Acting

Acting is one of the oldest and most demanding of the performing arts. It asks you to bring fictional characters to life with conviction and specificity, to work collaboratively under the pressure of rehearsal and performance, and to communicate with audiences across a wide range of theatrical and screen contexts. Training as an actor is not simply a matter of learning techniques, though technique matters enormously.

It is also a process of developing self-awareness, imaginative agility and the ability to make truthful choices under conditions that are never entirely predictable.

At the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts you will develop your skills as a performer across contemporary and classical theatre, film, television, radio and digital media over three years of full-time study. The programme builds your technical foundations in voice, movement, text analysis and character work, while also encouraging you to discover and refine the particular qualities that distinguish you as a performer. You will work with practitioners who bring professional experience from across the industry, and the learning environment is designed to reflect the realities of a working actor's life, including the demands of different directors, different forms and different audiences.

Graduates from this programme work as professional actors across theatre, screen and audio, but the training also develops transferable skills that open doors in directing, producing, casting, arts education, community drama, drama therapy and broadcast presenting. Some graduates move into writing or devising their own work. The discipline of sustained creative practice, the ability to collaborate under pressure and the communicative skills developed through performance training are valued in many professional contexts beyond the stage and screen.

For those who wish to develop their practice further, postgraduate training in acting, directing or applied theatre offers routes to continued professional and academic development.