Tutor Interview: Introduction to RADA One-day Workshops
An Introduction to RADA: One-day Workshops are brand-new self-contained workshop days taught face to face at RADA, which focus on a two specific aspects of our actor training: Voice and Movement; Text and Acting; Improvisation and Devising; and Dance and Singing.
We caught up with Geoff Bullen, Director of Short Courses, to learn more about the workshops and what they can offer you, regardless of your acting experience.
How would you summarise these workshops? What is it, in a nutshell?
It’s a very concentrated burst of training – like using a magnifying glass. The sessions are very intense and detailed, but at the same time it’s an introduction to RADA, so it’s very approachable and accessible, fun and exploratory. We don’t just issue instructions at RADA... all our courses are about exploring and learning together. You could say these workshops are the first stepping stone on an actor’s journey. They touch on every corner of RADA training and are a taster for every single aspect of what we teach.
Who are the workshops aimed at?
In the first instance, these workshops are perfect for anyone who thinks that they might want to pursue actor training but who may not yet feel ready to apply to a full-time course – perhaps because they’re unsure what it’s going to be like. These workshops give everybody a chance to be a drama student, to get a genuine taste of what it might be like to be in the building and working with the RADA faculty.
Beyond this, the course is also for anyone who wants to work on a specific aspect of their acting – movement or voice, for example. Or you might have people in the speaking professions, such as lawyers or clergy, who feel that when they stand up in court or mount the pulpit they somehow aren’t giving full value, that their personality isn’t flowing through their voice and their body.
You need absolutely no prior experience of acting to do these workshops and there is no such thing as failure here... if you’re opening yourself up to what’s going on in the workshop, then whatever you do, you cannot fail. In a group of mixed levels of prior experience, it’s extraordinary to witness how empowered everyone is.
How does this differ from the other Acting Essentials courses that RADA offers?
The Introduction to RADA Workshops are grouped together in such a way as to make sense of a single day of learning, but you can also bracket two, three or four of these days together to make your own mini RADA course. They work in conjunction with each other.
There are eight different types of workshops in this course. What are they and what do they involve?
Movement and Voice: ultimately, you can’t dissociate one from the other because they are so connected. Although there are technical elements to these workshops, we focus on the development of the individual as a whole.
Text and Acting: in these workshops, we take a practical look at how you analyse a text, the differing demands of text over different periods of history and how to look at a classical text in comparison to a contemporary text. We’re also looking at you inside the text – how do you respond? How do you decide upon an action? What does your character want?
Improvisation and Devising: both are concerned with working as a group to create something out of nothing, but actually that nothing is you. Improvisation is about you, how you feel, what you can bring and how you can safely express yourself in an abstract situation. Devising is more about being directed towards a text or play that is then produced, where you as a group are the creator.
Dance and Singing: as we’re working in groups, the dance will engage with both historical and contemporary styles of dance and the singing will be choral. At RADA, we believe that dance and singing are not separate disciplines or only to do with musical theatre - both of them are forms of acting, in which you inevitably portray some sort of psychological narrative.
What will students be able to gain from the workshops?
They will pick up all sorts of associated skills to do with being in an ensemble and expressing freely. They will explore their vulnerability in a safe context. Vulnerability can be extraordinarily transformative. We go on a journey together as a group – by the end of the workshop, we will be different and we will be better.
Book now
An Introduction to RADA: One-day Workshops take place in-person at RADA from Monday 11 - Friday 22 April 2022. Book now.