THE FRIENDS OF DRAMA CENTRE LONDON
Support for students at Drama Centre
The Friends of The Drama Centre London is a UK registered charity 1040963. The object of the charity is to provide financial assistance to students at Drama Centre who are in financial need, enabling them to continue their education.
WHAT WE DO
Help Drama Centre students make ends meet
We provide hardship funding for Drama Centre students at a time when the cost of training in London is increasingly challenging. The fund has been built on the goodwill and loyalty of alumni and staff. It is the interest from this capital fund which provides us with the means to respond quickly to our students to help them with day-to-day living costs and some limited scholarship support.
DRAMA CENTRE LONDON
The work of the school and support from Friends
A SHORT HISTORY
Drama Centre London was founded in 1963 by a breakaway group of teachers and students from the Central School of Speech and Drama, led by John Blatchley, Yat Malmgren and Christopher Fettes. The school was located originally on Prince of Wales Road, Chalk Farm, but moved first to Back Hill, Clerkenwell in 2004, then to its current site at King's Cross in 2011. Since 1999, it has operated as an integral part of Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, offering degree programmes in acting, directing and screenwriting.
A principal aim in the founding of the school was to bring some of the major developments in American and European theatre to the training of British and international actors. Its approach articulates Stanislavski's system, with the movement work of Rudolf Laban and the character typology of Carl Jung to produce a 'movement psychology' for the analysis and development of characters. The school's work is, at it's core, based on Yat Malmgren's teachings on 'Character Analysis' and also draws on the English traditions, particularly that of Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop. These approaches are taught as part of the Western theatrical tradition that began with the Greeks, on which the school places great emphasis. When the school was founded, it was the only drama school in the country to have an acting class, and is considered to be the first 'Method' drama school in Britain.
NOTABLE ALUMNI
We are grateful to Drama Centre Alumni for their continued support, particularly to Francis De La Tour for setting up the original Friends initiative and for Pierce Brosnan for being a key supporter. Notable alumni include Jack Shepherd, Penelope Wilton, Don Warrington, David Leland, Adrian Noble, Simon Callow, Geraldine James, Helen McCrory, Tara Fitzgerald, Anastasia Hille, Anne Marie Duff, John Simm, Sean Harris, Paul Bettany, Ariyon Bakare, Michael Fassbender, Russell Brand, Tom Hardy, Emilia Clarke, Gwendoline Christie, Ansu Kabia, Ruta Gedmintas, Jodie McNee, Gemma Chan, Rungano Nyoni, Edward Holcroft, Anita Joy Uwajeh, and Elizabeth Chan.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
We aim to fulfil our remit more fully, running campaigns and initiatives to support collaborative new writing projects, providing bursaries for BAME students specifically, and hosting Gala and Fundraising events to raise awareness about initiatives like Act for Change, Parents In Performing Arts, ERA 50/50 (Equal Representation for Actresses) and more. Many of these social justice movements were founded by Drama Centre Alumni.
We would be interested to hear from you about new initiatives and fund raising ideas, as well as events that broaden the artistic engagement of the Drama Centre London community.
"The aim of the Drama Centre is to provide the student actor with a systematic approach to the problems of acting...; to teach them to make a proper use of themselves as an organic being on the stage; and to equip them with the freedom that derives, not from license to 'do their own thing' but from the mastery of their creative resources."
from Prospero's Isle - Christopher Fettes
