Acting
Acting
The BA (Hons) Acting programme is a leading actor training based in the heart of Manchester.
Led by a team of specialist and highly experienced directors, teachers and practitioners, the BA (Hons) Acting course at Manchester School of Theatre has an outstanding reputation for training actors with the skills necessary for a successful career in film, television, radio and stage.
We are looking for your imagination, empathy, curiosity, passion and wonder.
We are looking for expressive people who are energetic, dynamic and driven to tell stories.
We will nurture your ability, teach you your craft and encourage you on the path to creative excellence.
We encourage anyone with a passion for and commitment to acting to apply and we are dedicated to making our training as widely accessible as possible
You will work with a wide range of practitioners and a wealth of inspiring teachers and professional practitioners. You will train in all aspects of the craft including acting for stage, screen and radio.
Based in the Manchester School of Theatre, we have recently moved into our new building, specially built for us on Oxford Road. Our inspirational training venue includes:
- A 180 seat fully equipped studio theatre, with dressing rooms and green room
- Large movement and performance studios with sprung floors
- 8 additional rehearsal studios
- TV and radio studios
- Tutorial rooms
- Computer labs
The Acting course enjoys very strong links with many of the region's key employers including BBC, RNCM, the Hallé Orchestra, Royal Exchange Theatre, HOME, Bolton Octagon, Oldham Coliseum, Hull Truck Theatre and The Lowry. We also have creative partnerships with a number of national and international organisations including: New National Theatre, Tokyo, the ETFI, Carnegie Mellon University,
Special Features
- —World class training in the heart of Manchester.
- —A brand-new inspirational training hub including state of the art theatre, studios and rehearsal rooms.
- —Recent students have won many prestigious awards including the Alan Bates Award, The Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award and the Laurence Olivier Bursary.
- —Selected students will get to participate in a number of events and collaborations including Sam Wannamaker Award, RSC Weekend and potentially projects with the Hallé, RNCM, MIF and other international partners.
- —A nationally and internationally acclaimed course which has links with the region’s key employers including BBC, MIF, Royal Exchange Theatre, HOME, RNCM, Hallé Orchestra and The Lowry.
- —Strong links with The Manchester Writing School.
Watch the BA (Hons) Acting showreel. More videos of our students performing can be seen on the Acting Showcase page.
Course Content
The first two years of this course are all about training. The third year is industry facing, preparing and readying our actors for the profession. The first year is entirely process driven with little emphasis on performing. The second year introduces elements of performance through workshops and culminates in a black box production readying the students for the third year.
Year 1
In the first year of your training you will explore your voice, your body and your self. You will experience the ensemble as a tangible, meaningful presence and you will begin the rudiments of the actor’s craft, working with key principles derived in part from the work of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Uta Hagen and Michael Chekhov. You will learn how to read a play and turn dried ink into character and action. You will learn the rudiments of working on camera and have several opportunities to experience truthful self and the transformation into a present character. You will start to apply what you have learned in a series of scene studies working with both contemporary and European Naturalism texts. By the end of your first year you will have experienced using self as the basis of character and have established a personal, structured process to apply to rehearsal.
Contextualising Practice 1: Critical Analysis
Students are allocated to a pathway according to their programme to introduce ideas relevant to their studies. The module introduces some of the broad over-arching themes and concepts – historical, cultural, social, political, and economic – that affect and inform the production of art, design and/or craft.
Rehearsal Project 2: Creating A World
In this module, students will explore and put into practice the work they’ve learnt so far through the rehearsal of scenes from a play by the European Naturalists, for example Chekhov or Ibsen or may even be stretched to include other naturalistic writers, such as Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansbury, August Wilson or JB Priestley where appropriate. Students will engage with the sensual use of language as a means of creative expression. Rehearsals will foster a practice that demands research and observation, a willingness to experiment, and a confident integration of movement, voice and acting classes in the creation of character, relationship and given circumstances.
