This full-time degree program is a Bachelor of Performing Arts (Stage and Screen) Course Code: BAPEASS18, Cricos Code: 109434B.

The course is taught over three years, across 156 weeks. Each year is divided into three trimesters.

ACA offers approximately 28 students the Degree Program each year.

The course comprises 24 core subjects, each subject requiring 8-12 hours of private study per week. Assessments may include activity-based assignments or online quizzes. There are no formal exams.

The program is delivered by ACA at our Glebe Campus, with the program accredited and qualifications provided by Torrens University Australia Ltd ABN: 99154937005

The course begins in February.

Contact hours: 2,964 hours

Year 1 & 2 (24 hours per week): 936 hours per year, totaling 1,872 hours (1536 course hours and 336 hours supported rehearsal time)

• First Year: Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 8.30am– 6.15pm
• Second Year: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 8.30am – 6.15pm

Year 3 (28 hours per week): 1,092 hours (768 course hours and 324 hours supported rehearsal time)

• Third Year: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 8.30am – 6.15pm, Friday: 8.30am – 1.15pm

Over three inspirational years, participants in our Degree Program will experience a high-powered and practical acting program designed for high achievers. Graduates will step out into the industry well above industry standard and ready to make their professional contribution in stage or screen both nationally and internationally.

Potential students with the following qualities should apply:

• A deep passion and belief in the power of performance
• A commitment to contemporary and classic methodologies of training
• A belief in a rigorous, respectful environment
• A dedication to embracing the highest professional demands
• An instinctive curiosity and passion about their artistic calling
• A keen focus on the industry and on creating a career of which they would be proud

• Apply a broad and coherent body of knowledge and skills to a range of contexts, genres and styles for public performance.
• Collaborate in the production of works in a variety of performance styles for theatre, film, television and online media, and consolidate an individual and ensemble performance-making practice.
• Research and explore theoretical and practical knowledge in a variety of philosophies and methodologies of acting within the contexts of contemporary and classical performance practice.
• Demonstrate responsibility and accountability for one’s own learning and professional practice.
• Apply critical thinking and judgement in problem-solving and decision-making as it relates to the research and rehearsal of performance projects.
• Analyse and explore the relationship between acting and the expressive potential of the body in diverse contexts and through a variety of movement modalities.
• Research and apply an understanding of professionally nuanced vocal expression to communicate meaning in rehearsal and performance, and utilize vocal skills to communicate effectively and powerfully with audiences.
• Recognise and demonstrate respect for human rights and the vital contribution made by cultural diversity to all societies, whilst reflecting on cultural and ethical issues as they apply to the creation of works by the professional actor.

Delivered on campus, ACA’s Bachelor of Performing Arts comprises 24 core subjects, each subject requiring 8-12 hours of private study per week. Assessments may include activity-based assignments or online quizzes. There are no formal exams.

Each year is dedicated to specific skills and outcomes. The structure is unique to this course and is built as follows:

To be awarded the Bachelor of Performing Arts (Stage & Screen), students must satisfactorily complete the course consisting of 24 core subjects with a combined total of 240 credit points.

• Voice and Movement Foundations VMF101 This subject explores the foundations of vocal and movement training for the professional actor. Students will acquire and demonstrate an understanding of the theoretical, technical and practical concepts of voice and movement training. They will learn to comprehend the nature of the vocal process, as well as to use the voice with dexterity and effective vocal dynamics. They will explore a range of movement modalities, and develop an understanding of personal physical alignment, centring, transformation, and the connections between voice and body. Students will also begin to investigate the technical craft required of the actor, as well as explore their creativity and imagination within an acting ensemble.
• Acting – Unpacking the Fundamentals | ACF101 This subject explores the fundamentals of acting. Students will learn to connect to other actors in the space with imagination, confidence, and with the full engagement of their voice and body, living within the world of their scene, telling the story with clarity and with a deep sense of truth. Classes will address the development of a personal acting process through exploration of well-written text. Students will be required to gain skill in the analysis of text, to personalise the world of the scene, and therefore the world of the play. Focus will be given to the integration of voice and body in acting. Assessment Tasks: Test, Report, Presentation, Attendance
  
