BA (Hons) Acting Accelerated.
Two years. No wasted time.
Complete a full acting degree in two intensive years. Fourth Monkey's BA (Hons) Acting Accelerated is conservatoire-style training for stage and screen, built for people ready to fast-track a professional career. Same content. Same qualification. Faster, harder, braver.
Course Overview
Delivered by a faculty of international professional practitioners, actors, theatre and film makers, and industry professionals, our BA Acting Accelerated degree combine traditional and cutting-edge techniques to prepare you for the evolving performance industry. The courses continue to be shaped by those working within the industry and their knowledge infuses our student learning experience.
We work and train with an emphasis on the ensemble.
Key Benefits:
• World-renowned interdisciplinary training
• Development of personal and professional artistic identity
• Final industry showcase in a West End venue
• Mentored approach to Graduate Spotlight and Industry Progression
Our Course
Course Highlights
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Training in Meisner, Lecoq, Grotowski, Butoh and Suzuki methods
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Screenwriting, voice over, motion capture and stage combat
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Graduate showreels and professional portfolio creation
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Public performances
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Live and digital showcases
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Workshops with casting directors, agents, intimacy coordinators and more
Our BA courses focus on employability, adaptability, and artistic agency. You’ll graduate ready for work in theatre, television, film, radio, and digital performance.
Course Structure
Level 4 - Foundation
Explore performance fundamentals across stage and screen. Training is multidisciplinary, with a global perspective.
Level 5 - Development
Deepen your technical capacity and expressive range. You’ll rehearse, perform and create work within real-world professional contexts.
Level 6 - Industry Readiness
Curate a professional portfolio, build your showreel and perform for industry professionals. Showcase your skills through public performances and original work.
Discovering What Moves Me...
20 Credits
Through international techniques such as Grotowski and Lecoq, you will develop body awareness, visual, aural and spatial awareness and physical and rhythmical co-ordination. These techniques will also promote physical expression, artistic exploration and personal development.
Play!
20 Credits
The work in this module begins with (your)self and the exploration of who you are with reference to practitioners such as Stanislavski and Meisner, Rodenburg and Houseman.
Consequentially, you will explore:
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Your perception of (your)self
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Your connection to who you are
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Your impulses, intuition and imagination
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Your personal habits and cultural identity
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Comfort and growth zones
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Connection to your true voice
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Skills of improvisation and musicality
Your work will be underpinned by Fourth Monkey’s multidisciplinary ethos and core principles of exploration and discovery.
Who Am I?
20 Credits
This module will give you the opportunity to take creative risks, make bold choices and convey your own artistic and creative ideas.
With reference to practitioners such as Decroux and John Wright, the classes in this module will:
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Equip you with a framework for the process of creating your own work
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Aid you to identify the processes which facilitate self-exploration
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Cultivate the confidence to use (your)self to generate creative offers
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Enable you to recognise and evaluate your own individual successes and needs in a variety of contexts
Technique Into Performance
20 Credits
The classes in this module will focus on transferring acting technique into scene work. It will give you the opportunity to begin developing your ability to make clear character choices, explore character relationship and understand the beginnings of stage craft for performance.
The classes in this module will reference practitioners such as Uta Hagen and Sanford Meisner.
Expressive Exploration
20 Credits
This module will explore the body as the theatre maker’s tool for physical expression and the actor’s tool for creating character. These contexts will require you to explore making creative offers outside of your habitual responses as well as give you the opportunity to learn how to look after your own body and recognise its individual needs.
This module will also include further international influences such as Butoh and Suzuki.
Creating My Own Work
20 Credits
This module will afford you the opportunity to collaborate with your peers in small working groups on a self-generated devising project in order to collectively conceive a piece of theatre.
You will explore your own way of working and what you need to do in order to support this work. You will also investigate how you communicate your creative and artistic ideas to an audience and within a professional working environment.
What is the BA (Hons) Acting Accelerated?
A two-year undergraduate acting degree that delivers the full BA (Hons) Acting curriculum, across Levels 4, 5 and 6, in a condensed timeframe. It is integrated actor training for fearless, hard-working actors. It combines traditional and cutting-edge techniques to prepare you for the evolving performance industry, and it's taught by international practitioners, actors, theatre and film-makers, and industry professionals.
Who is it for?
