Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance –
London’s International Drama School
by Michael Earley
With a Preview: Summer School Master Classes by Janice Orlandi
Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance is an International Drama School in London. A world-leading conservatory, university of theatre and a collaborative creative community with over 16 different degree courses in performance, design and technical theatre. Throughout the year they present over seventy productions at their South London parkland campus and in London, and tour work abroad.
Last year they opened a new performance and training space in Edinburgh, Scotland, to host a season of professional and graduate shows at the August 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They are the only drama school in the world to have a year-round presence in Edinburgh.
Their international work involves student exchanges with seven partner conservatories in Europe and seven university theatre departments in the United States, including Columbia College Chicago, Syracuse University, University of the Arts Philadelphia, Oklahoma City University and others. They are now in Asia, too, and have hosted an International Summer School in Arts Management for Chinese students since 2015.
Since 1950, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance has been training actors for the stage and screen, including Gary Oldman, Stephen Graham, Sam Palladio, Lake Bell, and Haley Squires.
The work of Stanislavsky has been at the core of their training since the college began. Mr. Earley’s predecessor as Principal of Rose Bruford College, Jean Benedetti, wrote the only English-language biography of Stanislavsky, and also produced memorable translations of Stanislavsky’s seminal books on acting, An Actors Work on a Role and others.
This work grew out of their Stanislavsky Center on Research
and the Stanislavsky Studies, a journal on the history and future of acting.
In 2017, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance led an international conference called “The S Word: Merging Methodologies,” examining Stanislavsky’s legacies that have influenced new traditions of actor training.
Rose Bruford College is not just a drama school in the traditional sense; it is also a research center that that explores performance in its widest contexts. Out of this has come a main Acting conservatory program similar to the Yale School of Drama and The Juilliard School.
The European Theatre Arts program also investigates non-Stanislavsky approaches, like devised and physical theatre including Grotowski, Kantor and Lecoq. Our American Theatre Arts course investigates American approaches to actor training and students spend a semester abroad studying in the U.S.
The unique Actor Musicianship course, has been a trailblazing training program for actors who are also musicians benefitting actors who may play up to seven different instruments, compose and can arrange to music theatre production. Actor Musicianship is not a musical theatre program is a demanding actor training course of study and includes the incorporation of music and the ‘musicality of performance’. The head of this program, Jeremy Harrison, recently wrote the first book about this approach to training, Actor-Musicanship.
Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance is also set on investigating technical theatre. Along with specialist degree courses in Stage Management, Theatre and Costume Design, Costume Production and Scenic Arts, they also offer state-of-the-art-and-industry training in Lighting Design, including the first BA course in the UK, as well as Creative Lighting Control (digital-led lighting, graphics and projections) and Performance Sound.
Their design and technical students are trained to work in theatre and the wider entertainment world of television, film, rock concerts and stadium events. They strive to train students who are the future artists of the theatre, artists who will take the theatre in new directions.
They have also created a MA/MFA study, with performance courses that blend all the many different approaches in acting, mixing these approaches with directing, dramaturgy and play-making.
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A Preview of 2017 Summer School Master-classes
by Janice Orlandi
In the fall of 2015 Professor Michael Earley, Principal of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in London, asked me to assist the
college in developing its summer school by helping to invite a visiting faculty of Master Class teachers from the US and around the globe.
The common goal we share is the importance of educating the next generation of theater artists and performers by bringing them in direct contact with extraordinary teachers in both established methods and new performance techniques, and to encounter, experience and pass down different legacies of key training.
This Summer’s Master Class program at Rose Bruford College is offering advanced courses taught by well-known teachers, guest artists and theater innovators - many from the United States - with a broad range of practical knowledge and experience. They will supplement other summer school activities at Rose Bruford College that are more introductory. The College encourages enrollment from students around the world.
The Summer Master Class Teachers will include a host of important innovators who have developed their own pedagogy and training techniques, including Mary Overlie and Catherine Fitzmaurice, along with others who are carrying forward the methods of legendary visionaries like Uta Hagen, Sanford Meisner and Michael Chekhov. The Master-Classes are offered during July and August and will blend unique pedagogies that are different but also harmonize in a key way to create a dialogue and reflect on one another’s work and teaching.
This summer’s featured guest artists and methods master teachers from the USA and UK are: Mary Overlie, the originator of the Six Viewpoints will present a six-day workshop into the deconstruction of the structural languages of theatre, pushing the performer to practice performance in a horizontal, non- hierarchical structure that constitutes the Six Viewpoints training.
Ms. Overlie’s great contribution to performance training has been Viewpoints being adopted as a leading approach to performance training across the U.S. She describes her work as a way to strengthen creative visions, embracing theatre as a fine art that reaches past entertainment into a spiritual, philosophical practice.
The seeds of the entire work of the Six Viewpoints is found in the simple act of standing in space. From this perspective the artist is invited to read and be educated by the lexicon of daily experience. The information of space, the experience of time, the familiarity of shapes, the qualities and rules of kinetics in movement, the ways of logics, that stories are formed and the states of being and emotional exchanges that constitute the process of communication between human beings.
