BA Directing is structured as an organic process of development over three years (Stages) and comprises: Main Study (Directing Theory and Practice, Acting, Voice, Movement), Contextual Studies (Theatre and Character Analysis, Music), and Personal and Professional Development, including intensive professional preparation. Course work upholds a methodological approach to acting while developing your ability to work as part of an ensemble. The methodological approach is derived from the work and achievements of outstanding artists and teachers in the European and American theatre of the twentieth century. These include Konstantin Stanislavsky, Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Bertolt Brecht, Joan Littlewood, Rudolf Laban and Yat Malmgren. The core technical disciplines (acting, voice, body) require a process of progressive and systematic development over three years. Many of the activities associated with these disciplines, such as regular classes and daily warm-ups, are about 'tuning the instrument'. Imaginative, analytical and critical faculties call for similarly careful and progressive development. At the heart of BA Directing is performance, a complex process of decision making and problem solving that calls for an interaction between conscious and unconscious activity, intuition and skill. All course teaching and learning activities culminate in rehearsal exercises, or video shoots, which are given before internal or public audiences.

BA Directing focuses on directing for both the theatre and recorded media (film, television and radio). It provides an in-depth study of the art of the actor so that future directors will have an organic understanding of the acting process and a common language with performers. Initially the directing course is integrated with BA Acting at Drama Centre London, but subsequently students focus more specifically on subjects related to directing. BA Directing offers you developing opportunities to work with actors: in the first place, by acting alongside them and observing actors at work at more advanced stages, through undertaking increasingly complex assistant director functions finally, by directing fellow students in a number of projects. These three 'pillars' of the degree course - a 'physical' approach; empathy with actors; analytical skills - are designed to empower you to be a useful director, a conduit for the author's intentions by means of the actor.