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.
The MA Musical Directing pathway is designed to support the development of skills and creative thought for musicians with a passion for theatre. As a Masters student, you will study the musical landscape, engage in practice-based-research and explore your own potential as a contributor to the future of the art form.
The programme is closely linked with the industry and this ensures that you acquire the practical skills to support a sustained and varied career. Through specialised and focused conservatoire-level training, specific attention will be paid to:
- Keyboard skills
- Conducting skills
- Scoring and arranging techniques
- Vocal technique and repertoire coaching, Programming and Sound
These one-to-one classes are designed to build your skill and experience as a musical director in the varying areas relevant to the form. You will have the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects matched to your specific interests and goals. Projects could include:
- Musical Director, arranger and orchestrator of the RCS Christmas Concert
- Musical Director of our BA Musical Theatre Glasgow and London Showcases
- Musical Director on the development of new and commissioned work
- Assistant Musical Director across fully produced BA Musical Theatre and Actor Muso shows
- Musical Director of a Cabaret season, Musical Directing roles on a season of work produced for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
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.
Explore your skills and expertise as a musician, performer and artist and gain some technical rehearsal skills using various performance and production equipment. You'll play gigs, rehearse, develop musicianship skills and start to think about the sound mix at live events to help develop and demonstrate your practical abilities. You'll develop your skills in working with students and fellow artists and performers and start to pick up what it takes to get into the music industry. You'll even start working on your own blog and performance portfolio to help share with the industry, the skills you are gaining.
Are you an aspiring musician, singer, music producer or DJ? On this course, you will improve your rehearsal, performance skills and production skills to give you the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills need to progress in the music industry today.
During the course, you will take part in a variety of live performances, this will give you the opportunity to develop your musicianship and to build your ensemble skills, improving your communication, analytical, time management and problem-solving skills. You will also work in the studio, mac suites and synth lab to develop skills in recording, mixing, electronic composition and sampling as well as gaining experience of live sound engineering. There will be an emphasis on music theory and on understanding the features and roots of both popular and electronic music.
This course is for musicians who want to enter the music industry as performers, producers, singer/songwriters or those who want to get into a business role within the industry. You will study and develop skills in performance, production, composition, musicianship and music business, and will have the opportunity to record in our state-of-the-art recording studios.
This hands-on course is both practical and theoretical, focusing on vocational projects to develop your performance, composition and production skills, as well as your understanding of the music industry and the job roles within it.
We have industry-standard rehearsal and technical facilities to help prepare you for ensemble performance and music production.
Location: Centre for Business, Arts and Technology, Camden Road
The Foundation Programme in Musical Theatre is designed for aspiring musical theatre artists who wish to develop their skills and techniques through a dedicated programme of practical and contextual study. It is an opportunity for students to access high-quality conservatoire training and may provide an entry route to further specialist/vocational training (e.g. undergraduate degree programmes within the conservatoire or wider higher education sectors, particularly within the UK) or a platform for a dedicated period of personal study.
Key Features:
- Individual singing lessons and group classes in acting, dance (ballet, tap and jazz), singing, voice and acting through song.
- Regular performance workshops and auditions preparation training, including the opportunity to have mock auditions.
- There will also be the chance to work with Music and Dance students during CoLab, our two-week festival of creativity and innovation.
After completing the programme, many students successfully move on to undergraduate study.
The BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance programme is designed to enable you to develop the skills, attributes and knowledge necessary for a career as a creative entrepreneur and artist (singer-actor-dancer) in the Musical Theatre industry.
Key Features:
- Support and guide your development in preparation for a career in the professional musical theatre industry
- Empower students to operate as creative entrepreneurs
- Foster the development of graduates able to make and perform musical theatre works that reflect, interrogate and/or enrich society
- Enable you to value, have confidence in, articulate and execute your own artistic choices
- Support your development as an independent learner able to recognise and realise your own intellectual, creative and practical potential
- Facilitate your learning from professional musical theatre practitioners
- Enable you to understand the range of creative roles within musical theatre and how these might inform future employability
- Nurture your collaborative and leadership skills.
Our Graduate Diploma Programme is ideal for instrumentalists, vocalists and composers who have gained a degree and want to deepen their skills before undertaking postgraduate study.
During the programme you will hone your skills as an artist through one‑to-one Principal Study lessons, group tuition and experience playing as a soloist and in ensembles. We will encourage you to develop skills for lifelong learning by building working relationships with other students.
This is a graduate programme aimed at students considering entry to postgraduate study at a conservatoire or university who do not currently meet the required standard. The programme enhances musicianship skills to bring students to the level needed to enter a postgraduate music degree.
We also offer an International Graduate Diploma in Music and English for international students who wish to improve their English language skills alongside their musicianship skills. You can find out more on the International Graduate Diploma: Music and English course page.
