MA Acting

East 15 Acting School’s MA Acting is a postgraduate acting course rooted in ensemble practice, designed to develop talented individuals into skilled professional artists through ensemble-based training.

On this programme, you’ll undertake intensive conservatoire training in acting for stage, screen and audio, alongside focused work on text, character development, improvisation, ensemble practice, voice, movement, and singing. The course is delivered through a continuous process of creation and rehearsal that mirrors professional working conditions.

This unique 12-month course treats you as a professional actor-in-training within a working ensemble from day one. The training is centred on regular performance, with weekly and termly presentations leading to creating a major ensemble production at the end of the summer term.

Building on East 15’s distinctive approach to actor training inspired by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, the MA Acting demands commitment, passion, and intellectual hunger. In addition to rigorous artistic training, the course offers comprehensive professional development, including exposure to agents, casting directors, professional artists, companies, and producers, as well as guidance in self-taping, audition technique and producing one’s own work.

Throughout the course, you’ll receive individual feedback and support from designated tutors, skills specialists, and visiting artists with extensive industry experience.

Whether you hold a degree in a related or different discipline, are looking to change career path, or are an actor seeking to refresh or extend your practice this programme gives you the skills, self-knowledge, and professional preparation required for an acting career.

On the MA Acting you will:

• Work on seminal Greek, modern American, Shakespearean, Russian and European, and contemporary British texts in advanced scene study and practical performances in our black-box studio and Corbett Theatre.
• Train in Stanislavski’s systematic approach to acting, as honed by practitioners such as Uta Hagen and Stanford Meisner.
• Develop your skills through East 15’s synthesis of contemporary European and traditional performance practices.
• Take part in the long-form immersive Living History project, grounded in research, improvisation and character-creation techniques.
• Learn devising techniques and create a collaborative performance as part of a group project.
• Receive advanced physical and vocal training thoughout the year, taught by dedicated specialists in each discipline.
• Train in screen and audio acting throughout the year, culminating in a professionally recorded Showreel that will be included in the MA Acting Online Showcase to promote you to the industry in the UK.
• Develop your confidence and technique in singing as dramatic language through regular classes, practice and performance.
• Perform in a fully-staged, publicly ticketed production, with technical support and professional direction, and promoted to industry.
• Collaborate with our MFA Theatre Directing students on projects such as Brecht, improvisation and comedy.
• Undertake professional preparation through workshops, masterclasses, and advice from industry specialists.

At East 15 you’ll work alongside students on a wide range of MA and BA courses, with cohorts of actors from across the UK and all over the world. Founded on the ground-breaking social diversity of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop ensemble, we pride ourselves on the rich mix of cultural and linguistic backgrounds of our student body. This creative environment brings together diverse experiences and perspectives that will enlighten, challenge, and educate you as an artist and as a person.

On graduating from the MA Acting, you will have developed your own rigorous and integrated practice, encompassing working with text, developing character, preparing mind, body and voice for rehearsal and performance, and responding skillfully to the spontaneous and imaginative demands of improvisation. In short, you will be a professional artist, ready to work.

This course is taught at our picturesque Loughton Campus.

View more Masters courses from East 15 Acting School, including specialist programmes Theatre Directing and Acting in Digital Media.

Our expert staff

Our training is by professionals and for professionals, allowing our graduates to work successfully across the globe.

Our international, outstanding teaching faculty is made up of professionals from all areas of live and recorded performance.

Learn more about our staff here.

Specialist facilities

Our Loughton Campus is perfectly located, providing access to both the rich, cultural diversity of London and an attractive and peaceful setting in which to study.

We are just a five-minute walk from London Underground station, Debden, where you can travel in only thirty minutes to Central London, West End theatres and mainline train stations including the Eurostar.

We have three sites at our Loughton Campus – Hatfields, Roding House and Unit Four. Hatfields is a beautiful Georgian dower house, set in five acres of lawns with orchards, flowerbeds and a small lake, providing an idyllic atmosphere for study, relaxation and performance.

Just a short walk from Hatfields is Roding House, a £1.3 million facility containing 10 rehearsal rooms, a green room/café, a sound recording studio and a video editing suite, and our costume department.

