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Birmingham School of Acting (BSA), part of Birmingham City University, has developed an innovative new course - the Postgraduate Diploma/MA in Professional Voice Practice.
The course is designed to help performers and other drama specialists to become professional voice practitioners such as coaches and teachers.
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With a staff of more than 60 working professionals and accredited by the National Council for Drama Training (NCDT), BSA is a small specialist institution with 134 full-time students on its two undergraduate acting courses. This new course has been developed with the support of the Royal Shakespeare Company and is the only Higher Education programme specialising in voice development in the Midlands. The course has a number of unique features:
it has been developed through a close liaison with the profession and a range of influential and leading voice professionals will contribute to the delivery of the course. These will be drawn from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the professional theatre and musical theatre and from the clinical context;
it focuses on an approach to voice work that is language oriented and, while the course obviously instils a healthy vocal use, the main focus of the course is on approaches to 'text-based' voice work. The course features a great deal of work concerned with how to inhabit a text and the technical demands of densely coded texts, such as Elizabethan/Jacobean and other poetic texts and sung texts, and work on language will provide the central focus of the course;
students are offered the opportunity to explore the relationship between the speaking and the singing voice.
Alex Taylor, Course Director and Head of Voice at Birmingham School of Acting explains, "this course is ideal for graduates who wish to undertake advanced studies in voice in order to pursue careers as voice professionals. It is intended for those who seek specialised practice and study in voice and speech. In Britain, we have a very rich language and a very rich cultural and literary heritage: this new course initiative hopes to raise awareness of this as well as helping to develop students' deeper understanding of the voice and how it functions. We are especially pleased to have the support of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is a world renowned cultural institution."
Lyn Darnley, Head of Text, Voice and Artist Development, from the Royal Shakespeare Company states, "we are proud to be supporting Birmingham School of Acting in this innovative course - the first of its kind to be offered in the region."
The numbers of students admitted to the course will be limited to a maximum of twelve in any one-year group in order to guarantee quality of education on offer and ensure individual attention will be able to be given to the development of each student's potential.
Whilst the course would appear to be very specialised, the hope is that it will attract students from a range of backgrounds. The course will obviously appeal to those who come from an acting or performance background who already have an interest in voice work and are looking for a change of direction in their working lives. The course may also appeal particularly to those who are already qualified teachers, may have responsibility for language or drama work within their school, and would like to learn new approaches to working with language and great poetic texts with young people.
The RSC is also sponsoring a bursary for one student to study on this course. They will be involved in the selection of the student and will monitor his or her progress throughout the course. The RSC is offering placement opportunities to one or two students on the course each year along with other theatre companies within the region, and regional drama schools.
The course is recruiting for students with an entry for September 2008. Further details about this and other BSA courses can be found at www.bsa.bcu.ac.uk.
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