Rehearsal Project 1: Contemporary Realism
In this module, students will begin to explore the work they have been learning in their acting classes through the rehearsal of a scene taken from a piece of contemporary realism, for example Simon Stephens, Leo Butler, Joe Penhall, Dennis Kelly, Roy Williams, Moira Buffini amongst others. The assessment will be formative and will include the presentation of a workbook journal, to provide context and a focal point to the student’s journey through the work. Students will be encouraged to work towards an increasingly secure application of the processes and methodologies to which they have been introduced in earlier stages of the course and to achieve convincing and appropriate character transformations, relationships and playable objectives.
The Actors Craft 2: Developing Principles
This module builds on the work of the first term and complements the Rehearsal Project 1: Contemporary Realism. In this module, students will continue to develop the principles of the actor training with a transition of emphasis from notions of self to playing character. Students will work with improvisation, psychological gestures, as well as exercises based on the work of Uta Hagen, Stanislavsky and Michael Chekhov. Students will also be introduced to and familiarised with acting in front of the camera.
Movement: The Actor's Body 1
In this foundational movement module, students will develop core competencies in movement and embodiment while beginning to understand their unique physical acting process. The focus is on fostering presence, intentionality, and awareness of how the body and movement inform character, storytelling, and the craft of acting.
Voice and The Actor 1
This module establishes principles that help the student experience the breath in two ways: as an impulsive, natural response to a stimulus, a need to express and communicate freely, without tension or over-control; and as a dynamic, living actor’s resource that supports the voice physically, and that carries the voice’s expressivity. Taking methodologies and pedagogies from Kristin Linklater and Patsy Rodenburg, the module encourages students to reassess habitual usage and to lay the foundation of new habits which will build released, supported, expressive voices that respond to imagination and creative impulse.
The Actors Craft 1: Establishing Principles
In this module you will begin to work on the foundations upon which the training is based: you will apply imagination, curiosity and energy to free yourself from habit and to experience working with openness, impulse and sensation. Throughout this work you be exploring notions of self. Part of this module will involve working as a full cohort, experiencing through song and movement, the physical, spiritual and psychic demands of the ensemble. In parallel with this, you will work through a series of Stanislavsky and Hagen based acting exercises, to set up the fundamental principles of the training, including playing from impulse, sustaining objectives, generating characteristics and being a sensuous human being in the space.
Contextualising Practice 1: Critical Reflection
This module is delivered and assessed by individual programmes and relate directly to students’ personal practice and the contexts that inform making in professional art, design and/or craft practices. The module asks students to begin to form a critical understanding of their own practice.
Year 2
In the second year of your training, you will consolidate and develop what you have learned in the first year. You will work have considerably more experience in front of the camera as well as behind the mic. You will work with heightened stakes, intense feeling and poetic speech through your Shakespeare project and you will have further classes in singing, combat, acting for camera, improvisation, poetry, as well as deeper and more sustained scene studies in which to develop your process and hone your craft.
15 credits
15 credits
Rehearsal Project 3: Shakespeare
15 credits
Rehearsal Project 4: Black Box
15 credits
Movement: The Actor's Body 2
Students will integrate more advanced movement practices to build their repertoire, applying their learning to characters, scenes, and theatrical productions.
Rehearsal Project 4: Black Box
This module is designed to address the particular needs of a year group and involves the rehearsal and presentation of a classical or contemporary theatre text. It is a bridge to the third year and an opportunity for students to present a number of performances in a black box studio theatre to a public or semi-public audience. It will provide students with an experience of performing a role more than once or twice and will enable students to reinforce their established working methodology. There will be a possibility of taking this project on a local tour of schools.
The Actors Craft 4: Acting For Screen and Television 2
Building on the work from term 1, students will look at development of character for screen work. Through workshopping and improvisation they will create their own characters and then lead to creating scenes for those characters to work with. The training shifts more towards preparing the actor for professional industry standards and challenges and students will explore what they as actors need to bring in order to be ready to film, how to manage a character’s journey whilst working out of sequence and in a non linear pattern and how to sustain a character’s living, breathing inner life in a pressurised filming environment.
