Actor Musician

Actor musician is one of the most demanding and most versatile performance profiles in the musical theatre and entertainment world. An actor musician can play one or more instruments while acting, singing, and sometimes dancing within a production, serving simultaneously as character, storyteller, and live musician. This kind of performer is sought after in a specific and growing repertoire of actor musician productions, from Sweeney Todd and Guys and Dolls to original work designed for this format, and the combination of skills opens doors across professional theatre, touring productions, and musical performance that a single-discipline training does not.

At Leeds Conservatoire, this three-year full-time BA trains you in a conservatoire environment, which places you in a community of specialist musicians and performance students and gives you access to teaching expertise across both music and acting. You will benefit from one-to-one instrumental teaching alongside the acting training delivered by an industry professional team, developing both disciplines to a high level simultaneously rather than treating either as secondary to the other. This dual focus is the defining quality of the programme and what makes it unusual: you are not an actor who also plays an instrument, but a trained performer in both disciplines.

You will develop skills in acting, vocal performance, instrumental technique, ensemble performance, and the specific craft of integrating live music-making into acting roles. The conservatoire environment means you are training alongside and learning from musicians and performers at high levels across different disciplines.

Graduates work in professional musical theatre and touring productions, repertory theatre, concert performance, music education, community music and theatre, and the broader performing arts. Some move into musical direction, composition, or teaching. The combination of performance skills makes actor musicians adaptable and employable across a wider range of professional contexts than either discipline alone would provide.