A fun one day intensive encounter with the acting process. Increase your confidence and discover your potential in a safe and supportive environment.

What is the course about?
The course is designed for those wanting to practically experience the process of acting. It is ideal for total beginners or for those returning to acting after some time away. It is an opportunity to improve your overall confidence in yourself and in performing as you explore a range of acting exercises. Learning is through fun simple exercises that begin with theatre games and build towards scene work. An opportunity to develop your creative skills in exploring character in a range of scenarios.

What will we cover?
- Drama games and group exercises
- Improvisation
- Creating a character
- Basic scene analysis
- Status work.

By the end of this course you should be able to...
- Work more openly with others
- Communicate more successfully
- Work confidently in dealing with the process of creating a character
- Perform a short scene with confidence.

Practise and develop your acting skills by rehearsing in depth scenes from contemporary plays or a whole short play. These will be performed in the college's John Lyons Theatre to an invited audience at the end of the course. This course is suitable for students who have completed a broad range of our acting courses at beginners and improvers level or who have gained suitable experience elsewhere.

What is the course about?
This course provides an opportunity to deepen and expand your acting skills by working to performance standard. You will have the opportunity to identify and cultivate your individual strengths and improve your weaknesses, to build confidence and challenge yourself in scenes and acting exercises.

What will we cover?
• Practical text analysis
• Character work and development
• Exploratory improvisations
• Detailed scene rehearsal
• Performance to an invited audience at the end of term.

Please note that acting classes by their very nature can involve exercises and the exploration of material that some students may find challenging.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
• Effectively explore and analyse text
• Apply this textual analysis in practical work
• Build and sustain a given character
• Rehearse with rigour and depth
• Perform scene(s) with confidence.

Continue your development as you explore a range of exercises and acting techniques that will illuminate and enliven a variety of scripts and scenes. Consolidate techniques and deepen your understanding in a safe and supportive atmosphere.

What is the course about?
These lively practical sessions are designed for those who want to extend their abilities and skills in acting. You will work on a range of acting exercises to improve your spontaneity, presence and ability to act truthfully in the moment. You will learn the fundamentals of stage craft, how to build character and begin to explore and use solid techniques to unlock the text. Your work will culminate in the rehearsal and in class presentation of a scene 'off book' in the final session.

What will we cover?
• Warm ups
• Group exercises
• Character work
• Text analysis work
• Scene Rehearsal and performance.

Please note that acting classes by their very nature can involve exercises and the exploration of material that some students may find challenging.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
• Perform a physical and vocal warm-up.
• Explore and analyse text confidently
• Develop character
• Perform in a scene from a play with confidence.

Consolidate your techniques as you rehearse and perform in a duologue and/or a monologue from a published play text in this intensive practical course.

These practical sessions are for students who wish to consolidate and develop their acting skills while focussing on script work and rehearsal. You will continue to develop the fundamentals of stagecraft, work with text and to build character, relationships and the world of the play. Your work will culminate in an 'in class' presentation of a scene or monologue, performed from memory, to the rest of the group in the final session.

What will we cover?
• Character work
• Text analysis
• Scene Rehearsal and performance.

Please note that acting classes by their very nature can involve exercises and the exploration of material that some students may find challenging.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
• Work cooperatively with other actors and the director
• Explore and analyse text confidently
• Develop character
• Perform in a scene from a play or screenplay with confidence.

Explore the fundamentals of acting on this practical course, designed for people with little or no experience of acting. Increase your confidence and discover your potential in a safe and exciting environment.

This course will introduce you to the craft of acting. Through a series of warm ups, games and practical acting exercises you will develop your creativity and find the freedom to act in a friendly and supportive environment.

What will we cover?
• Drama games and group exercises
• Improvisation and scene work
• Character work
• Performing truthfully and believably
• An introduction to text work.

Please note that acting classes by their very nature can involve exercises and the exploration of material that some students may find challenging.

By the end of this course you should be able to...
• Work collaboratively and confidently with others.
• Present yourself confidently in the space.
• Develop and play character
• Prepare and perform a short scene.