Rehearsal Project 3: Shakespeare
In this module students will engage with the practical, emotional and technical demands of Shakespeare’s plays. They will learn how to speak verse, work with imagery and metaphor and apply what they have learnt in the Actor’s Craft throughout the first year to complex text. Students will work in a rehearsal environment on a cut down version of a Shakespeare play and explore the psychological and spiritual dynamics of his characters and their relationships. Emphasis will be on assimilation of technique, heightened language and extreme character objectives. The work of this module will be deftly supported by the work in other classes including voice and movement.
Voice and The Actor 2
This module builds on poetry work introduced in the first year. Having been encouraged to explore physical, instinctive and creative approaches to consonant, vowel, syllable, word and thought, students’ understanding is broadened out to the Shakespearean sonnets, where they respond to challenges of verse structure, including meter, rhyme, enjambment and caesura. Drawing on work from practitioners such as Linklater and Patrick Tucker, the module aligns with other principles of voice work to build a robust, creative discipline that enables the actor’s speech to become varied and expressive in response to ever more complex and heightened impulses, thence to foster a growing ability to approach any text with confidence and creativity.
The Actors Craft 3: Acting For Screen and Television
In this module, students will apply their craft and experience to the demands of acting for screen and television in a rigorous and detailed way. Following on from the first year introduction to acting for camera, students will work with experienced professionals with ongoing experience at a high level of the industry to learn a variety of techniques, experience being in front of the camera, critically evaluating the work as well as rehearsing scenes from extant television and film scripts.
Contextualising Practice 2: Critical Analysis A
For ‘Contextualising Practice 2: Critical Analysis A’, students can choose to study up to two thematic sub-units to develop their contextual studies in new directions. The CP2 Critical Analysis modules encourage students to develop their critical analysis skills gained in Level 4 to further investigate the broad over-arching themes and concepts – historical, cultural, social, political, and economic – that affect and inform the production of art, design and/or craft.
Year 3
Your final year is very much about preparing for and engaging with the profession. You will work with professional directors on at least one public performance per term. You will have workshops and talks from practitioners and professionals including successful directors of stage and screen, agents, producers, casting directors, artistic directors and many more. You will have the opportunity to audition for the various awards and bursaries, including the Sam Wannamaker Festival, the Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award (which we have won and come runner up in several times in recent years) the RSC weekend and many more. You will receive advice on auditions and self-tapes culminating in a series of mock auditions. You will also take part in the annual Showcase, which will be at our new theatre in Manchester and in a West End theatre in London.
30 credits
30 credits
30 credits
30 credits
Production 1
This module introduces students to the demands of public performance and the need to develop their work in a context that requires high levels of discipline, imagination and professionalism. Rehearsals will operate in exactly the same manner as they would in the profession: each play will rehearse full-time for 4 weeks and perform for an extended period over one or two weeks. Students work alongside a team that includes a production manager, wardrobe supervisor, stage manager, professional designers, lighting designers and other technical staff. Each production is fully realised and performed in the new Theatre before a paying audience and invited guests from the profession.
Production 2
This module provides further opportunities for students to develop their work in front of a public audience. Play choices tend to be more ensemble in nature and this challenges the students to collaborate in the telling of a story and to call on the ensemble skills of the first year. Each play rehearses on a full-time basis for 4 weeks and performs over one week. Each production is fully realised and performed in the Theatre before a paying audience and invited guests from the profession.
Independent Project
In this module, students will create a piece of work, which may involve devising, directing, writing or choreographing a piece of theatre, tv, radio or film – a project that will involve actors but in which the student themselves is unlikely to act. They will be supervised by a member of staff but the emphasis will be on independent study and rehearsals. Supervisors will expect to be regularly included on the development of the work and invited in to rehearsals.
Professional Portfolio
This module supports students in their work towards the production of audio and visual recordings, which form a major part of their portfolio as professional actors. Upon completion of the module students will have demonstrated their skills and ambitions towards future employability through their technical discipline, imagination and professionalism in formats appropriate to their future career plans.
Assessment Methods
Continuous assessment and public performances.
