A weekly drama group for non-actors

• You wish you knew more about acting?
• You'd love to have a go - but hate the idea of appearing in front of an audience?
• You've never tried any acting before - and you'd like to join a friendly group where everyone else is just starting out as well
• You wish you had a weekly activity that stretched your imagination, as well as your body?

Then Acting for All is for you!

Each week you'll be joining in lots of lively and enjoyable improvisations, drama games, and exercises - to get your imagination and creativity going. And there's also a great social atmosphere in the Grapevine bar afterwards. It's the perfect way to start your weekend!

Any aspiring actor will benefit. But drama workshops are also tremendous fun in themselves, even if you never perform. And there's no audience! Everyone's in it with you!

Think of it as aerobics for your imagination!

Some enthusiastic comments from previous members:

• "you've got the set-up as good as it could be!"
• "really enjoyed the social aspect of it"
• "very supportive"
• "really helped me to take risks"

Who is Acting for All for?

Acting for All is for pretty much everyone! We introduce beginners to the basic skills of acting in a lively and enjoyable group. You don't need any previous experience of acting or performance. Just a basic experience of theatregoing, so you're familiar with "what an actor does" on stage.

Please remember that acting can be physically and emotionally demanding, so you'll need to be prepared to stretch yourself a bit - in every way! But we build up to this very gently.

Anyone from overseas will need to be sufficiently fluent in English to speak and understand easily in improvised scenes.

What will we be doing?

Our weekly sessions consist of enjoyable drama games, improvisations and exercises. To begin with we mostly work together in large and small groups. Then as confidence grows we begin to work individually as well.

Please note that we do not generally perform scenes from plays or use written scripts until the Summer Term. Instead we use improvisation to develop the basic skills of liveliness and expressiveness.

You'll need to come along wearing comfortable, old clothes that you can move around in (although skirts and dresses are not recommended). And it's best to avoid wearing jewellery, breakable watches, and belts with buckles.

AUTUMN TERM
We organize our work to build progressively - so in the first term we work on the basic skills of improvisation, which is the foundation of good acting. The programme is flexible according to how we grow as a group, but the skills we are most likely to cover during the autumn are:

• getting to know each other as a group
• co-ordination and working with partners
• spontaneity and responding to imagination

WINTER TERM
The winter term is a continuation of work done in the autumn term - but newcomers are welcome to join the group at the start of January. We start by revising the work we did during the autumn, so new members can catch up quickly. Then we move on to the basic skills needed to create belief in scenes, covering the following topics:

• focus and concentration
• experiencing the moment
• creating an environment

Some weeks will include simple preparation to be done at home. This is purely voluntary but you'll be more able to join in each week, and you'll make better progress, if you take 10 minutes to prepare each week's work!

SUMMER TERM
The summer term is a continuation of work done in the winter term, with no revision - so newcomers are not accepted. The topics are:

• emotional expressiveness
• working with texts
• scenes for performance

This term we'll be working with short written texts for 3-4 weeks.

What comes after Acting for All?

After Acting for All, some group members may want to audition for The Questors' 2-year Student Group, to continue their acting development at a more advanced level. Others may want to try out acting classes with different organizations.

Information 2010-2011

Day and Time: Friday, 8.00 - 10.00pm

Autumn Term:  1 October- 17 December 2010

Spring Term:    14January - 15 April 2011

Summer Term: 6 May- 1 July 2011

Fee: £80* per term for Questors Members, £110 for non-members

Applications are accepted on a first-come/first-served basis, so get your application in as soon as possible. (Once all the places have been filled, applications are placed on a waiting list for any vacancies in January.)

PLEASE NOTE ("the small print"):

•  * the £80 fee for Acting for All is only available to Questors Members and not Friends of The Questors Theatre 
• Questors actors and students in the 2-year The Questors Foundation and Performance course are not accepted into the group.
• No applications will be accepted after 1st January each year.

Online application form