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
Reasons to study Actor Musicianship
• Conservatoire actor musicianship training for stage, television, radio and screen led by professional staff and established practitioners.
• A practical actor training degree for actors who play musical instruments, actor musicians are in high demand in the industry. Over the years our students have signed with agents Eamonn Bedford Agency, Global Artists, Howard Cooke Associates, Olivia Bell to name a few.
• Learn to integrate and develop your musical skills in performance to create, lead and make music alongside your work as an actor.
• You will be guided by experienced staff, including industry professionals, who will help you to develop the skills of the actor musician though practical classes in movement, voice and approaches to text and character.
• You will be involved in a number of public productions in your final year, including a main house production and an industry showcase.
• Excellent studio and training facilities – purpose-built rehearsal, movement and performance spaces, the fully-equipped Rose Theatre and Barn Theatre, a flexible drama studio and a digital studio with motion capture and green-screen facilities.
Career opportunities
Our graduates can be found in a wide range of work; at leading regional theatres, in the West End, The Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. In television, film, radio, young people’s theatre and in small scale touring theatre companies in the UK and Europe.
You may also be interested in:
Acting, BA (Hons)
American Theate Arts, BA (Hons)
European Theatre Arts, BA (Hons)
“My degree really set me up for the industry.” Rosalie Craig, Actor Musicianship Alumna
Location: Sidcup
The BA Production Technology and Management programme is a very practical course that will see you take on industry-standard roles from the very start. With a timetable that is also reflective of industry practice, you will build the stamina and resilience to withstand a challenging yet rewarding career.
Production consists of both the BA Production Technology and Management and the BA Production Arts and Design programmes. Production students will work very closely with each other in the classroom and on RCS productions.
This is the only conservatoire-based technical theatre degree in Scotland. Through the programme we aim to produce production technicians, stage managers and lighting designers who can turn their hands to any related role, making them employable in a range of contexts, whilst also being specialists in career pathways, i.e. stage management, stage technology, sound design, sound engineering, lighting technology and lighting design.
We’ll help you to create your own pathway through the programme, focusing on your areas of interest. You will learn to work creatively, as an individual artist, as part of a production team and in collaboration with other students of all disciplines.
RCS is a major public performance venue with world-class facilities. The combination of professional venues, extensive workshops, construction spaces, design studios, and the latest stage and workshop technologies provide a fantastic learning environment.
We work closely with industry to ensure our curriculum is current, competitive, and of the highest professional standard, so you will gain all of the skills and knowledge needed for your future career. We have very close relationships with key Scottish national companies, such as Scottish Opera, the National Theatre of Scotland and Scottish Ballet as well as companies across Scotland, such as the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, Blue Parrot Production and Events in Edinburgh and Warehouse Sound in Glasgow.
Further afield we have well-established relationships with national and international organisations such as the Association of British Theatre Technician (ABTT), the Association of Stage Pyrotechnicians (ASP) the Production Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA), United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc. (USITT), Cirque du Soleil, TAIT, Just FX and the National Theatre in London.
Our graduates will aspire to become the creative leaders and innovators of the future and will be encouraged to push accepted boundaries and create new standards of practice in the industry at large.
Become a multi-disciplinary artist with outstanding abilities in acting, singing, dance and music
The BA Musical Theatre programme is for exceptionally talented students who are dedicated to developing their skills in acting, singing, dance and music. We are looking for the next cohort of students who want to train with us alongside industry professionals, and who aspire towards a career in the competitive musical theatre industry.
Now more than ever, artists who can showcase musicianship as an integrated part of their acting, singing, and dancing are in demand both creatively and commercially.
This programme is distinctive in that it offers conservatoire-level tuition in acting, singing, dance and music. We want to work with the most talented and committed actors, so we ask that students are multi- disciplined in the performing arts.
Perform
Your education here will centre on performance and you will have numerous opportunities to perform on stage both within RCS and at external venues around Scotland. During your final year, you will participate in fully- produced musicals, including an actor-musician show, as well as perform in a final showcase. Our aim is that you will graduate from this programme as a confident, versatile artist ready to work in the profession.
Collaborate
RCS is the only conservatoire in Europe to offer programmes in dance, drama, music, production and film. We encourage collaboration between all art forms, therefore as a musical theatre student here, you could regularly work with your peers to create new and engaging work.
Opportunities for collaboration include Options modules and the annual Bridge Week festival, where students can come together from across the conservatoire to bid for project money to create new pieces of performance. You may also have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from industry professionals during your studies, benefiting from the Royal Conservatoire’s close relationships with Scotland’s national artistic companies.
Our graduates consistently gain industry representation and continue to work across the arts and entertainment sectors. Graduates can currently be seen performing in the West End, on Broadway, in national and international tours, with national companies, regional theatres, and in a variety of television and film projects.
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 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
