BA (Hons) Acting

Pursue a professional career in theatre, film and TV with our acting programme that combines practical and performance-based training with expert tuition and an inclusive curriculum that celebrates diverse voices, new work and essential texts of the classical repertoire.

Working with world-class practitioners and coaches, you’ll cultivate and expand your individual strengths, rather than moulding yourself to a prescribed ideal.

Your training starts with exploration of the fundamental approaches to acting through daily classes and rehearsals, including for work on screen. You’ll also receive a thorough introduction to voice and text work, movement skills and singing. 

As you progress further in your training, you will extend your vocal and physical ability to work in a range of different performance environments and genres. Performance-based projects introduce the world and language of Shakespeare, comedy, devised and collaborative theatre, voice-over and radio acting. Additional training in acting for screen culminates with the creation of a selection of short films. 

In your final year, you will join the Richard Burton Theatre company – our professionally focused theatre company – along with our stage management, technical theatre and design students. 

Throughout the course, you will be oriented towards the world of professional acting and the strategies required for finding and managing employment. The culmination of this work is the actors’ showcases in Cardiff and London’s West End to an invited audience of industry professionals, including agents and casting directors. Those students eligible to work in the US will also be invited to join the US showcase hosted by the Federation of Drama Schools (FDS) in New York City.

• Your training will equip you with the practical skills to work professionally in theatre as well as television, film and audio, where you will study a wide breadth of current approaches and technologies.
• You’ll work with renowned practitioners, both in-house and visiting, giving you access to the very best trainers and professionals, who come with a broad and lived-in knowledge of acting from a range of cultures and contexts.
• Traditional TV drama and film work will be taught alongside green screen, motion capture, ADR, voice-over and short-form. Opportunities for your film work will also find a public platform – either digitally or screened live.
• You’ll enjoy an incredibly high level of individual attention from your tutors. Projects and Skills classes are generally taught in half year groups, with frequent one-to-one tutorials in Voice and Singing and small group rehearsals for scene studies.
• Your small cohort means your tutors really get to know you - having time to ‘walk the room’ and adapt the work to each individual voice, body and learning style.
• The weekly addition of reflective practice sessions allows you to develop an understanding of yourself in relation to your craft and chosen profession, building a toolkit for wellbeing and resilience as an actor in the industry.
• You will be able to take control of your own artistic development, as we train you to devise and create your own work – performed in the first and second year as part of an internal festival. In the final year, you can pitch to make one of four pieces that we will help you realise as a stage production running alongside the NEW season in Cardiff and London.
• In your third year, as part of the Richard Burton Company, you will be given the opportunity to apply the skills you have gained in years one and two to the rehearsal and performance of a number of full-length plays.
• One of these productions will be part of our NEW season where you’ll work with a professional writer, dramaturg and director on a newly commissioned play. With that professional team you will workshop and develop the writing over the course of the year before rehearsing and performing the play in the summer term. These productions take place in Cardiff before transferring to a well-known London venue.
• In addition to these productions, your cohort perform a showcase in Cardiff, London’s West End and New York (for American students).
• Our industry liaison officer works with our students to help broker relationships with industry professionals, such as agents and casting directors. 
• Our excellent links with industry mean that we can offer a range of masterclasses, workshops and audition opportunities with the country’s top casting directors and agents. Throughout your training, you have an opportunity to build a network of contacts with a wide range of industry professionals.
• Our graduates have gone on to work extensively in theatre, film, TV and radio – nationally and internationally – with a number of students being nominated for, and winning, industry awards. Notable alumni include Anjana Vasan, Anthony Boyle, Tom Rhys Harries, Eric Kofi-Abrefa, Arthur Hughes, Anthony Hopkins, Callum Scott Howells, Thalissa Teixeira, Edward Bluemel, Ruth Jones, Sophie Melville, Eve Myles, Ayomide Adegun and Isobel Thom.