• Performance Fundamentals | PEF101 This subject explores the fundamentals of acting. Students will learn to connect to other actors in the space with imagination, confidence, and with the full engagement of their voice and body, living within the world of their scene, telling the story with clarity and with a deep sense of truth. Classes will address the development of a personal acting process through exploration of well-written text. Students will be required to gain skill in the analysis of text, to personalise the world of the scene, and therefore the world of the play. Focus will be given to the integration of voice and body in acting. Assessment Tasks: Report, Presentations, Attendance
• Voice and Movement Exploration | VME101 – This subject further engages with the process of vocal and movement training for the professional actor. Students will understand and learn to use breath, and work towards removal of existing restrictive vocal patterns. This subject also continues the exploration of movement in relationship to observation of the self, as well as the physical neutrality needed by the actor. Movement disciplines explored may include yoga, pilates, biomechanics, and the Suzuki Method of Training. Assessment Tasks: Essay, Presentation, Performance, Attendance
• Acting with Script | ACS101  – This subject requires the analysis of a scene from an Australian play, focusing on developing the foundations of a basic acting process using accessible text. Students will analyse a scene with perception and clarity, rehearse it with motivated physical and emotional life, and perform it with precision and in connection with all the performance elements. There is also attention given to learning how to contribute to a collaborative rehearsal process with peers and director, and to learn how to use the acting space for clarity and effect.
  Assessment Tasks: Script, Workshop, Public Performance, Attendance
  
• Acting Languages | ACL101 – This subject investigates the expressive potential of the body and of language. Students will explore the fundamentals of mask work and also address commedia dell’arte and other archetypes that have informed Western theatrical traditions since the Renaissance. Students will investigate the mask’s physicality as a means to define character and achieve transformation. Classes within this subject will also focus on the topic of language as a key to understanding character, as well as the use of language to create dramatic action and atmosphereon stage, film and television. Subsequent classes will focus on the actor’s ability to physically transform and use the application of the animal process as a working tool for understanding and expressing inner character for acting performance. They will recreate the physical and emotional life of the animal, identify physical habits and comfort zones that limit or pre-determine an actor’s ability, and work from impulse rather than from pre-determine outcomes.
  Assessment Tasks: Learning Portfolio, Presentation, Attendance
  
• Voice and Movement Behaviours | VMB101 – This subject continues the student’s investigation into vocal and physical behaviours. Voice classes will focus on how the actor’s voice can reveal the emotional, intellectual and psychological dynamics of text. Students will continue to explore a variety of movement modalities in this subject, including yoga, Alexander Technique, ballet, in order to acquire a self-guided practice and develop a routine to assimilate body, mind and breath. This trimester has a specific focus on the application and integration of the vocal and movement techniques explored through the First Year of actor training. Assessment Tasks: Test, Performance, Presentation
  
• Performance as Storytelling | PAS101 – This subject explores three topics: devised performance, stagecraft, and improvisation. The devised performance requires the student to take part in a collaborative theatre project writing, structuring and then completing a public performance of a new piece of theatre. Students will also learn to use the basic rules of stage movement, incorporate the use  of set and props to enhance performance, and apply stage movement rules, conventions and the principles of timing to a scene. Improvisation classes will enable actors to begin to build scenes, accept and build offers within a structured improvisation, and use these techniques to explore characters. Focus will also be given to how an actor expresses ideas and impulses spontaneously, creates comic and dramatic improvisations, and develops the facility to tell an engaging story. Assessment Tasks: Report, Performance, Presentation, Attendance 

To be awarded the Bachelor of Performing Arts (Stage & Screen), students must satisfactorily complete the course consisting of 24 core subjects with a combined total of 240 credit points.

