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In 2003, the BBC set up the charity Fame Academy Bursary Trust to support aspiring musicians and performers.
The charity has now been renamed the BBC Performing Arts Fund. Since 2007, the Fund has awarded nearly £500,000 in grants to help students studying musical theatre.
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The cost of training
As you probably know, training to be a musical theatre performer can be very expensive - add to this your living expenses and the cost of a three-year training programme can make for an eye-watering figure.
In 2009, the BBC Performing Arts Fund awarded funding to 35 aspiring musical theatre performers for help with their training. In 2010, the Fund awarded a further £150,000 in bursary funds to deserving musical theatre students.
So if you have the talent, passion and what it takes to have a career in musical theatre, but are currently unable to fully fund your training - the BBC Performing Arts Fund Training in Musical Theatre scheme could help. For dates and details of the next round of funding, go to the website at www.bbc.co.uk/performingartsfund. If you sign up for the newsletter you will be notified in advance of new funding schemes.
BBC Performing Arts Fund
The mission of the Fund is to seek out and support excellent aspiring performers and those directly supporting performing artists, who, for reasons of lack of existing opportunity, personal background or circumstance, would not have been able to achieve their most ambitious goals or their talent's greatest potential without the Fund's support or intervention.
The Fund receives revenue from voting lines of BBC One entertainment programmes such as Over the Rainbow, How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria? and I'd Do Anything and to date has allocated £3m to fund young musicians, from a range of genres, to help them pursue their careers in music.
Who can apply?
To be eligible to apply to the Fund, you must be:
aged 17 or over
applying for training in the UK.
You must also fit one of the following criteria:
have been offered a place on a professional musical theatre course
are already on a professional training course.
You must also be able to demonstrate that being awarded a bursary will enable you to undergo training that you might not otherwise have been able to afford.
How to stand the best chance of doing well
With several thousand applications expected, competition will be very tough. To help the Fund assess your application correctly, you'll need to make sure you provide the right information for them to make their decision. The following details will help you understand what is required.
1. The type of course or personal study programme considered for funding:
The most important thing is that your proposed study must be of an appropriate level and focus for your personal requirements. In other words it must provide you with the skills that you will require in the profession.
Professional courses can be from one to three years, but note that grants run for one year only. If you are awarded a grant in one year of a three-year course, there is no guarantee that you will be offered one again for subsequent years, and so you should plan your finances around not being awarded another BBC grant. You will be able to re-audition for BBC grants in future years, but only on the same footing as new applicants.
2. What the grants do not provide for:
courses for which you have not yet been offered a firm place
training that leads solely towards teaching qualifications
dance courses in which the singing and acting element is minimal
acting courses in which the singing element is minimal
singing courses which don't relate specifically to musical theatre.
3. Other advice
Make sure you read and fully digest all the advice given on the Fund's website at the address at the end of this article.
You must show you are doing everything you can to find funding from other sources. Doing things like putting on fundraising concerts, writing to trust funds, entering competitions, applying for other bursaries, working hard to save money etc. will all go in your favour.
Being awarded other bursaries and prizes will also be viewed as positive on your application
Grants are made towards payment of fees only.
Further information
The application period usually opens in March. To receive details of the exact opening and closing dates visit: www.bbc.co.uk/performingartsfund where you can sign up for the Fund's email newsletter.
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