Our Acting Foundation Courses provide rigorous and intensive vocational training that will give you vital skills, techniques and confidence essential for higher education (degree or MA/MFA), or a career in the performing arts.
Students enrolled in this course benefit from a dedicated full-time professional preparation week. This week offers an opportunity to review CVs and engage in mock auditions guided by experienced professionals and casting directors.
Our Foundation courses are designed to support your development as an actor in training, auditioning and future practice in a way that is rigorous and professional.
In 2020, 100% of our students expressed that they were ‘satisfied’ with the course, with many noting that it exceeded their expectations.
Please email [email protected] to request an Information Webinar recording about the course.
Why choose this course?
Three locations to choose from
Foundation Acting is available at Sidcup, Brighton and Edinburgh
Flexible
Our courses all operate on a 4 day week, allowing you more time to work alongside the course
Teaching and industry connections
Delivered by experienced professional actors, tutors and directors with many guest leading experts
Student support
Each student has a personal tutor and is expected to keep a Personal Development Journal that is reviewed in 1-1 tutorials each term. You will also be given support and advice regarding applications for further study and entering the world of professional work
Course breakdown
Each course is designed to develop you physically, vocally and imaginatively whilst encouraging an independent and in-depth approach to your work. We arrange a number of workshops as well as audition panels with outside theatre and casting directors. Students get help to build their actor’s portfolios of songs and speeches.
Sidcup
- The Foundation Course in Sidcup is a 22 week course and includes 26+ hours of teaching and learning per week. Classes are delivered between the hours of 9am and 9pm
- Delivered on our Sidcup parkland campus by experienced acting staff and visiting directors
- Masterclasses include; Building your audition portfolio, Grotowski, physical theatre, audition technique, Augusto Boal, acting through song, Uta Hagen, acting for camera, clowning, stage fighting and unarmed combat, Alexander Technique, musicality (all masterclasses are subject to change)
- Classes include; acting (studying Stanislavski and Meisner), performance/audition technique, movement, ensemble, voice, text study, sight-reading, Shakespeare, singing, acting for TV/film
- There are two full-time rehearsal projects during the course; Term 1 contemporary scene study and Term 2 Shakespeare, as well as weekly masterclasses with outside professional directors and theatre companies.
Split into two terms:
- TERM 1: The Actor and Foundation Skills (September to December)
- TERM 2: The Actor and the Audience (January to March)
Brighton
- The Foundation Course in Brighton is a 20-week course and includes 24+ hours of teaching and learning over 4 days per week
- The course is designed to support your development as an actor in training, auditioning and future practice in a way that is rigorous and professional. It will also develop you physically, vocally and imaginatively whilst encouraging an independent and in-depth approach to your work
- Classes include; Acting (studying Stanislavski and Meisner), Performance/audition technique, Movement, Ensemble, Voice, Text study, Sight-reading, Shakespeare and Singing
- There are two full-time rehearsal projects during the course: Term 1 contemporary scene study and Term 2 Shakespeare, as well as weekly masterclasses with outside professional directors and theatre companies. Highly experienced tutors from our performance B.A courses as well as professional practitioners deliver the course
- Masterclasses include: Building your audition portfolio, Grotowski, physical theatre, audition technique, Augusto Boal, acting through song, Uta Hagen, acting for the camera, clowning, stage fighting and unarmed combat, Alexander Technique, musicality (all masterclasses are subject to change)
- Split into two terms:
- TERM 1: The Actor and Foundation Skills (September to December)
- TERM 2: The Actor and the Audience (January to March)
Edinburgh
- The Foundation Course in Edinburgh is a 20-week course and includes 24+ hours of teaching and learning over 4 days per week
- Daily classes (led by the staff team) will include practice in acting, voice, movement; acting methodologies; acting styles & contexts; professional preparation & audition technique
- Termly masterclasses may include audition technique, physical theatre, Boalian theatre, clowning, stage combat, acting for camera, building your audition portfolio, musicality, Alexander Technique, approaches to classical text (all masterclasses are subject to change)
- Full-time rehearsal projects (led by the staff team and/or industry professionals) will include contemporary scene study, devising and a classical theatre project.
