprehensive range of performance disciplines, including musical theatre, acting on camera, directing, playwriting, solo performance and theatre for young audiences.
• You will perform in public shows directed by professional American and British practitioners.
• Collaboration lies at the heart of our approach and you will work alongside designers and digital artists in the staging of unique immersive and multi-media productions.
• Our practical exploration of American ‘classics’ highlights their social and political contexts so that plays by writers such as Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, Tennessee Williams, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks complement a critical study of the history of the USA.
• You will participate in the creation and production of new material mentored by experienced playwrights, devisers and composers.
• And you will have a chance to study in the USA. We have partner institutions in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Kentucky, North & South Carolina and Texas.

Career opportunities
Our graduates have gone on to perform on stage and screen in the UK and US, to win awards as actors, playwrights and directors, to work for leading television and theatre producers and to create their own independent theatre companies. Agents our students have signed to include; MGA Management and Becky Barrett Management (BBM).

You may also be interested in:
Acting, BA (Hons)
Actor Musicianship, BA (Hons)
European Theatre Arts, BA (Hons)

“You become a well-rounded practitioner rather than just a straightforward actor.” Jeremy Cobb, ATA Alumnus

Location: Sidcup

- One-to-one singing lessons and repertoire coaching
- Regular acting skills classes with tutors from RWCMD’s well established acting programmes working with improvisation, character, relationships and text
- Vocal skills classes focussing on physical techniques for performance as well as vocal physiology, dialect and accents
- Classes in dance skills including jazz and tap, and the effective use of movement in theatrical communication
- Practical sessions on audition technique in preparation for professional stage and television auditions
- Showcase presentations in Cardiff and London to an invited audience of agents, casting directors and potential employers
- Roles in public performances including at least one cabaret and one fully staged production

- Advanced principal study tuition from professional musicians – instrumentalists and singers
- Wide range of solo and ensemble performance opportunities
- Tuition available in supporting areas such as Alexander Technique, doubling instrument, end-of-line instrument and period instruments
- Advanced training in chamber music
- Professional coaching and accompaniment provision
- Language, movement and drama classes (singers)
- Specialist, advanced performance classes (instrumentalists)
- International masterclass series
- Fully integrated performance programme by international artists
- Wide range of performance opportunities in world-class facilities
- Outward-looking, flexible programme, allowing students to tailor their pathway
- Option to focus extensively on Principal Study
- Options to develop expertise in key areas of professional practice through Professional Projects, linked to real-world experiences
- Cross-disciplinary opportunities to work with Drama embedded in the programme
- Access to specialist mentors to support Professional Project work and broaden network of contacts
- Inclusive practice built into the programme
- Research and reflection underpinning development of creative artistry
- Drawing on industry and innovation as cornerstones of individual career development
- Opportunity to create and curate own performance projects
- Focus on employability and transferable skills