Our Training
Pure contemporary professional actor training.
The Fourth Monkey Way
Our training courses have been created to provide our students with the tools required as a modern working actor and theatre maker. Students on all training courses at all levels of study “learn through doing” to gain the skills they will need as a professional performer and to create their own opportunities when they step into the industry.
Our training courses are designed to develop fearless, versatile actors and theatre makers, who are invested in the collaborative environment and are capable of using connections within their body, breath and voice to embody honest characters and connect with their fellow ensemble members.
We cover a range of core acting practices and practitioners, with Meisner Technique at the heart of our actor training ethos and Corporeal Mime and Grotowski at the heart of our physical training and practice, and all of which are intended to foster performers who work on impulse whilst they act, make, move and collaborate.
Fourth Monkey’s pioneering BA (Hons) Acting accelerated degree is intensive, contemporary professional training which aims to create employable, industry-ready creatives in two years, ahead of their contemporaries and providing more contact hours than traditional three-year programmes.
BA (Hons) Acting students work in repertory alongside established industry professionals to become imaginative, bold and connected actors. Our students’ unique creative voice as theatre makers will also evolve throughout the course as they explore world-renowned interdisciplinary theatrical practices to produce original creative theatre.
Working alongside national and international theatre practitioners and companies, students on Fourth Monkey’s MA Collaborative Theatre create and strategically develop their own theatre company, becoming artistic directors and professional creative theatre makers in the process.
The unique and creative ensemble training approach on this course encourages students to explore entrepreneurial and interdisciplinary collaborative practices to devise and produce intelligent and brave professional theatre from creative conception through to final delivery.
Fourth Monkey’s CertHE in Acting & Theatre Making celebrates each students’ unique creative identity as an actor and theatre maker. Students are encouraged to be bold and play with a variety of industry-led acting, performing, creative and theatre making skills.
Our friendly and creative ensemble training environment encourages embodied and collaborative play, giving every student on this foundation-level vocational actor training course a vital springboard for their onward training journey in preparation for their career as an actor and theatre maker.
Designed for those embarking on their acting journey, returning to the industry or indeed those embracing a new challenge and changing career, the Year of the Monkey programme creates a diverse, collaborative environment in which to explore this unique, intensive movement-based actor training programme, and as such, the teaching delivery is designed to allow students to work and train at the same time to better facilitate accessibility to those transitioning from another career or educational setting. Upon completion of the programme, graduates are well-positioned to take their next steps within the arts, whether that be further training or returning to the industry as an actor or theatre maker.
In light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, learn more about Fourth Monkey’s approach and how we are continuing to deliver our creative provisions whilst ensuring that the health, safety and well-being of all who use our building remains our top priority.
Click the button below to learn more about our delivery plan
Our Pillars of Training
ACT
Fusing acting and vocal technique in pursuit of dynamic performance excellence
MAKE
Creating the next generation of pioneering theatre makers & creatives
MOVE
Synthesising technique and physical practice toward total embodiment
COLLABORATE
Celebrating the individual within the ensemble and the practice of we over I