Deepen your understanding and emotional expressivity as you work towards deeper levels of practice in this workshop. Suitable for beginners and experienced students alike who wish to develop greater sincerity, authenticity and depth in their acting. Explore the principles of psychological realism pioneered by Stanislavski and developed by the Method practioners to enrich and enhance your performances and characterisations. Learn new skills and hone existing ones in this supportive and expressive environment.

An exploration of Stanislavski's acting technique - learn, extend and challenge existing approaches. Sometimes, suddenly in performance, all around you feels alive and real. Impulsive responses arise spontaneously and rich, detailed behaviour emerges without effort. Stanislavski called this ‘experiencing’ the role. This course trains the elements that support the emergence of this creative state in performance. Making use of the approaches to preparation and characterisation developed by Stanislavski, as well as the Method practitioners who elaborated his work further, your ability to generate rich, detailed performance choices and the range and depth of your characterisations will be extended and strengthened. The course is designed as a workshop studio that provides a focused and supportive arena in which to develop your talent, hone your craft, tackle the problems that you may experience that prevent its full and free expression, and learn new skills.

We will explore exercises and training techniques that develop your ability to experience real responses from imagined stimuli and to mobilise subconscious creativity in your work. You will learn how to create more vivid and affecting inner images to justify action, to develop the use of oneself as a creative resource, and to avoid more consistently mechanical acting, conventional choices, and the faking or forcing of emotional expression. We will explore characterisation techniques that target the specific qualities that separate you from characters very different to yourself, along with psychophysical processes that facilitate a more expressive embodiment. We will also examine the means by which blocks and inhibitions to a freer expression of impulses and a more connected and vulnerable mode of performance may be addressed. As actors progress through the training, we will explore the ‘active analysis’ of drama and a deeper engagement with the structure and dynamics of dramatic action.

Please note that acting classes by their very nature can involve exercises and the exploration of material that some students may find challenging.

It's time to top up your vocal skills! This thorough and fun improvers' course will benefit your further vocal development as an actor or professional speaker. You will consolidate work on breath support and explore pitch and resonance. The course will be held in the college.

It's time to top up your vocal skills! This thorough and fun improvers' course will benefit your further vocal development as an actor or professional speaker. You will consolidate work on breath support and explore pitch and resonance. The course will be held in the college.

What will we cover?
Breath support, control and pressure, resonance, pitch awareness, articulation and techniques of communication.

By the end of this course you should be able to...
- Identify your own vocal weaknesses and develop ways to address them.
- Display improvements in breath capacity and support using more advanced breathing exercises.
- Apply articulation pitch and variety to a whole range of texts and material.
- Further develop the resonance of your voice by examining secondary and tertiary areas of resonance.

Join in our new Dance & Drama Club at our North East Centre for Autism in Newton Aycliffe
The group has now finished for the summer holidays but will resume in September, we would like to hear from parents what days you would like the sessions to run.

The clubs are FREE and we welcome children and young people with autism and other special needs to attend. A formal diagnosis is not required.

If you're 15-25 and you're into art, film and theatre then HOME Young Creatives is for you.

Each year, we'll be putting an amazing series of free workshops, projects and commissioning opportunities which will be led by industry professionals. Your creative career starts here!

Our music therapy sessions use sound to create a safe environment where students can explore their feelings and memories at their own pace. The therapy is tailored to them and their specific needs, and students can access it through one-to-one sessions or as part of a group.

Our specialist music therapist works closely with our occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy teams and with education facilitators to provide the best learning environment. Sessions take place at one of our three different sensory rooms, or at a number of other locations across the campus. The therapist and student, through improvisation, will create and develop a musical language of their own. The music therapist is a full member of BAMT and is registered with the HCPC.

A typical music therapy session:

May begin with a welcome song, which may develop into an improvisation
Focuses on pre-composed music or an improvised piece, and this is directed by the student’s choice of instrument and playing style
Ends with a closing song to signal the end of the session

Read me aloud