Royal Central School of Speech & Drama

Course attendee:  Robert Gwyn Davin

The introduction to directing at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama was a very good way of dipping your toes into the world of directing theatre, within the confines of a drama college.  There were 16 of us in the class. The tutor who took the course is an actress herself, who has gone on to direct.  There were two classes a week, Mon and Wed eves, 7 till 9.30.

I loved the start of it, the outlining of purpose, and setting the boundaries, writing a contract of responsibilities within the class and towards ones classmates.  I felt very safe and protective to make mistakes, a place to learn.  Most had not directed before but there were one or two who had, so one had to make allowances that they knew more than the rest of us.

There were two occasions where we directed speeches/monologues using students from other courses of the same length of time, that were running in conjunction i.e.  foreign language students learning to act in English.

The use of games and leading the class in warm ups at the start of each class was a good, though scary, learning experience.

Central have a fantastic library there as well, state of the art equipment and great rehearsal spaces.  If one is going to study drama in any way, I can think of no better place to go.