BA (Hons) Acting for Stage and Screen

This course is also offered as a four-year programme, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme. 

Why study at Buckinghamshire New University?

With a track-record of producing industry-ready alumni, BNU is the perfect place for you to kick-start your career.

As part of the Art, Design and Performance School at BNU, you’ll benefit from a practiced-based course, supported by contextual studies. You’ll also have the opportunity to work collaboratively across the university with other courses, ensuring during your studies you are building a varied network, like you would in the real world. Previous joint projects have seen acting students working with film and TV production, creative advertising, audio and music, and even nursing students. We’ll support you to find an approach to acting that’s uniquely yours and alongside this set you up with the real-world skills you need to secure acting work when you graduate.

Led by a dedicated and experienced course team, you’ll benefit from their industry knowledge and the industry links they bring to the course. Many of our guest lecturers are specialists within the industry and with lecturers will nurture your learning and professional development throughout your time with BNU.

As well as this we seek to bring your work into the wider world and to bring the world into the university. During your time at BNU you’ll have the opportunity to perform at external venues and take part in workshops with leading companies, both on and off campus. Previous theatre companies and practitioners include Paper Birds on devising theatre, Out of Joint on contemporary texts, Mark McGann on acting for camera, and Station House Opera on intermedial theatre.

With London only a short train ride away, you are only a stones-throw away from the hustle and bustle of the world-renowned West End. 

Opportunity modules are a key part of the BNU curriculum. You’ll choose modules in both your first and second year from a broad selection in areas such as sustainability, entrepreneurship, creativity, digital skills, personal growth, civic engagement, health & wellbeing and employment. Opportunity modules are designed to enable you to develop outside the traditional boundaries of your discipline and help you to further stand out from the crowd to future employers.

What facilities can I use?

At BNU we ensure you have creative spaces to bring your ideas to life. On this course you’ll have access to three drama studios. Each space brings with it unique features to bring your performance to life, from moving lights and fully equipped sound systems and projection to mirrors, a tiered seating bank and sprung floors. On occasion you could also find yourself using the professional venue at Wycombe Town Hall, which is less than two minutes from our campus.

You’ll also have access to high quality camera equipment, a greenscreen room and lighting rigs and sound recording facilities, all suitable for film and TV screening.

We also understand that during your time at university, it is also just important to get involved with extra-curricular activities. Our Students’ Union offers a range of free societies and nights out for you to enjoy, from musical theatre society to our yearly festiball event, there is something for everyone. 

What will I study?

This course offers an equal focus on both screen and stage, and lots of opportunity to test out different performance styles and techniques. You will get to fine-tune and extend your acting skills, working on live briefs and diverse projects – and build the contacts and entrepreneurial ability essential to securing work as an actor.  

Through practical workshops, and looking at the relevant literature, we will take you through different acting styles and techniques, including method acting, physical theatre, postdramatic styles and more abstract approaches. Working with our professional experts, you will consider a range of acting methods from the last 100 years, and try out different styles and ideas you can integrate into your own performances. 

During your time on this course, you will create your own performances, including your own shows, films and short scenes – and take things in the direction that interests you, whether that’s directing or devising, or focusing on a particular theory, piece of research or playwright. You’ll develop an understanding of what is required for acting on screen as well as stage, and will become a motivated team player able to think about the world around them.

In your final year, you will manage your own significant screen or stage-based production, from conception, to venue booking, marketing and performance. You will also set up your own artistic company, and learn about all the elements involved in that, from budgeting and funding applications, to promoting yourself as a professional artist. 

By the time you graduate, you’ll have become a thinking practitioner with a passion for all that acting can be. You will have the entrepreneurial flair, and strong grasp of both stage and screen work, to position yourself confidently as an inspiring and creative practitioner that people will want to work with. 

You will be somebody with a clear vision of the sort of acting you want to do, with the skill set on how to achieve it and the knowledge on how it impacts on the world around you.