The MGA one-year Foundation course in Musical Theatre offers a pre-vocational year designed to prepare you for the demands of professional, full-time training and provides you with the skills required to audition successfully for the country’s leading Musical Theatre institutions.

It is directed at those students who intend pursuing a vocational training but who either don’t quite yet have the skills required to audition successfully, or who do not have the required academic qualifications to start a Bachelor of Arts qualification.

The course is designed to thoroughly prepare you for the process of auditioning and the rigours of taking up a three-year place at a Drama School, expanding your skill set and enabling you to realise your full potential in your future training.

MGA Foundation students have gone on to study at, among others, the American Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Arts Educational Schools, Bird College, Guildford School of Acting, Laine Theatre Arts, Mountview Academy, Performers College, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama – and, of course, The MGA Academy of Performing Arts.

The Foundation schedule runs for one whole academic year over three full-time terms of training and an HNC qualification is awarded to those who successfully complete all the required modules.

The course is technique orientated, giving you a solid foundation in the three key disciplines of Acting, Singing and Dance that can then be built upon in future studies.

Specialist classes and training workshops include:

- Singing Skills For Musical Theatre
- Jazz Dance For Musical Theatre
- Ballet Dance For Musical Theatre
- Acting: Developing Skills
- Vocal Techniques for Musical Theatre
- Performance 1: Developing Skills
- Graded Unit: Musical Theatre
- Audition Technique and Performance for Musical Theatre
- Personal Development
- Individual Singing Lesson
- Group/Ensemble Singing
MGA’s unique focus on audition technique and professional development will ensure that students are best placed to gain entry into any of the UK’s distinguished drama schools.

Though MGA has an excellent track record, given the nature and level of competition for Drama School places, we cannot guarantee that foundation students will be accepted at their chosen full-time provider and successful completion of the MGA foundation course does not automatically mean that students will progress onto MGA’s own three-year programmes.

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.

The Level 6 Trinity Diploma courses in Professional Dance and Musical Theatre provide the highest standards of education, training and guidance required for a career in both professional dance and musical theatre performance.

Safe practice and wellbeing are at the heart of each programme whereby students’ capabilities and needs are fully considered.

Designed for recent graduates and suitably qualified mature students, our taught Master of Music (MMus) and Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) Choral Conducting courses provide the technical training, collaborative opportunities and podium time necessary to help you prepare for a career as a professional conductor....

WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS COURSE?
- Regular individual specialist tuition.
- Vocal lessons.
- Opportunities to join orchestral conducting classes.
- A dedicated chamber choir, ‘Camerata’, managed and nurtured by students on the course.
- Involvement in rehearsals of the Conservatoire’s highly acclaimed Chamber Choir, which has a regular and highly successful recording programme.
- Many other choral singing opportunities within the Conservatoire.
- Bespoke support classes in musicianship and repertoire.
- A core career development module designed to get you thinking about your future professional plans.
- The flexibility to choose from a broad menu of Professional Development Option modules designed to help you work towards achieving your personal career aspirations.
- In MMus, a core module designed to develop your skills as a researcher or informed practitioner.
- The possibility of transferring from PgDip to MMus once you have begun your studies (but before completion of the PgDip course).

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