Assessment Weightings & Contact Hours
10 credits equates to 100 hours of study, which is a combination of lectures, seminars and practical sessions, and independent study. A three year degree qualification typically comprises 360 credits (120 credits per year). The exact composition of your study time and assessments for the course will vary according to your option choices and style of learning, but it could be—
Study
- Year 1 80% lectures, seminars or similar; 20% independent study
- Year 2 80% lectures, seminars or similar; 20% independent study
- Year 3 80% lectures, seminars or similar; 20% independent study
Assessment
- Year 1 100% coursework
- Year 2 100% coursework
- Year 3 100% coursework
Staff
- Sofia Jones
Programme Leader
— - Gareth Aled
Lecturer (Acting)
— - Seán Aydon
Lecturer (Acting)
— - Jonathan Floyd
Senior Lecturer
— - Seb Harcombe
Senior Lecturer (Acting)
— - Ellie Hawthorne
Lecturer (Voice)
— - Amaia Mugica
Senior Lecturer (Movement)
— - Sam Robertson
Lecturer (Voice)
— - Caitlin Smith
Senior Lecturer (Movement)
—
Visiting Tutors
Some of our recent visiting teachers and practitioners—
- Naomi Ackie, Actor, Star Wars
- Geraldine Alexander, Actor & Director
- Sarah Amankwah, Actor
- Hammed Animashaun, Actor
- Mina Anwar, Actor & Director
- Zawe Ashton, Actor
- Mark Babych, Artistic Director, Hull Truck Theatre Company
- Mick Barnfather, Teacher & Actor
- Zora Bishop, Actor
- George Bukhari, Actor
- Lucy Campbell, Director
- Ian Chesworth, Singing Teacher
- Jude Christian, Associate Director, HOME
- Caroline Clegg, Director
- Kate Colgrave Pope, Teacher & Director
- Michael Cox, Hammond Cox Casting
- Kwesi Davies, Coaching For Creators
- Matthew Dunster, Director
- Joe England, Improvisation
- Stefan Escreet, Director
- Comfort Fabien, Actor
- Ashley Gerlach, Actor
- Rupert Goold, Artistic Director, Almeida Theatre
- Darren R Gordon, Director / Acting and Presentation Coach
- Burn Gorman, Actor
- Thom Hammond, Hammond Cox Casting
- Seb Harcombe, Director
- Sir David Hare, Writer
- Julie Hesmondhalgh, Actor
- Elianne Hawley, Actor & TV teacher
- Graeme Hawley, Actor & TV teacher
- Carla Henry, Actor
- Sharon Henry, Sharon Henry Management
- Kaitlin Howard, Stage Combat tutor
- Chris Hunter, Actor & Teacher
- Jonathan Kent, Director
- Oliver Kent, TV Producer
- Noreen Kershaw, Actor & Director
- Elliot Knight, Actor
- Alastair Knights, Director
- Jerry Knight-Smith, Casting Director, Manchester Royal Exchange
- Neil LaBute, Writer
- Omar Malik, Actor
- Cheryl Martin, Writer & Director
- Jonathan Martin, Director
- Javier Marzan, Improvisation
- Jonathan McGrath, Director & Actor & Producer
- Roger Michell, Director, Notting Hill
- Rachel O’Riordan, Artistic Director, Lyric Hammersmith
- Mary Papadima, Director
- Craig Parkinson, Actor
- Maxine Peake, Actor
- Madeleine Potter, Actor & Director
- Quarantine, Theatre Company
- Joe Gilmour Rees, Director
- Kyle Rowe, JAM
- Indhu Rubasingham, Artistic Director, Kiln Theatre
- Ginny Schiller, Casting Director
- Bryony Shanahan, Joint Artistic Director, Manchester Royal Exchange
- Elizabeth Shofi, Voice
- Penelope Skinner, Playwright
- Teunkie van der Slujs, Director
- Simon Stephens, Playwright
- Hannah Stevenson
- Abii Strudwicke, Voice
- Imogen Stubbs, Actor, Director & Writer
- David Threlfall, Actor
- Si Trinder, Actor & Director
- Pat Trueman, Director
- Ted Van Griethuysen, Actor
- Annie Wallace, Actor
- Yusra Warsama, Actor & Director
- Roy Alexander Weise, Joint Artistic Director, Manchester Royal Exchange
- Jason Wingard, Director
Also see Directors of Final Year Productions
Graduates
Former students who have gone on to highly successful careers in film, television and theatre and graduates include Sarah Amankwah, Zawe Ashton, Zora Bishop, John Bradley, George Bukhari, Amanda Burton Steve Coogan, Ashley Gerlach, Richard Griffiths, Graeme Hawley, Zoe Henry, Bernard Hill, Noreen Kershaw, Elliot Knight, Adam Kotz, Nathan McMullen, Yasmin Mwanza, David Threlfall, John Thomson, Annie Wallace, Julie Walters CBE, Assad Zaman.
