Three brand new opportunities for young theatricals have emerged recently, offering further performing arts training at a variety of institutions working to create the next wave of industry talents.
Shakespeare’s Globe has recently acquired a new indoor space named the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which is set to open in early 2014 and will house a youth company which will perform The Malcontent in April 2014. Young budding actors aged 12-16 can audition to be part of this challenging, early modern production through open auditions, a workshop, and a final round of auditions throughout the summer.
Moving in a more commercial direction, the National Film and Television School are offering a course in Entrepreneurship and Producing for the Creative Industries, which was launched in January this year. This unusual yet all-encompassing course is just one year long, first attracting fourteen young media entrepreneurs from across the media industry. As a diploma, the course offers its students the qualities required to build and run businesses across Theatre, Publishing, Online Entertainment, Film and Television, amongst others, developing proposals to be presented to investors later in the course year. In total the participants will have access to more than 120 key media individuals over the course of the year.
The third opportunistic course on offer is via Punchdrunk, which is running a series of professional development masterclasses and workshops for schools and colleges as part of the enrichment programme for its new production The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable. Performance and design workshops and pre-show talks will be led by the performance and creative company on site for school, college and university groups, and training sessions are also available for primary and secondary teachers. Led by Punchdrunk’s creative associates, and open to emerging and established artists looking to develop their practice, the classes will offer practical insight into the work of the company.