Acting BA(Hons)

In your first year with us will be focused on gaining: gaining an appreciation for the work required to succeed, gaining collaboration opportunities with students on this and wider courses, and gaining support for what you want to achieve. Your degree starts here, and the course team is here to support you. 

You also be gaining one of the most beautiful locations in the world to train, by studying Acting at Falmouth. With opportunities to explore the local environment, you can use this as inspiration for your practice as an actor.  

Modules

Approaches to Acting 

This will be an opportunity to encounter a variety of practitioners and styles of working with text. The focus will be on how to approach text from an actor’s perspective in preparation for and during a rehearsal process, utilising established and emerging approaches. 

Voice and Movement 1 

You will look at how an actor engages their body and voice to communicate. The module will enable a consistent and disciplined development of healthy vocal and physical skills and advance your individual progress. 

Culture and Contexts: Stage and Screen 

We focus on the essential element of context in performances. This is through degree-level research, critical thinking, and writing in cultural studies, with a specific emphasis on theatre, performance, theatre-making, film, and television, exploring their interconnected histories, contexts, and practices. 

Character Improvisation 

This module will allow you to gain the foundational tools of improvisation and character creation through a process of practical application, performance, and reflection. 

Voice and Movement 2 

You will integrate voice, speech, and text, focusing on selected texts demonstrating appropriate technique, emotional connection to character, space, and contexts in voice. 

Simultaneously, in movement, you will focus on developing a movement vocabulary for interpreting and expressing characters. 

Live Performance Project 1 

Through a live performance, you will gain foundational rehearsal and performance development skills and techniques to apply in a live performance setting as an actor.  

In your second year, you’ll examine your own artistic development: introducing new areas of rehearsal and performance practice. You’ll look to develop your work through the exploration, application and implementation of skills gained in your first year.  

You'll develop connections within the university, and work across disciplines. There are also more experiences of performing to an audience and fostering a growing awareness of potential areas within the acting profession to explore. 

Modules

Screen Acting 

This module explores and develops your existing acting skills and approaches relevant to acting for screen. You'll gain a deeper practical understanding of the actor’s process within the given context of screen. 

Voice and Movement 3 

This module is designed to develop and refine skills in voice and movement. It emphasises deeper understanding and practical exploration of both physical and vocal expressiveness. 

Live Performance Project 2 

You will rehearse and perform in a company of actors. You'll receive directorial guidance and actor-training support throughout this process, incorporating current industry practices within the acting field.  

This module is purposefully crafted to acquaint students with the dynamics of a rehearsal process leading to a performance for an audience. 

Playful Performer 

This module is designed to give you the opportunity to take practical techniques and skills and explore how they can be applied.  

The notion of ‘failure’ within a creative process is encouraged, challenged, and scrutinised as a rehearsal, developmental and self-diagnostic tool. 

Classical and Contemporary 

You will study and compare classical and contemporary scripts whilst maintaining a focus on how they may be interpreted and performed to a contemporary audience. 

Character Research 

This module will take you through the process of detailed and comprehensive character research. 

Students will be able to select a character from a range of texts and, using academic research practice, will carry out research through the lens of an actor approaching a script. 

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme, or after your third year if you’re studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your professional placement

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

The final year of the course focuses on applying the skills you have gained and developed on the course in a variety of different contexts. There will be opportunities to apply these skills for rehearsals and recorded and public performances.  

Students will be prepared for their future aspirations and ambitions with a detailed knowledge of the professional industry they will be entering, with a portfolio and CV to support the move to professional actor.  

Modules

Acting in Digital Modes 

On this module, you will explore the relationship of the actor and digital technology in performance; determining appropriate application of movement, voice, imagination and focus of energy. 

The Thinking Practitioner 

This student-led project provides an opportunity for you to carry out in-depth research and critical analysis on a topic relevant to the ambition, direction and development of your practice. 

Screen Project 

You will apply the skills and techniques acquired in previous modules and will further advance knowledge and skills of acting for the screen. This will culminate in a finished piece of recorded work of suitable production value for use in your professional portfolio.  

Professional Preparation & Employability 

You will present material to an industry panel as an acting audition. This will replicate current industry practice and give you an opportunity to receive feedback and engage with contemporary industry processes of auditioning, casting, and agency representation. 

You will also collate digital material and reflections on experiences to create a presentation on future employment focussed on a chosen career path and/or further education. 

Live Performance Project 3 

Bringing together all of the skills you have learnt over the degree, this is the culmination of these efforts. You will perform as part of a full-length, live production, reflecting a professional environment.  

The BA(Hons) Acting degree is designed to give students experience in various performance modes, techniques and tools that are vital for a contemporary performer. 

Learning and teaching will be via a blend of workshops, rehearsals, productions, practical classes, laboratory/studio-based practice, screenings, lectures, seminars, and tutorials.  

This can include:  

• Group and individual learning
• Tutor-led, student-led, and self-directed study
• Use of subject-specific and generic technologies
• Resource-based learning (studio, workshop, laboratory, library, archive, internet)
• Technique and skills-based learning through intensive studio-based activity and individual or group practice
• Experience of relevant events (performances, installations, masterclasses, auditions, screenings, exhibitions)
• Working with external practitioners
• Critique, review, and reflective practice

Assessment methods

Assessments across the course are a mixture of practical and portfolio-based (inc. practical elements) and written content. 

Assessments are designed in a variety of formats, which assess understanding, knowledge, skill, technique, creativity, artistry and application. These include but are not limited to:  

• Practical activities (group and/or individual)  
• Performances 
• Workshops (applied, educational, creative)  
• Industry and professional live briefs  
• Digital outputs  
• Performance texts/scores/plays  
• Presentations  
• Essays  
• Critical/reflective evaluations 
• Journals/portfolios 
• Research projects (practical and/or written) 

Feedback is given as a mix of verbal (face-to-face) and written depending on the assessment within the module.