• Voice and Movement Genres | VMG201 – This subject aims to deepen the student’s understanding of how an individual or a group can more effectively harness physical capacity in performance. It requires the student to apply body training methodology and body mind/breath connection to a public performance of a text-based creation as well as a newly devised choreographed movement piece. Assessment Tasks: Reflective Journal, Workshop Engagement, Public Performance, Attendance 
• Acting Character and Play | ACP201 – Students will explore the creation of character and develop a process to inhabit a character’s physical and vocal qualities, as well as create a history and psychological profile for the character. They will write a monologue for their character and definea process to transfer an observed character into performance. Students will also identify and discuss the physical actions and psychological behaviours of a character in an existing text, as well as identifying inciting incidents, crises and the climaxes of the text. This work will climax in a classroom presentation. Assessment Tasks: Report, Presentation, Attendance
• Voice and Movement Projects 1 | VMP201 – This subject aims to deepen the student’s knowledge, understanding and experience of voice and body in a range of classroom situations. They will be required to reveal freedom of emotional impulse in voice and body, congruent with truthful connection to language and character. Students will further engage with the theoretical and practical aspects of movement for the actor as embodied in a variety of physical disciplines, which may include yoga, Pilates, Alexander and/or the Suzuki Method of Training. In this trimester students will also begin their study of regional accent and dialect in voice class. Assessment Tasks: Report, Presentation, Attendance
• Performance Realism | PER201 – In this subject the student will explore complex texts demanding the actor to live, in the project, as a character in a different culture from their own. The subject requires skills and knowledge to deal with the intricate psychological and emotional landscapes of complex texts. They will also connect to a deep inner monologue and understand its dramatic use and be required to fully utilise the physical and vocal skills necessary for performance while successfully serving the director’s vision. Students will move vocally, physically and professionally beyond their own interpretation in order to apply the director’s vision in practice. Assessment Tasks: Script Analysis, Workshop Engagement and Performance, Attendance 
• Acting Disciplines | ACD201 – This subject consolidates the student’s understanding and implementation of psychological action, emotional release techniques and detailed character embodiment. Investigation will also continue into defining a process of transferring an observed character into performance. Activities will include locating, observing and creating a challenging character from the real world and bringing that transformation onto the stage with physical and vocal precision and clarity. Students will also embark on research into Shakespearean text, beginning their investigation of its linguistic characteristics and using the full range of the emotional potential of these heightened texts. Students will also develop a methodology for reading and contextualising a performance text, examining the theatrical conventions and cultural assumptions contained within it, as well as devising a performance that incorporates an exploration of the period and text in question. Assessment Tasks: Journal, Report, Presentation, Attendance
• Performing Shakespeare | PES201 – This subject will focus on Shakespearean text in performance, teaching the student the technical skills necessary to use heightened language, in both prose and verse. It will also focus on the use of thought, action and charged emotional release through the rehearsal and performance process using quality classic writing. Students will be required to explore the linguistic precision of classic text, apply explore and demonstrate the characteristics and rules of classic text in rehearsal and performance, create charged and dramatic physical life onstage, utilise the full range of emotional potential available to the actor, and explore, expand and demonstrate the depth and range of the actor’s physical and emotional instrument.
• Voice and Movement Projects 2 | VMP202 – This subject continues the student’s creative engagement with the vocal, physical and now also musical tools necessary for a professional actor. Topics include an investigation into flexible, dynamic delivery, a variety of movement modalities, the exploration of a consolidation of singing training through research and performance projects, as well as a continuation of the student’s study of regional accent and dialects. Assessment Tasks: Presentation, Attendance
• Acting for Stage and Camera | ASC201 – This subject explores acting in the mediums of television and film. Students will learn to prepare, rehearse and shoot a scene for these media. Topics include performing for camera with appropriate level of projection, rehearsing a scene using onset skills and knowledge including an understanding of hitting marks and directing focus, as well as shot sizes, framing and camera movement. This subject will also continue the student’s investigation into Improvisation, with a focus on accepting and extending offers, advancing an improvised narrative, investigating status relationships and introducing crisis into the narrative of story. Assessment Tasks: Journal, Video Screen Test, Attendance

To be awarded the Bachelor of Performing Arts (Stage & Screen), students must satisfactorily complete the course consisting of 24 core subjects with a combined total of 240 credit points.

