PERFORMING ARTS career route advice. Any good classes near BRIGHTON?

[PorridgePot]

Dd is 12 ( a young Year 8) and has heart set on a career in the performing arts. She is interested in EVERYTHING! theatre, musical theatre, TV, film, you name it!

The thing is, i'm the opposite of a pushy parent and she certainly isn't the sort that has been doing ballet and acting since the age of 2!

So, how can i help equip her with the basic skills that she might need if she wants to pursue an adult career? is it too late already? so many 'stage school' types already have honed skilled by 12, don't they?

This is what we are doing:
-She goes to a rather low key Saturday musical theatre school already
-She is trying out Italia Conti Saturday school in Brighton soon
she has started doing LAMDA
-she has just resumed ballet (she did it for one year when she was 8yo and got a distinction at grade one)

I think that she has a reasonable amount of talent for singing, dance and acting but is no child prodigy! How do i ensure that my 'all rounder' has the best chance of pursuing her chosen career?

Do children like dd has any chance of getting into a decent performing arts sixth form? or do you have to be really polished by that stage? (if she is still very keen, she could board for sixth form.)

Can anyone advise me about any good classes in the Brighton area?
Or any schools (nationally) that we could consider further down the line (sixth form)? Or any general advice, for that matter.

TIA for any advice!

Hi, I don't know Brighton I'm afraid but I would suggest you look at NYMT, YMT UK or NYT. You've missed the auditions for this year but could try for 2018.

Anta, what useful advice! i have looked up YMT and NYMT and both have holiday workshop, which we will seriously consider. thanks :)

Depending on her interest and your finances you could look at Bedes nr Eastbourne, Hurtwood House (6th form), Hurst College or Brighton College which all offer a performing arts programme relatively near you. Look out for local amateur youth theatre productions which often take place in the holidays on a workshop basis. Also if she can participate at the Brighton Festival it would be good experience and you may find local opportunities advertised in its programme.

You can study for Dance/MT at 16, 18 or post degree

Deciding which you want is the first hurdle

My DD went at 16 as there were no classes locally at the level she was approaching

She is studying a level 6 diploma in MT

We didn't look very hard at sixth forms as the MT is alongside A levels & DD wasn't going to do them

Do you know how expensive it is & how hard she will need to work? I had literally no idea she has in excess of 40 contact hours a week at college & the year she did her GCSEs was manic

And there is always Brit School in Croydon which intakes at 14 and 16, not boarding though.

Thanks everyone! We are fortunate in that we will be able to afford fees for sixth form. Croydon is too far. Hurst and Brighton college are very much on my radar as good local independents with a national reputation, but i wasn't aware that they excelled in performing arts. i will look into the others that you suggest, LIZ. thanks.

katy, she is a conscientious girl and will do what it takes! thanks for the warning, though. what made her GCSE year so hard if she specialised at 16. Im a bit confused, sorry... was it all the extra curric classes?

Yes the extra classes - 4-10 4 nights a week plus leaving home 6:45 to get the 7:30 train to London on a Sat am doing an associate scheme all day Sat plus a different asscoaiate scheme on Sunday arriving home from London about 8:30 Sunday night.

Plus about 13 auditions!

The first year she got 2 places no funding so my parents paid for a foundation course; second year she did 8 auditions, got 7 places & 6 were with funding (iirc)

DD decided about 3 months later than your DD around Easter in yr8 & started ballet in Sept yr9

You may want to look in to a CAT scheme - they are very good

If you want to chat, just PM me

The sort of colleges DD looked at would be expecting/hoping for about imtermediate garde either at 16 or 18 & several dance styles (Ballet/Tap/Jazz - commercial/street isn't really an exam subject although there are some boards that do it and contem[orary she would only be starting yr9ish anyway)

gosh Katy, that sounds an incredible amount! is your dd doing only dance, or acting and singing too? sorry if thats an ignorant question- i don't know anything about the schemes you mention. what level is intermediate grade? we are too far to even attempt going into london on a regular basis,but maybe thats a blessing! may well pm you when dd1's birthday cake is baked- am multi tasking!

We are near Great Yarmouth so you can imagine the journey for her (she did it predominantly by herself after the first few accompanied trips & stayed at a hall of residence over night at 15 !!

Intermediate is a grade that give the student UCAS points (even tho' few of the unis would count them) so quite a high grade - they don't need to have done the exam just to be approaching that level

The courses are between 10K & 20K a year with no student funding or loans but a system of Dance & Drama Awards (DaDA) which are awarded for talent and then means tested

Associae schemes are run by schools/colleges & dance companies and offer intense training to talented children usually in dance but DD did one at London Studio Centre which also had singing - generally they are 'worth' more if they are audition entry

Now she is doing acting singing & predominantly dance, loads & loads of dacne

But you can do it as a degree - but with less classes(generally) 7 much less dance!!

