The Director and the Actor: Unit B

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Rob Swain
• Assessment: a 20-minute presentation (70%) and 2000 words of supporting material (30%)

In this unit you will learn about how professional actors are trained, how they develop and how they work. This is achieved by your regular attendance at an assigned professional drama school, together with regular contextualisation and analysis sessions at Birkbeck (and elsewhere in London if appropriate).

You will learn about the historical and theoretical context of Western actor training, about the principles underlying the relationship between the professional theatre director and the professional actor, and about the methodology and ethos of a UK drama school as exemplified in its professional actor training.

By the end of this unit, you will have:

• investigated an assigned topic or topics related to professional theatre practice
• coordinated and synthesised the results of this investigation and made a presentation to the group
• prepared written material related to the presentation that supports and sustains its argument and conclusions.