St Mary's School Calne

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Why Choose St Mary's?

RADA

St Mary’s has recently embarked on an exciting new venture with RADA – the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. This will involve the school and the academy collaborating in a number of projects, leading towards the establishment of a year-long Drama Foundation Course, which will be available to the UVI Form from September 2007.

St Mary’s relationship with RADA began in Autumn 2005 when a RADA Voice Workshop was held.  This two day workshop explored and developed vocal and physical performance skills and resulted in a number of dramatic presentations.

A Physical Theatre Workshop was held in April this year.  Physical Theatre has a challenging and dynamic artistic identity, influenced by masque, Commedia dell’Arte, contemporary dance and the visually stimulating Eastern European theatre traditions.  The RADA course bridged the gap between text-based “classical theatre” and “total theatre”, and introduced a way of looking at theatre and text that breaks free from more conventional dramatic forms and offers new and exciting possibilities for performance and creative expression.

In October 2006, an Audition Skills Workshop was held.  This course proved to be extremely popular with the girls.

We have future plans to introduce a Shakespeare Summer School in association with RADA.  Based on exploring Shakespeare from an actor's point of view, the course will combine rehearsing scenes and speeches with intensive classes in essential skills for which RADA's training is famous. 

This residential course will be aimed at young actors aged between 16-18 who are discovering a serious interest in drama.  It will be invaluable for those considering going on to full-time drama training, as well as those who simply want to include drama in their creative portfolio.  It will certainly provide terrific opportunities to work in depth with expert professionals.  For more information about this course, please contact Mrs Cari Depla on This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it