What does it mean to be an applied theatre student?

Applied Theatre

Noah Heathcote, a recent graduate of Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London , writes about the benefits of his student journey. He now works for C&T. Welcome Noah!

“Maybe you’re thinking about being a student at a drama school or university or are interested  in exploring new ways of making theatre. Whatever brought here,  Let me give you the rundown of what you may experience on your course.

Finding out about the course

It might not be the same for us all but generally, the path to becoming an applied theatre student from what I've seen and experienced comes about by mistake. Or coincidence. I'm sure many of you young thespians couldn’t wait to get into drama school and embark on your career to be the new Catherine Tate or Andrew Garfield to come out of Central. 

For me, like many, I wanted to get into acting but getting into drama school felt like trying to win the lottery, I tried but without much luck, other than being put on the waiting list for East 15. 

A few weeks after my audition at Central I got an email saying that I didn’t get in on this occasion to the BA acting but we’d like to recommend you for our Applied Theatre in Education course. I was unsure at first. I partly felt like it was a cop-out mainly because it had the word ‘Education’ in and I think that scared me off: after being in education for what felt like forever.

What is applied theatre?

I started to research what the hell this term ‘Applied Theatre’ meant and felt more confused by the minute. It felt very technical and overly complicated. But all it is is an umbrella term for many different types of theatre that we might not consider mainstream.  Philip Taylor a director in Educational Theatre puts it rather simply when saying “the applied theatre label is a useful umbrella term… For finding links and connections for all of us committed to the power of theatre in making a difference in the human life span”,

 I think I've had something inside of me and I'm sure you do too all along, I have wanted to make a difference in the world but never quite knew how to delve into those parts of my psyche. But the Applied Theatre course at Central gave me the words to speak.

Before getting in, about a year before I was actually doing care work, going door-to-door for people with dementia, I also studied Performing Arts in college but I never knew I could make both of those seemingly separate roles intertwine. Theatre and Care, Prison Theatre, Theatre in Education, Theatre of the Oppressed, Theatre for Development, Theatre for Health. The list of opportunities and variety that the course offers and what you get out of it is completely up to you and what you’re drawn towards. 

So what does it mean to be an applied theatre student? 

I have had friends, who are now writers, teachers, actors, directors, police officers, and theatre-makers - All from this one single course. How is this possible? It’s possible because, in the first year, the first term you spend most of your time getting absolutely bombarded with all these different concepts and ideas that eventually your head cracks open and you have an existential epiphany. Your brain's eye for curiosity is literally being lit on fire, and eventually, you decide to continue and choose what really interested you for term two. Don’t worry the lecturers are all very friendly, or at least you will think that at the end of your third year anyway. You just gotta enjoy the ride.

Halfway through the first year is when all these ideas are running around in your head. For me, I decided to do a module called ‘Aesthetics of Participation’ which allowed me to explore the division and hierarchy of theatre, and how theatre felt separate from the world, I started getting fascinated with the boundaries of performance, exploring the overlapping between performance and everyday life and how we can creatively challenge rules and boundaries. Performance Scholar Deborah Newton says

“It is this performer-audience ‘relationship’ aspect of performance that I want to highlight in particular, by taking the cultural centrism of performer-audience and challenging its tendency to produce conformity to Western cultural”

— Deborah Newton

In the summer term, you could be on a full-scale production in the Borough of Bexley, doing socially engaged performance around the ideas of place, performing immersive theatre to children in an old abandoned library that has been transported into a portal to another planet, that shifts the Children's view of what there home and their borough means to them. 

At the beginning of year two, you might be doing another full-scale production, of a modern adaptation of the Winter’s Tale, where you're exploring the gender dynamics of the piece and understanding how it relates to reality whilst simultaneously editing the script as an ensemble, and creating the set, doing the lights, choreographing movements. All the while still exploring theory and external interests that you can make relevant to your course/experience. 

Then you will plunge back into two more modules, this could be in gender, race, disability, technology, or whatever is starting to fascinate you. Your idea of performance might expand even more when you learn about something like scenography, (click here to learn) or how you can consider the weather as performing, your idea of space might cognitively shift and escape your reality, and then you might have to go back home due to a pandemic and use the tools you have around you to be creative, But that’s okay because your knowledge and curiosity will guide you.

Collaborative Outreach Project

You might have to do your ecological health project that was meant to be in South Africa and do it online instead because of the pandemic, but somehow you manage to pull it off by working as a collective with your fellow students,  focusing on just making a connection with the participants in Africa, exploring virtual exchange.

Going on placement 

Moving into the third year you might be fortunate enough to get onto a work placement with a company like C&T and Prospero.This might be game-changing for you, learning new concepts, new ways of thinking, where you’re making interactive lessons online for students using Prospero. Or you might be sitting on board meetings discussing the diversity action plan, or you might even create your own online interactive walk.  

This could inspire you to write your dissertation or even make a short film or even make you decide to start your own production company or even begin your own business plan inquiry. You may even get a job straight away in the industry. You may also make friends for life and meet people you want to collaborate with. Anything is possible with this course and it’s highly transferrable in many sectors of life and work and may even consider it not as work, but you what we might call, Play.

To summarise, if you want to be creative and if you feel drawn towards doing something interdisciplinary, this course will give you a framework for you to build your own narrative, but also it will help you facilitate positive change for the world and for others.

To find out more about the course click here!

By Noah Heathcote