Next to Roding House, Unit Four is a £1.5 million facility which is home to the Stage & Production Management department. The Unit contains a large workshop, paint shop, prop shop, prop storage facilities and teaching spaces.

Our on-site Corbett Theatre is named in honour of Harry H Corbett, a key member of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and early benefactor of East 15. It is used extensively for student productions and is a practical training hub for our BA Stage and Production Management students.

The building is a medieval tithe barn that was dismantled and transported to Hatfields in the 1960s. These unusual origins create a unique performance space with a special atmosphere. Renovated to include full technical facilities, tiered seating for 130 people and fitted dressing rooms, the theatre provides an excellent resource for public productions, while the adjacent Bar and Café provides a social meeting point for students and staff.

Your future

On completion of the MA Acting program, you are qualified as an actor and recognised as a graduate of East 15 training. You are equipped to pursue acting careers in theatre, film, TV and radio. You also have an understanding of how to create your own work, including how to form companies and gain funding, as well as a variety of methodologies for developing your own artistic practice.

You are encouraged to remain in touch with the school, to watch the development of succeeding students and to benefit from informal support and mentoring as you continue in your career.

“When I was auditioning at drama schools East 15 seemed to offer the most personal actor training, where they focus on you as an individual rather than trying to make you fit some mould. I can happily say the course has fully lived up to this, and I know that when I leave here I will be an actor who is not only ready to enter the industry, but be a part of shaping it too.”

Jennie Rawling, MA Acting

UK entry requirements

Our applicants need to undertake a successful audition or video audition, plus have a first degree with an overall 2.2, or equivalent or suitable life and/or professional expertise.

English language requirements

If English is not your first language, we require IELTS 6.0 overall with a minimum component score of 5.5

If you do not meet our IELTS requirements then you may be able to complete a pre-sessional English pathway that enables you to start your course without retaking IELTS.

Additional Notes

The University uses academic selection criteria to determine an applicant’s ability to successfully complete a course at the University of Essex. Where appropriate, we may ask for specific information relating to previous modules studied or work experience.

Course structure

We offer dynamic and unique courses for actors, directors and students of theatre practice. Training at East 15 draws upon 50 years of tradition combined with a keen sense of the world of stage and screen today.

Our carefully selected modules will give you the chance to explore and develop your specialist training.

We understand that deciding where and what to study is a very important decision for you. We'll make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the courses, services and facilities as described on our website and in line with your contract with us. However, if we need to make material changes, for example due to significant disruption, we'll let our applicants and students know as soon as possible.

Teaching

Term 1

Your first term, focuses on:

• Classes in movement, voice and singing, as well as contextual studies
• Development of an artistic practice from an exploration of personal self, to that of the body in time and space and from there to the creation of character and the realisation of text
• Acting classes that promote the development of intuitive, creative responses which are then framed by the introduction of techniques to build character and play actions

You will also apply technical voice and movement work to the context of an acting exercise through showings of short naturalistic scenes as well as receive an introduction to actor-centric research.

Term 2

In the second term, skills classes continue. You will also:

• Work on an intensive Shakespeare module which develops and strengthens the integration of technical skills with acting technique
• Experience East 15's renowned and distinctive ‘Living History' project - a long-form, non-performative improvisation in which the actor can, through rigorous research and a residential period away from the campus environment, experience and identify with the practical and visceral realities, as well as the psychological and emotional attributes, of the character
• Devise an ensemble performance based on your intellectual, emotional and sensory experience and understand and realise what it is to make theatre and the realities of the industry by taking on stage management and production roles for this project
• Begin to focus on acting for recorded media

Towards the end of term two you will begin to research and develop your MA project.

Term 3

The first part of Term 3 focuses on recorded media. You will:

• Further develop your skills in acting for recorded media, resulting in material for your professional showreel
• Learn performance skills for radio and microphone technique

You will also focus on the ‘MA Project', which consists of working in small groups on self-generated productions, where you are given independence and autonomy as company members.

The second half of term 3 sees a full production of an ensemble devised text-based play.