Gain highly practical musical theatre training with a focus on performance work
3 years full time Bishop Otter Campus (Chichester)
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Our incredibly popular and highly practical BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance degree includes rigorous practical training in all three key areas of musical theatre, with a heavy focus on performance work.
Play videoLearn more about our highly practical and incredibly popular BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance course from our staff and students.
Play videoOur unique BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance programme presents a world premiere of a new, high-quality musical production every June.
You will receive traditional training in every aspect of musical theatre targeted at developing your acting, vocal and dance technique, with the opportunity to focus on one of these three disciplines as your principal study.
You will have access to full scale production work with professional creative teams, masterclasses with visiting practitioners, world premiere productions and workshops of new musicals, late night cabaret events and industry-focused practical modules including devising skills, ensemble work and a swing project.
Play videoWatch our dress rehearsal for the Musical Theatre Performance production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
Play videoPrepare for your future career within the industry, with dedicated audition technique sessions, talks and Q&A’s from industry contacts, agent panel days and a final graduate showcase performed in London.
You will also be featured on our online graduate portfolio.
Our Spotlight accreditation offers you discounted graduate membership to the largest casting resource in the United Kingdom, inclusion in a dedicated ‘graduate’ section of their website, access to their dedicated one-to-one career advice sessions and much more.
Your first year introduces you to the fundamentals of acting, dancing and singing, and begins to expand your knowledge and skills in music grammar, as well as specific study of British and American musical theatre styles.
In your second year, you will explore the history of musical theatre performance from its origins through to the modern day, alongside your continued musical theatre development as a performer.
You will also study wider aspects of the industry itself that will prepare you for your future career, developing an awareness of the business side of musical theatre.
Your third year acts as the culmination of your training, as you plan, rehearse and perform multiple productions and projects.
You will develop a strong sense of who you are as a performer/creative practitioner whilst engaging in several industry-focused activities including your swing dissertation project, creating an educational workshop/performance and devising a new musical.
You will also have regular performances and skills development sessions across the final year, ensuring you are fully prepared to work in the industry upon graduation.
Content ranges from Prologue (semester 1 showcase), Debut (graduate showcase), Fresher’s Showcase, and the MTP3 Performance Project to mock vocal auditions, dance audition technique, camera castings and theatre castings.
During my time on the Musical Theatre Performance course, I received some excellent training that has prepared me for a career in the industry. The programme is structured to include a large number of practical sessions and lots of contact time. In our final year, we had mock audition classes across all three disciplines, which was the final push in our training to really get us ready for the industry.
The BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance course offers so much more than just training. It offers a family, and teaches students to be honest, kind, humble, supportive and compassionate. I cannot recommend this course highly enough!
This large (60 credit) module houses all your practical work and forms the foundation for the whole degree programme.
You will be supported by a highly skilled faculty of educators to develop your technical and expressive skill as a musical theatre performer.
Your dance training focuses on jazz, contemporary, tap, commercial and ballet and seeks to refine your use of dynamics, posture, core strength, flexibility, and performance quality.
Your acting sessions cover text and improvised exercises to improve your connection to character, impulses, and sense of truth.
You will put this into practice in a play performance each semester and will have dedicated time to focus on the use of voice.
Your vocal training encourages you to progress your ability as a vocalist both in solo and ensemble performance contexts, developing your breathing, phrasing, tone, timbre, dynamic and stylistic awareness, and harmony work.
The module introduces key skills in examining repertoire drawn from succeeding periods of American Musical Theatre history. You will learn to support an examination of musical structure with a parallel focus on developments in dance and drama within the genre.
This module introduces you to key skills in examining repertoire. You will explore repertoire from succeeding periods of British Musical Theatre history and examine musical structure with a focus on developments in dance and drama. Awareness of historic performance practice will be emphasized, and connections between music for the stage and film will be explored.
This module will introduce, reintroduce and familiarise you with a range of aspects of musical structure and its notation. Alongside this, you will present and discuss your work, both individually and in groups – enhancing skills in teamwork and presentation and building confidence.
This module builds on the knowledge you have accrued on music grammar and deepens your understanding of key elements of musical structure. You will continue to present and discuss your work, both individually and in groups – enhancing skills in teamwork and presentation and building confidence.
This module builds upon the foundational work covered at level 4 and leads you towards more challenging assessment tasks and a higher level of performance quality.
This module builds upon the first year modules British and American Musical Theatre by relating an historical overview of the development of the genre to an examination of current trends and practices in musical theatre both here and in the USA.
This module explores the development of jazz music and its impact on the American musical.
Key works from the Gershwin brothers, Rodgers and Hart, Kern and Hammerstein II and Warren and Mack will be utilised as tools to develop your understanding of style and genre.
You will be required to learn repertoire made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan and Chet Baker to perform in weekly jazz workshops.
The module will introduce students to key skills in examining repertoire drawn from succeeding periods of movie musical history, supporting an examination of musical structure with a parallel focus on developments in dance and drama within the genre.
You will explore examples of different types of musical theatre performance and the function of a range of professional roles in commercial and publicly funded contexts.
This module further enhances the foundational and developmental work covered over the first two years, with the addition of specifically embedded, industry-focused audition technique sessions.
The importance of critical self-reflection will be emphasised across the final year of study.
The last week of the semester is reserved specifically for our annual devising week, where you will need to draw upon all your skills to complete your final challenge – write, stage and perform an original musical in just five days.
You will work with your peers and with support from the faculty to take on this enormous task!
The last week of the semester is reserved specifically for our annual devising week, where you will need to draw upon all your skills to complete your final challenge – write, stage and perform an original piece of theatre in just five days.
You will work with your peers and with support from the faculty to take on this enormous task!
You will be required to form a theatre company and create an educational workshop and accompanying performance, targeted at a particular area of the primary curriculum, then deliver your workshop/performance to children at local schools.
You will develop skills as a workshop leader, creative practitioner and educational facilitator. Communication, organisation and collaborative skills will be tested and enhanced as part of this module.
This module allows you to enhance your contribution to ensemble performance and to develop your skills in solo work in the context of a large performance project.
Longer term planning, rehearsal and preparation strategies for performance techniques will be emphasised. The module will work towards, and culminate in, a semi-staged performance. You will be required to prepare effectively and thoroughly for this performance.
