Acting MFA

Birmingham City University

The MFA Acting course is designed for graduates who wish to undertake advanced studies to further their knowledge and widen their experience of acting in order to take up a professional acting career upon graduation. The delivery of the course is based on the conservatoire model which requires an intensive taught delivery of a minimum of thirty to forty hours per week over a minimum of thirty weeks per year. Its focus is practice-based learning through which the student is enabled to develop the requisite intellectual, imaginative and physical skills of the professional actor. During the course, students form an acting company and each exercise, workshop or production is designed to challenge the student actor and to progressively develop the imaginative, intellectual and creative skills required for acting. The course seeks to create independently minded practitioners who are able to apply a variety of methodologies to their creative work. Its aim is to inculcate forward thinking practitioners able to create real employment opportunities for themselves, both in finding work and creating work. The MFA Acting course, specifically designed with international students in mind, is a full-time programme delivered intensively over two years. The focus of work is European, with an emphasis on texts from within the British tradition. In the first year, studies focus on the ensemble, the tools of Psychological Realism, the demands of classical texts, professional preparation, and the foundations for personal research.