Making an Application
How to Apply
Apply through UCAS.
We will invite you for an Audition.
You will be notified of our decision through UCAS.
Entry Requirements
| UCAS Tariff Points/Grades Required | 104-112. GCE A levels - grades BCC or equivalent Pearson BTEC National Extended Diploma - grade DMM Access to HE Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum 106 UCAS Tariff points UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma - grade of Merit overall OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma - grade DMM T level - We welcome applications from students undertaking T level qualifications. Eligible applicants will be asked to achieve a minimum overall grade of Merit as a condition of offer IB Diploma - Pass overall with a minimum overall score of 26 or minimum 104-112 UCAS Tariff points from three Higher Level subjects Other Level 3 qualifications equivalent to GCE A level are also considered. A maximum of three A level-equivalent qualifications will be accepted towards meeting the UCAS tariff requirement. AS levels, or qualifications equivalent to AS level, are not accepted. The Extended Project qualification (EPQ) may be accepted towards entry, in conjunction with two A-level equivalent qualifications. Please contact the University directly if you are unsure whether you meet the minimum entry requirements for the course |
|---|---|
| Specific GCSE Requirements | GCSE grade C/4 in English Language or equivalent, e.g. Pass in Level 2 Functional Skills English |
| Additional Requirements | Please note the University does not accept deferred applications or advanced entry applications for this course Audition required. The course is highly competitive and you may be called back to a second or even third audition. Further details |
| International Baccalaureate | IB Diploma with minimum 26 points overall or 104 UCAS Tariff points from Higher Level. If you plan to meet the Level 2 course requirements through your IB Diploma you will need to achieve Higher Level 4 or Standard Level 5 in English Points |
International Students
A minimum IELTS score of 6.0 overall with no individual element below 5.5 is required.
There’s further information for international students on our international website if you’re applying with non-UK qualifications.
Tuition Fees 2025 Entry
UK and Channel Island students
Full-time fee: £9,250 per year. This tuition fee is agreed subject to UK government policy and parliamentary regulation and may increase each academic year in line with inflation or UK government policy for both new and continuing students.
EU and Non-EU International students
Full-time fee: £21,500 per year. Tuition fees will remain the same for each year of your course providing you complete it in the normal timeframe (no repeat years or breaks in study).
Additional information
A degree typically comprises 360 credits, a DipHE 240 credits, a CertHE 120 credits, and an integrated masters 480 credits. The tuition fee for the placement year for those courses that offer this option is £1,850, subject to inflationary increases based on government policy and providing you progress through the course in the normal timeframe (no repeat years or breaks in study). The tuition fee for the study year abroad for those courses that offer this option is £1,385, subject to inflationary increases based on government policy and providing you progress through the course in the normal timeframe (no repeat years or breaks in study).
See Funding your studies for further information and advice.
Additional Costs
Specialist Costs
£325* plus optional £250* —- Books and play texts (approx. £150)
- Rehearsal clothing (skirts/trousers, shoes and shirts) in year one (approx. £75)
- Professional photographs in final year (£100 - £350)
Professional Costs
Optional £123* —- Combat certificate (approx. £20)
- Joining Spotlight in final year (£103)
Other Costs
£150*- Zoo pass for animal study in first year (£50)
- Return train fare to London for Showcase (£100)
* All amounts shown are estimates.