If you have any 'Stagecoach' classes nearby they usually run summer and easter courses that last 1 week. They are a franchise, so the standard is variable, but a well run school will put on some excellent shows.
restarting dance is great, and your DD might want to look at adding in some modern/jazz with the ballet.

For Musical Theatre experience I would suggest joining a high quality youth musical theatre company (one that you have to audition for). I'm sure there will be a least one in Brighton.
My dd did this for a few years and was in some fantastic productions. She also met lots of like-minded people who became great friends. She's 19 now and studying MT at drama school.

Actually thinking about it - you should get yourself up to Move it (F/S/S this weekend) to see what it is all about

Your daughter will either love it or run away screaming!!

Move it

Thank you error, I will do that.

Katy, apologies for not getting back to you and the other posters before now. It's been full birthday weekend for dd1!
I will take a look at Moveit for next year, assuming it's an annual thing...

I am on the verge of booking dd2 onto the Easter residential course with NYMT. Can i ask a question about them, in case anyone has any experience (or i might post another thread, if no-one has)?
Are there likely to be others on the course who are at the lower end of the spectrum in terms of experience/ being polished performers? I wouldn't want her to be the only one who wasn't an obvious stage school type exuding confidence and experience, if that makes sense.

If you search on here there are threads about NYMT & also on 'NotapushyMum'

Move-it is annual - DD was there all three days this year representing the college & someone chatted to her that recognise me from NaPM -which was a bit odd!! nice but odd

If you want to message when life gets quieter, that's fine - Birthdays can be very busy!

No experience of MT, so below is purely about acting (you did say she was interested in everything).

While ballet is one of those things you have to start really young, acting is quite the opposite: when it comes to getting onto a foundation or BA course at drama school, maturity counts for a lot.

Not saying that your dd should not grab every opportunity to do and learn more- of course she should- but if she is interested in straight theatre/film, it's not going to be a case of last trains having passed.

Apart from the kind of things you and other posters have mentioned, she should read as widely as possible and attend as many performances as she can (and that will hold true for MT too). And once she gets old enough, there are some very good residential audition courses out there.

My dd did not attend specialist school/college (no money), but did A-level Drama and BTEC Acting at a sixth form college with a good reputation for performing arts. A couple of her friends got into drama school straight from college, dd was probably too immature, so took a gap year (2 years, actually) and worked in a customer facing job which has improved her confidence no end, while at the same time doing as much am-dram as possible. She will be going to drama school in the autumn.

Thinking further I believe there is a performing arts school in Chichester. Someone from ds prep school year had a y9 place there although I think she ended up at Arts Ed.

www.arabesqueschool.co.uk/

thank you so much Katy, Liz, Cory and others. I have had a look at Arabesque and the other 'local' (ish) options and have concluded that DD would have to board for 6th form if she is still wanting to pursue the performing arts.

In the mean time, i think i'm going to start a new thread about the NYMT workshops, if I can't ' find anything specific on the old threads about the actual workshops. will take a closer look first, though!

There is no need to be a polished performer as a child to peruse a career in the performing arts. In fact, 'child actors' get looked down on a bit at drama schools.

Being part of a youth theatre will help hone skills when she (maybe) wants to apply for drama school after A levels. Have a look at accredited drama schools websites, e.g. RADA, Central etc. You might get a better idea. The National Youth Theatre is supposed to be great, very hard to get in to though. They look for raw talent, not polish.

Hoolio, thanks so much for that! Most interesting. It is the NYMT (not NYT), btw. And for the workshops, you luckily don't need to audition!

Persue. Not peruse. Maybe spelt it wrong.

Anyway, it's a bugger of a profession. Really best to concentrate on A levels so that if it doesn't work out she has qualifications.

Oxbridge is still a brilliant choice for if you want a career. Old boys network still going strong!

Hoolio, thanks again. Yes, she may well try to pursue an acting career ;)
She is academic, so there is no way i would let her not do A levels or equivalent as there is no way of knowing how her future will turn out.

I think re starting early, maybe i've been too influenced by talking to my brother (classically trained ballet dancer who ended up in musical theatre in the West End as an adult).

Pursue! Can you tell I didn't get to Oxbridge!!!

Dance is different, you have to start early, especially for classical.

For musical theatre though, if she wanted to do that, they don't expect you to be professional standard if you are going to do a 3 year course in it.

The acting world is terribly snobby. You get categorised very easily. Also child actors who really go for it develop a way of being that doesn't fit with a traditional drama school environment. So it can actually be detrimental.

The best way to become a professional actor is to do a 3 year course at an accredited drama school. Anything else, it will always be tougher. Not impossible, just a lot harder. There are no guarantees though.