angels independant community driven theatre school covering godalming and frensham

Angels Theatre School is an acting school.
Everything we teach is aimed at inspiring, supporting and developing
the acting skills of our students.
At angels singing and dancing are an important part of the ciriculum,
but it is worth noting that if you are looking for a High School Musical
sort of vibe we are probably not what you are looking for.

1. Know your history - where acting came from and how it is evolving.

2. Know your voice - understand where your unique voice came from.

3. Train your voice - through practical exercises learn to fill the performance space,
suit vocal performance to theatre or screen and maximise your voice’s potential to
create emotion and character.

4. Know your body - everything starts here. Before an actor utters a syllable, his audience is evaluating both
character and performer simply by the way he crosses the stage.

5. Be a skilled observer - look at life in detail.

6. Study - Shakespeare, Stanislavski, Brecht, Artaud, Strasberg, and Berkoff have all added to the canon of
theory that an actor can refer to.

7. Project - vocally, phyiscally, mentally, emotionally. Engage with your text, your character, your audience.

stagecraft:

Our students learn all that they will need to effectively take part in a piece of theatre or film.

Stage right, the fourth wall, the job of the A.S.M, turning over, check the gate...

You may not know what these things mean but our students do.

Understanding material: to create performance interest.

We provide our students with strategies to decide what is required of them for the work: how to start and crucially, how to
ensure that their audience is engaged with them.

Understanding the Business:

Students are actively encouraged to involve themselves in all aspects of production:
not only do our students often create original pieces of script and choreography for
our performances; they are involved in budget, direction, technical management
and production design.

In addition, our students are taught audition and interview technique. They also
benefit from guest speakers, such as the school’s affiliated agent Sheila Ashworth
and former and fellow students, now working in the industry.

posture, movement and dance:

On arrival the aim is to get the students focussed and
ready to work as quickly as possible.
We begin with a brief warm up, leading into physical
work; which could be choreography, expressive
movement, physical games or mime.

Acting: This is the main part of the class.
We would usually start with a vocal warm up followed by
the subject for the day.
This could be improvisation on topical events, script work
to development of skills or, when a show or special project
is being created, a specific rehearsal.

Singing: Once again, a warm up and then tackling of
material for the day.

Our musical director has been known to teach anything
from madrigals to gangster rap, always informing the
students of music trends and history.