• Voice and Movement Advanced Principles | VMA301 – Students will extend their voice work in performance through the preparation of complex text and master the voice support needed to deal with sophisticated language. They will also apply self-maintenance of a healthy and resilient voice throughout a range of performance activities. Students will use physical resources instinctively as part of the actor’s physical practice. They will utilize principles of safety in a specialized area of physical practice [e.g. stage combat], as well as performed a choreographed sequence effectively and with style. Assessment Tasks: Report, Presentation, Attendance 
• Acting – Reflection and Activation | ARA301 – This subject will also focus on the student’s own sense of self through an exploration of the concept of Inner Mask. The construct of the self provides a large proportion of the raw material for creative artists. This exploration is about the relationship of the self to the world, within the context of a theatrical performance. Students are required to create a private and personal mask and bring it to life in a way that is public and revelatory. It also requires the extension of personal learning beyond element, animal and myth work to the discovery of the components of comedy through Mask. Students will rehearse, perform, produce and market a season of one-act plays for public performance. Assessment Tasks: Production Portfolio, Public Performance, Presentation, Video Screen Test, Attendance 
• Acting with Emotional Release | ACE301 – Students will develop heightened emotional dynamics and detail in the transactions between characters, explore emotional release appropriate to the scene, play at high speed with high stakes, and implement stagecraft without requiring direction. The subject also advances the student’s understanding of how to prepare for and act a detailed and prolonged acting scene using advanced improvisation techniques, being able to release their energies with detail and dexterity through spoken text and action. They will also plot onstage transactions and devise and perform the scene’s emotional score, with the aim being to deepen and layer the actor’s onstage performance. Assessment Tasks: Essay, Workshop, Attendance
• Voice and Movement Complex Performance | VMC301 – This subject explores the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required to perform choreographed dance routines, as well as combat sequences. It is focused on the realisation of the actor’s choreographed movement practice in performance. This subject also focuses on the development and adaptability of vocal technique to professional requirements in theatre, film, television and voice-over. Focus is also given in both topics to consolidating a personal practice in regard to vocal and physical self-maintenance. Assessment Tasks: Report, Performance, Attendance
• Performance Graduation Play | PGPT301 – This subject deals with both complex text and cultural idioms, with an additional focus on accents and dialects. The subject requires an advanced understanding of language, style and accent, leading to a dynamic physicality in the delivery of the text. The student will research, analyse, interpret and physicalise the text and character, rehearse the text using effective rehearsal processes, and perform the text in a public presentation. Assessment Tasks: Script Analysis, Workshop Engagement and Performance, Attendance 
• Acting Laboratory | ACL301 – This subject explores a number of acting scenarios and learning environments: working on texts for simulated auditions for theatre and for screen in a workshop laboratory situation. Students will analyse text and bring the choices made to life in rehearsal with speed, clarity and skill. The subject also deals with increasing an actor’s personal employability by uncovering and overcoming their personal blocks and limitations, as well as developing skills and knowledge that address the demands and specific requirements of the professional audition process. Subsequent classes will address the more intricate and detailed elements in the actor’s onstage process, including advanced improvisation techniques, being able to release energies with detail and dexterity through text and action, and being able to plot onstage transactions and score a scene with dexterity. Within this subject, the students will continue their investigation into the skills and knowledge to act professionally in film, tv and online media, interactive media and commercial arenas. They will prepare for and film screen tests, analysing the different types of tests they might do and what they might require. Students will respond to direction given during the screen test and work safely and with emotional maturity and consistent focus throughout the screen test. There will also be a number of masterclasses offered in for example, script writing, editing, and sound editing. Assessment Tasks: Journal Lab, Workshop, Video Test, Attendance
• Voice and Movement Mastery | VMM301 – This subject explores the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required to demonstrate the development and adaptability of vocal technique to professional performance requirements in theatre, film, television and radio. Students will master the use of their voice for stamina, consistency, flexibility and extended cadence. Students will continue to attend singing classes and acquire knowledge, understanding and experience of singing in a range of public performance situations [duets, solos]. Assessment Tasks: Presentation, Video Presentation, Attendance 
• Performance Capstone | PEC301 – This subject includes skills and knowledge required for developing audition techniques for the professional actors. Students will demonstrate effective sight-reading technique, make bold choices, and collaborate with a director to identify the director’s vision and to build an empowering relationship. This subject explores the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required for detailed television and film acting on a professional, film and television context. It deals with analysing, rehearsing and performing scenes for camera or multiple camera coverage. The subject requires a high standard of professionalism and adherence to onset protocols. In the final part of this subject, students rehearse and perform a monologue or scene, from either theatre or film/television, to industry directors and agents in order to showcase their talent, technique and contribution to the profession and to prospective industry employers. Students will produce, in collaboration with a professional director and camera crew a complete, edited, professional show reel for screening at their industry showcase, to maximize employment opportunities. Assessment Tasks: Report, Showreel, Performance, Presentation, Attendance 

ACA’s mission statement is:

Our Commitment:

Employment Outcomes

For International Students and those unable to attend our Sydney auditions, we also accept Online Digital Auditions.

All applicants require:

• High level of talent and aptitude in the performing arts
• Good level of fitness
• High level of English literacy (minimum IELTS 7.0 with no band score less than 6.5)
• Applicants must be 18 years of age or older at course commencement

Your recording must be submitted with the application form by the application closing date. Please send them in as early as possible.

To apply for ACA’s Bachelor of Performing Arts (Stage and Screen) program please complete the online application form and send or upload a filmed self-test audition which includes:

• An introduction to yourself including your name, age, and where you’re from (30 sec max).
• Why you believe this program is suited for you (45 sec max).
• A very brief introduction to your chosen piece i.e. character name, title of the play and the author.
• Two contrasting pieces. For us to best get a detailed sense of your current skill level as an actor, we require you to prepare one Shakespearean and one modern or contemporary (1900 – present). At least one of your pieces come from the ACA Monologue List. You can choose both from our list if you prefer. Each choice should be no more than two-and-a-half minutes and should reflect the kind of roles in which you see yourself being cast.
• Quality of footage simply needs clear vocals, sufficient light, and to be shot on an iPhone or Android.

Once you’ve captured the takes which best represent you, either upload them as a private and password-protected Vimeo or YouTube video using the password “Bachelor” and send us the link with your application form.

FEEHELP is available for domestic students enrolled in this program through Torrens University. To check your eligibility please go to, www.studyassist.gov.au/help-loans/fee-help.