- Split into two terms:
- TERM 1: The Actor and Foundation Skills (September to December)
- TERM 2: The Actor and the Audience (January to March)
Your future career
At the end of our programmes, you will be prepared to study on either BA/MA/MFA courses. Graduates of the Foundation Course have also successfully found professional employment and agent representation in the UK, EU and USA.
Students from our courses have been offered places on both our BA and MA courses, whilst others have been offered places or had final round auditions at; Central, East 15, RADA, Drama Centre, Italia Conti, LAMDA, Royal Welsh, Mountview, Guildford, Drama Studio, Guildhall, The American Academy of Dramatic Art and Stanford University.
You will receive guidance in CV writing, professional headshots and show reels, self-taping and practice mock auditions with casting directors. There will also be workshop Q&A’s with actors and directors, so you understand about the industry as well as a toolkit to manage your well-being and build resilience and discipline.
Course Director Foundation Acting
Having trained as an actor, she moved into teaching and directing and then joined the College in 1999 on the BA (Hons) Acting and Actor Musicianship programmes as an Acting Teacher, Director and Professional Development Coordinator. Pat started her own theatre company in the early 1990s, producing and developing new writing. Pat continues to work as a personal development coach and trainer for business, education and the arts, working with individuals and organisations, and she is also a freelance theatre director.
Read their full profile Course Coordinator for Foundation Actor Training (Edinburgh)
Having begun his creative life as a professional actor, Edward is now predominantly focussed on the teaching of Acting & Voice in Higher Education establishments, as well as being a freelance voice coach for individuals and companies. Edward studied acting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and completed a Masters in Education at the same institution also.
Read their full profile Co-ordinator and Teacher
Jenny works as an Educator, Actor and Theatre Director. She has over twenty-five years’ experience of supporting and developing actors in their training to become the best they can be. She trained at Exeter University and The Drama Studio, London and began her career as a professional actor.
Read their full profile Course Leader & Acting Foundation Tutor
Brian graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) in 2001. Since then he has worked extensively as an actor with many of the UK’s leading theatres; including The Royal Court, The Almeida, The National Theatre of Scotland, The National Theatre of Great Britain, The Citizens Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has also worked extensively in television and film in the UK and abroad.
Read their full profile Course Leader Foundation Acting Brighton
Andrew Midgley trained at Rose Bruford in the early 1980’s (Community Theatre Arts) before joining Ed Burman’s InterAction Theatre Company – performing, writing, and directing nationwide tours. From 1995 until 2010 he worked in the Theatre Department at the BRIT School in Croydon, with the additional responsibility of being the Post-16 Pastoral Manager.
Read their full profileHow to apply
Open to applications from anyone over 18 years old at time of enrolment.
There is no academic qualifications entry requirement.
Please complete the short form on this page. You will then be asked to complete another form and submit 2 self-taped pieces of no more than 2 minutes each from one classical and one contemporary play.
Successful applicants are recalled for an informal interview online.
Useful Information
Please note that these courses are not eligible for Student Finance England (SFE) funding, so you will need to have the funds in place if you are made an offer. All students who are offered a place are required to provide the name of a guarantor before commencing the course.
Early bird discount: A £500 discount is available for early payment of full fees by 31st July 2023.
International students can take part in the courses under a standard 6 month visitor visa, a student route visa is not required.
Scholarships and Bursaries
Sidcup
One Bernardine Evaristo Scholarship, which is the full course fee of £9,350 for our Sidcup course
Edinburgh & Brighton
Bursaries of £3,737.50 a year will be awarded (with a maximum of two bursaries awarded per course) to successful students on one of our Foundation Courses in Edinburgh and Brighton.
Institution code: Not applicable
Course code: Not applicable
Auditions and interview guidanceCourse Summary
Duration
6 months
Mode of study
Full time
Start date
September 2024
Course Type
Foundation Course
Qualification
Foundation Course
Sidcup Acting Foundation Course Tuition Fee for UK & International students
£9350
Brighton and Edinburgh Acting Foundation Course Tuition Fee for UK & International students
£7475