Advanced Studies in England
in association with The Mission Theatre
presents
Not Just Shakespeare:
a Theatre Summer School
Students with a passionate interest in theatre and performance can choose to enrol for
ASE’s Theatre Summer School.
The Theatre School runs alongside our regular Summer School and all students share
historic housing and use of
ASE’s Study Centre. They can also attend whole programme events,
including day trips to Glastonbury, Stonehenge and Oxford.
Theatre School students spend two days in
Stratford-upon-Avon, attending performances by the world-renowned
Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as connected lectures and talk-back sessions; they visit London to get a taste of theatre in the Capital; and they get to see a rich variety of
amateur and professional productions at Bath-based venues throughout their five-week stay. Theatre Summer School comprises two courses: a
Core Course,
Not Just Shakespeare: British Theatre History; and a
Practical Performance Course,
Acting British Style.
All Theatre School classes take place at
The Mission Theatre, a venue at the heart of the city of Bath, housing a
large well-equipped main auditorium suitable for end-on, thrust or in-the-round productions for up to 100 audience members. Theatre Summer School culminates in a
public performance of work devised during the Programme.
Acting, British Style
From Dame Maggie Smith to Carey Mulligan, from Sir Ian McKellen to David Tennant and Damian Lewis, British actors are world-renowned for their versatility and skill. But what does it mean to learn to act, British style? Certainly, many talented British actors began their careers on the stage. Open to all with a passion for performance, this course will give students a chance to develop and hone their own acting skills through traditional and innovative theatrical practice. Classes will include accent and dialect work, posture and movement technique, and textual interpretation. The use of existing scripts will be combined with close group collaboration to devise original works for the stage, culminating in a public performance. The course includes a Masterclass with a top-flight British actor.
Not Just Shakespeare: British Theatre History
Renaissance, Restoration, Romanticism, Realism: British Theatre is by no means all about William Shakespeare! With a generous nod to the master playwright and his abiding influence, this course offers a penetrating and practical introduction to some of the other key periods, plays, playwrights and theatrical movements in British theatre history.
Each week will we will study a different time period, learning about its cultural, social, religious and political norms, then reading and performing texts which illuminate, and are illuminated by, this historical context. The British and Irish playwrights studied will be chosen to coincide with performances we attend, but are likely to be drawn from among the following: Christopher Marlowe, Aphra Behn, William Wycherely, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, John Millington Synge, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Caryl Churchill.
As well as joining audiences for a rich variety of professional and amateur productions in Bath and nearby Bristol, all Theatre School students will see
relevant shows in London’s West End and / or on the South Bank. Two further days are spent in Stratford-upon-Avon, where we will watch the world-renowned Royal Shakespeare Company in performance.
Classes are taught collaboratively by a professor from one of ASE’s US affiliate institutions, and by British faculty and theatre practitioners.
