Betty Ann Norton Theatre School Adult Classed Ages 17+

Ethos: Our school, with over 60 years of teaching experience, is founded on a desire to provide confidence, clear speech, and a life-long love of acting, literature, and theatre to all. We believe that speech and drama classes benefit students of all ages, whether you start at age 3 or 33. Of course the sooner you start the longer you will be able to reap the benefits of clear speech, communication skills, creativity, emotional intelligence, and much more.

For all students, we highly recommend taking both speech and acting classes. They go hand in hand but each class has its own benefits and activities.

1st half: a vocal warmup: relaxation, breathing, exercises for clear speech, vocal theory, principles of safe and effective voice production, reading aloud, public speaking and communication skills. Students can gain a Public Speaking & Communication qualification from either Trinity Guildhall or University of West London.

2nd half: Poetry, Verse & Prose Speaking: work on solo performance pieces & literary theory -- poetry speaking, verse forms, choral verse speaking, monologues, prose performance. 

Theatre Studies: this 1 hour class involves a lecture on a given theatre period/device following work on a scene from a representative text and a group discussion. Possible topics include: Greek Theatre, Medieval Theatre, Elizabethan Theatre, Restoration Theatre, 18th, 19th and 20th Century Theatre etc.

Acting Class: 3 hours: a physical warmup with exercises followed by work on characterisation, advanced movement techniques, mime, improvisation, solo and group performance pieces. Advanced acting topics include: Stanislavsky, Meisner, Chekhov, Uta Hagen, Stella Adler, Viewpoints, Suzuki.

Film Studies: A 1 hour class available to advanced junior and teenage classes that involves the technical aspects of film and videography as well as script-writing, acting to camera and the students producing their very own short film.

Teaching Class: A 2.5 hour discussion based class that focusses on the principles of speech and drama teaching, aims and approaches to teaching, teaching methodologies, and working on class plans and essay component in preparation for the teaching diploma exam.

Acting Diploma Course: In preparation for the ATCL Performance Diploma in Speech and Drama with Trinity Guildhall London. Internationally recognised. RQF level 4 (equivalent to the Irish level 6/first year of an undergraduate degree). Students take the speech, theatre studies, film studies and acting classes. Experience recommended, not required.

Teaching Diploma Course: In preparation for the ALCM Speech and Drama Teaching Diploma with the University of West London. Internationally recognised. RQF level 5 (equivalent to the Irish level 7). Students take the speech class, acting class, and teaching class, and act as team teacher for one of younger groups. Prerequisite: grade 8, acting diploma or equivalent.

Prices per week for individual classes (charged per term)
Public Speaking only: €25, Poetry, Verse & Prose: €25, Theatre Studies: €20, Film Studies: €20, Acting: €50

Prices per year for courses
Acting Diploma: €2,500, Teaching: €3,000