Also being presented this summer is “Transformation & Emotion Methods: Rasaboxes, Alba Emoting, & Michael Chekhov”, a combined approach that leads to an understanding and use emotion in performance by exclusively combining three complimentary methods – Alba Emoting, Rasaboxes and Michael Chekhov technique. This cross-pedagogy workshop is delivered by Certified Teachers Dr Jessica Beck, Dr Michele Minnick and Janice Orlandi.
The Alba Method was founded by neuroscientist Dr. Susana Bloch and her 20 years of research. Alba Method Identifies, six "basic" states of emotion otherwise known as the primary colors of emotion: anger, joy, sadness, fear, tenderness and erotic love. All other emotions are "blends". each of the basic six emotions has an identifiable set of effector patterns. By establishing three aspects of these patterns, which include —breathing, facial expression, and posture—an actor can both enter and leave an emotional state at will. Rasaboxes founded by Dr. Richard Schechner, inspired by ancient Indian performance theory, includes psychophysical exercises ranging from simple and personal expression of “eight” RASAS individually through drawing, breathing, gesturing, sensing, and vocalizing to complex combinations performed by several people simultaneously in performance compositions to create complex expressions of the eight Rasas or emotional states of: fear, rage, wonder, laughter, heroic courage, sadness, pity and disgust. Michael Chekhov Technique explores both the application and practice of Chekhov’s Psycho-physical exercises, to expand the actor’s imagination and ability to Transform; Atmospheres, Qualities of Movement, Gestures and more…are practiced and applied to develop the connection between the actors body, imagination and physical sensations, inspiring the artistic imagination and a radiant expressive body.
A week-long workshop on Uta Hagen approach, with Master Acting teacher,
Carol Rosenfeld, from New York City This workshop probe the complexity of human behavior and human action. This celebrated approach explores the dynamic interactions between sensory and emotional experience and creative imagination to explore individual talent and motivation. Ms. Rosenfeld’s workshop will examine the practical application of Uta Hagen’s approach as discussed in Hagen’s book, A Challenge for the Actor. Through acting technique and scene study, “The Six Steps” becomes an integral part of the actor’s craft. When you discover what works for you, and make specific, meaningful choices, and have more
confidence in how to find the role in your unique self and you in the role, acting is joyful and comes naturally.
Ms. Rosenfeld has said: “Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof embraced me, saw my talent and nurtured it. I entered an environment in which artistic freedom flourished, where respect for the art of acting was assumed; I was given the space to find my own way as a teaching artist. I love the work and everything about it.”
A two-week intensive “Meisner Acting for Stage and Camera” a new approach covering the first Module of Meisner Technique, as well as dynamic innovations in training developed by Master Teachers Kathryn Gately and Richard Poole. Actors will discover how to use themselves simply and truthfully, poetically and expansively, thru action in the world of the dramatic imagination. Using exercises and scenes, students will become more vivid, theatrical, and emotionally free. The specificity of objectives and relationships will be carefully addressed and integrated through voice and movement classes. There will be an introduction to Williamson, a Physical-Release Technique. This program is designed for actors who wish to engage in a 21st century concentrated approach to on-camera and stage acting
"Kathryn Gately focuses on every single moment and detail in a scene and allows me to see these moments through several different perspectives. She opens me to new ideas and ways of approaching scenes." ~Amanda Seyfried - Mamma Mia, Les Misérables,
A six day Workshop “Devising and Physicality Residency with Frantic Assembly” will take place In a sustained workshop environment as participants will work intensively with two Frantic Assembly practitioners to learn new skills and devise new material, culminating in a public performance. By engaging and nurturing your imagination and creativity, all participants will contribute to the development process of the work and perform in the finished piece.
Frantic Assembly is an award winning Theatre Company, previously touring in Great Britain working with 40 countries internationally and even collaborating with some of today’s most well known artists. Known for their physical and collaborative approach to planning, the company is dedicated to motivating people to take part, educate, and collaborate to make beautiful work. Working with over 10,000 young people, artists and teachers a year their collaborators benefit from building capabilities, self-assurance, openness and creativity.
A Workshop, “Fitzmaurice Voicework" with founder Catherine Fitzmaurice is A smorgasbord of techniques, touching on: Destructuring, Restructuring, Voice with Movement, Speech, Singing, and Text. Fitzmaurice Voicework® is a comprehensive approach to voice training. It includes, work on breathing and the body, resonance, speech, dialects, impromptu and prepared public speaking, text, singing, voice with movement, and presence. While the training is specific, it is offered in such a way that it is compatible with other approaches. Fitzmaurice Voice work explores the dynamics between body, breath, voice, imagination, language, and presence. Integrating physical experience and mental focus, the work develops vibrant voices that communicate intention and feeling without excess effort. The resulting freedom and focus allow for a wide range of vocal expression without strain. This is unique path to the mastery of vocal functioning originated by Catherine Fitzmaurice.
The Summer 2017 program at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, of introductory courses, advanced level Master Classes and workshops, will provide any serious performer with the opportunity to study with some of the very best teachers and practitioners from across the world delivered on RBC’s beautiful parkland campus just a short distance from Central London.
Outside of classes there will be ample time for meeting new friends, rehearsing, weekend sightseeing in London, and the wonderful attractions of London’s world-famous theater (West End, the Globe Theatre and fringe), museums, palaces and more.