For bold creatives who are certain they want to enter the industry. You might be arriving from a further education course, a career change, or a gap spent discovering that this is it. Your passion for storytelling, your stamina and your appetite for hard work are what bring you into the room, and our community builds from there. Applicants join us from every kind of background, and every voice strengthens the ensemble. If you would like a more gradual start, our Foundation CERTHE course opens the door to degree-level study at a steadier pace.
Why choose the accelerated degree?
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Your Fast Track to the Industry. Intensive drama school training supporting you to be industry-ready in two years.
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Reduce your living expenses. As this is a two-year degree your living expenses are reduced to only cover your two year training. Financially more affordable and accessible than the traditional 3-year model.
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Stage and Screen, from day one. No waiting until third year to get in front of a camera. You train for both equally from year one.
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Drama school, demystified. We've stripped out the mystery and the gatekeeping. This is training built for the modern working actor.
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Actors as Artists. Supporting the development of actors as well as storytellers and makers for stage and screen. You'll make, not just perform. Devising, writing, self-tapes and scratch performance, so you can generate your own work.
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Intensity that builds resilience. Embrace the sweat. The pace is part of the training. This will help you build the rigour and stamina of such a competitive industry.
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Industry-facing throughout. You're not training in a bubble. Casting directors, agents, intimacy coordinators and working professionals in the room.
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A final-year ensemble that becomes your creative network. Spend your two years creating, developing and working together, which builds a close ensemble. Once a monkey, always a monkey.
Fourth Monkey is different as an institution; we have a clear independent identity and training toolbox designed to support our students forge individual paths defined and inspired by our training but always centred on you and your uniqueness. We celebrate the individual in a collaborative space.
We see you and our training is designed for you to see, understand and celebrate yourself...and for the industry to do so too. Fearless actors for a creative world.
Accelerated experience
STUDENT STORIES Real Voice.
THEIR Journeys.
Training at Fourth Monkey isn't just about learning a craft.
It's about throwing yourself into the work alongside an ensemble that has your back.
Hear directly from our students about stepping onto the studio floor, uncovering their unique creative identity, and finding a creative home where they truly belong.
WHAT's it like HERE
OUT OF THE STUDIO
ONTO THE STAGE
Whodunnit? 4: Unrehearsed at Park Theatre
Be bold. Be ready. Be in the room. Our students auditioned, got cast and joined the community chorus of Park Theatre’s wildest immersive hit. A Wild West town with a mystery celebrity every night.
Carys Thomas
Creative Engagement Manager at Park Theatre, London
"Whodunnit went brilliantly; the students were fantastic and brought so much energy to the show. I hope they found it to be a useful learning experience!"
National Physical Fellowship with Highly Sprung
Physical theatre, first of its kind. Our students and alumni had a chance to create new and exciting work with Highly Sprung and performed at Jackson’s Lane. As part of the first National Physical Fellowship. Bold, physical, fearless. Exactly how we train.
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SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOLS TOUR
Take your show on the road. Your classical public production doesn’t stop at opening night in your final year. You take it on tour to schools and colleges. New spaces, new audiences, same bold work. That’s the real life of an actor. This year it was Macbeth. Next year, it could be you.
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Enhancement Opportunities For All Courses
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Subsidised access to short courses and professional development
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Leadership opportunities as course or teaching reps
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Invitations to Monkey Socials and networking events
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Ongoing pastoral care and professional mentoring
launch your career
GRADUATE
At Fourth Monkey, we're dedicated to helping you build a successful career, and our partnership with Spotlight is a huge part of that. As a final-year student, you'll be eligible for Spotlight Graduate membership, giving you a direct pathway into the industry.As a Spotlight Graduate member, you'll get exclusive access to events and workshops specifically designed to help you transition from training to a professional career. You'll also benefit from a discounted membership for your first two years in the industry, easing the financial burden as you start out.One of the most exciting parts of your final year is the chance to participate in our professional London showcase. This event, listed on the Spotlight Performance Calendar, is a key opportunity to present your talents to casting directors and agents, helping you build the professional network essential for a successful career.Additionally, one student is nominated by our staff to compete for the prestigious Spotlight Prize, an incredible chance to perform for an expert panel and win a cash prize.
FAQs
We recruit a maximum of 50 students on to this course. We then create rotating subgroups of 20 or less for engaged learning.