Day in the life of a Musical Theatre student

Musical Theatre BA(Hons) student, Val takes us through a typical day of studying at Falmouth University.

Hello everyone, I’m Val and I'm here to show you what a typical day as a Musical Theatre BA(Hons) student looks like at Falmouth University.

7am: I started the day quite early leaving my house at around 8:15am to catch the train from Falmouth to Penryn (which is where the campus is) and have enough time to walk from the station to Penryn Campus (which takes around 15 minutes and when it is sunny, it is such a wonderful walk!) 

9am: I got to my building (AMATA)  just in time for my first class which was Repertoire. 

During Rep we usually prepare different songs from specific genres to perform in front of the class or in this case, we went over material for our next assessment called “Swing Project” where we learn how being a swing performer works and present a final performance with different casts at the end of term. We began with some group led vocal exercises and then started learning a new song with our Music Director, Richard Healey. We played around with harmonies and sections within the song, which I really enjoyed. 

12:30pm: After Rep we had a nice break where we had lunch and decided to play some Dobble for a little bit to relax and clear our heads. Which ended up with us taking it way too seriously and spending more than an hour playing… 

2:30pm: We head to our Voice and Accent class with Gemma Wright, where we practiced the Yorkshire accent and the specificity of it. We looked at some examples in TV shows, did some research, and by the end of the workshop, we were given scripts to work on and prepare to perform in the next class.

I have to say, accents were a little daunting for me, especially as an international student whose first language is not English, but having the opportunity to try so many different ones and get personalised feedback during those classes, has made it seem easier and way more enjoyable than I was expecting. It also allows us to play with different character personalities and add an extra layer of depth to them.

4pm: Right after our Voice and Accent class, we went to our Jazz class (one of my favourite classes!). Taught by Grace Sellwood, we started off with some conditioning and technique work implemented in our warm-up routines, which are so fun. Then we did some corner work with jetés and grand battements. And after our warm up and technique work, we started learning choreography for our end of term assessment. It was such a fun and characterful choreography, I can’t wait to learn the rest!