Introduction
The Drama and Theatre Arts Course was established in September 2000 and provides a comprehensive actors’ training in the following areas:
- Improvisation
- characterisation
- mime and physical theatre
- movement and voice skills
- script study
- audition technique
- masks
- devising
- stage craft
- performance experience
Theatre Performance Level 5 Application Form
Theatre classes are practical and taught in a workshop format. At the end of the year, all students participate in a public performance.- We have our own Facebook Page where you can find out what we’re up to.
Course Structure
The course is a full time course which can be completed in 1 year. A 2nd year course is offered to selected students who have completed year 1. Students with relevant previous experience may apply for direct entry into year 2.
First year students are offered the following FETAC Level 5 modules:
- Acting Skills and Techniques (2 module value)
- Performance Craft
- Theatre Studies
- Theatre Performance
- Shakespearean Performance
- Work Experience
- Communications
About the Course
The Theatre Performance course is taught by professional theatre artists working both in Cork and nationally. The course is designed to offer students the opportunity to explore and develop their creative expression within a group environment that is safe, supportive and fun. As well as promoting physical, imaginative and vocal development, drama improves self-confidence, communication, and group skills.
Kinsale College has a unique, specially designed and purpose built outdoor amphitheatre providing drama students with a perfect space for rehearsal and public performance. Students also perform, on occasion, in Cork at venues such as the Half M
oon Theatre and the Cork Arts Theatre. In addition there are often opportunities to take productions on tour.
Links are maintained with the professional theatre, both through the permanent staff and by regular master classes, offered by visiting theatre professionals in their areas of expertise, such as; dance, opera, Alexander Technique, contemporary Irish Theatre, site specific theatre, puppet making, stage combat, circus skills and all aspects of production.
Course Productions
Throughout the year students have many performance opportunities, culminating in a large scale public performance each May. Course productions include:-
Reds under the beds: Collage Daze: Spaghetti Western: The Milk of Human Kindness: The Merry Wives of Windsor: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Government Inspector: A Flea in Her Ear: Cyrano de Bergerac: Love’s Labour’s Lost: Pirates in Short Pants.
Advanced Acting Program
Introduction
This program is designed for the serious student who wishes to develop their skills further, towards a career in the professional Theatre or a related industry. The course is open to selected students who have completed year 1 and to outside students with relevant previous experience.
Course Structure
The course is a full time, 1 year course. It prepares students for a professional career and includes the following;
A touring production; performance in a restoration comedy edited and updated; performance in a musical or facilitation of a drama project with a community group; a solo acting project( including show reel); audition preparation; regular and optional classes in voice, movement, mask, physical theatre and improvisation; career advice and support.
Advanced acting students are offered the following FETAC Level 6 modules:-
Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama: Restoration Comedy: Renaissance Audition:
Characterisation: Performance Skills for Musical Theatre or Drama: Solo acting:
Communications: Acting Skills and Techniques: Shakespearean Performance.
A FETAC level 6 award in Classical Acting is offered to students who successfully complete 8 modules.
Advance Certificate in Classical Acting Application Form
About the Course
The course is delivered in a number of ways. Students participate in practical workshops with regular and visiting staff. In addition students are expected to work independently, both on their own and in group projects with fellow students. Independent work is supervised by staff and is designed to encourage students to create their own work and to gain self confidence in autonomous learning and development. Seminars are given on the Theatre industry, employment opportunities and preparation for interview and audition.
Graduate Employment
Graduates may pursue careers in:
- Acting
- Theatre Production
- Arts Administration
- Community Arts
- Workshop Facilitation
- Teaching
- Theatre Writing
Past students have pursued all of the above as well as forming their own Theatre Companies.
Further Studies
Students may choose to further their studies to Level 8. There are many Theatre Courses on offer in Universities and Colleges in Ireland and the UK.
Course Tutors
Belinda Wild has extensive experience both as a teacher and as a director in the professional theatre. She is an associate director of Cork Opera House and Artistic Director of Janus Theatre Productions. Most recent plays, directed professionally, include: Lifeboat, Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Romeo and Juliet. Belinda began her career as an actor, working throughout Britain and Ireland before taking up a post as Lecturer in Drama at Manchester Metropolitan University. Since moving to 
Ireland in 1991 she has run workshops for and acted as consultant to many companies and organisations including, The Irish Institute of Performing Arts, West Cork Arts Centre, The Drama League of Ireland, The Gaiety School of Acting, UCC, Sirius Arts Centre and Opera 2005.
Ian Wild is a writer, composer and theatre worker. He is best known for a number of highly successful musical comedies that have appeared in Cork Midsummer Festivals since 1999; The Pirates in Short Pants, Marco Polo’s Toilet Brush and Spaghetti Western. His broadcast work includes Way Out West – a three part comedy series for RTE Radio One. Also The Great Moodini and other stories – twenty children’s stories broadcast on RTE’s Radio One. The best known of his comic plays that have toured theatre festivals in Ireland are; Somebody and Nobody, Reds Under the Beds and A Fish in Her Ear.
His compositional work for the theatre includes song and incidental music for productions of Othello, King Lear and Hamlet for Cork Opera House The Elephant Man at the Everyman Palace and The Tempest at The Granary Theatre.
He has published a collection of short stories; The Woman Who Swallowed the Book of Kells, a volume of poetry entitled Intercourse with Cacti. He has won many literary awards.