About School-from Paul

As this first term comes to an end, I felt I needed to reflect on everything that has happened in the last 10 weeks and organize my thoughts about what I’ve been experiencing as a post-graduate student.

The culture differences in the education system are the first real surprise I had. This MFA course is assessment based—meaning everything we do must be graded. That’s a difficult thing to fathom considering acting is so subjective. Regardless of whether we’re singing, acting, moving, or dancing we’re being assessed in some way. For some reason, I wasn't quite expecting that. Birmingham City University (BCU), as well as Drama UK require certain standards to be met in order for a program to qualify as an accredited MFA or MA. BCU has very specific and strict standards about the MFA course, including a two-year research project that must be submitted with 15,000 words and a practice-based performance showing your research. I cannot pass the course without my research project.

The classes (modules) are much of what I expected in an MFA program. (Our first term classes included: group singing, vocal coaching, organic movement, research methods, stage combat, a basic acting class, and lots of rehearsals for our production.) I had very little formal training in acting, so I anticipated there would be warmups or specific acting exercises I had either never seen, or didn’t agree with. I have encountered them all so far in the first term, but they were presented in a way that allowed me to interpret them personally. The tutors here are very respectful about letting us know they are trained and qualified in a specific area and, therefore, know a little something about it. If we give something a chance and really go after it for the next few months, then we can make a more educated decision on whether or not a particular warmup or exercise will really help us. I have been nothing but impressed with the respect, thoughtfulness and attention I’ve been given so far.

We’re preparing to perform a workshop version of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. There’s only nine in our cohort, so we cut the play down to about an hour and 15 minutes and cut some roles so all nine of us could do it. We doubled up a few parts, and our Shylock is a woman, which is really cool.

We perform it solely for the tutors during the last week of classes and have a few assessments for our singing and movement, then we’re off until January 12th. It’s a huge break, but there’s a lot to do with my research project.

The school is wonderful, and so is my cohort. I am absolutely loving this opportunity to learn and grow. I have already grown more as a Shakespearean and classical actor than I thought I would have in the entire two-year span, so I’m so happy. This was definitely worth the pains and struggle to get here.