{"id":24634,"date":"2024-04-02T13:34:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T13:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=24634"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:00","slug":"five-ways-rada-is-raising-the-performance-ceiling-of-its-acting-students","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/five-ways-rada-is-raising-the-performance-ceiling-of-its-acting-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Ways RADA Is Raising the Performance Ceiling of its Acting Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 2 Apr 2024 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Five Ways RADA Is Raising the Performance Ceiling of its Acting Students<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a> <\/div>\n
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In the second part of our interview with RADA\u2019s Director of Actor Training Lucy Skilbeck, we discuss breaking habits, expanding capacity and self-reflection.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
\u201cWith everybody, we start at the ground floor,\u201d said Lucy Skilbeck.<\/h6>\n

The Director of Actor Training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art [RADA] is speaking to the Leaders Performance Institute for a two-part interview.<\/p>\n

The first focused on the teachers<\/a>, the second instalment hones in on the students themselves, those coming in on the \u2018ground floor\u2019. RADA enrols a talented cohort of 28 acting students each year and works for three years to raise their ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we identify is the talent and the potential for growth, development and passion,\u201d Skilbeck continued. \u201cThey are all talented, there\u2019s no question, and they have all done really interesting things before they\u2019ve come to RADA. What the training does is expand the instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, we explore the five most important factors underpinning that process.<\/p>\n

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  1. Breaking the constraints of habits<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is the key point. Skilbeck, who also spoke at the 2023 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London, believes that that everyone, including actors is constrained by their habits. \u201cAll of which we have developed from earliest infancy,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are vocal and physical habits, mental habits, habits of the imagination, and emotional habits.\u201d They can impair an actor\u2019s work. \u201cIn other words, you can\u2019t embody someone with an enormous emotional range, that has to go on an enormous emotional journey, if you\u2019re habitually protective of your emotions and not [able] to go to anger, to distress, to passion, then you can\u2019t take the character there either.\u201d The students\u2019 talents are, as Skilbeck explained, \u201cheld within whatever the constraints of their own habits\u201d.<\/p>\n

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    1. Expanding an actor\u2019s performance capacity<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      RADA\u2019s actor training aims to break those habits and expand the acting students\u2019 technical, emotional and imaginative capacity. \u201cReally, what we\u2019re training is how to be a human being and how to embody human experience in imaginary circumstances,\u201d said Skilbeck, adding, \u201cthe only way I think that can be done is through the expansion of the self so that there\u2019s access to the vulnerability that allows people to be open and exposed in a way that acting is asking them to do.\u201d There are potential consequences of this approach to training, namely raising fears and psychological trauma.<\/p>\n

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      1. Managing fears and trauma<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Skilbeck admitted there is an element of risk in encouraging students to be vulnerable. As such, RADA offers its Student Wellbeing Service through its Student and Academic Services department. The service consists of two main teams: their Disability Service and, of particular interest in a discussion of habits, their Counselling Service. Skilbeck acknowledges that breaking habits can be a difficult process and can potentially being up fears or trauma from past experiences. \u201cWe work with a psychologist who hosts sessions with students on resilience early in their training,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is both psych ed and giving them strategies for managing what might be potentially overwhelming traumas.\u201d The psychologist is also working with the teaching faculty to develop trauma-informed teaching spaces and practices so that teachers know how to respond and the material is less likely to provoke overwhelming responses for students. \u201cThe challenge, which I\u2019m sure is found everywhere, is that people don\u2019t always know what traumas they\u2019ve had until they begin to surface some kind of emotional content that has potentially not surfaced for a while,\u201d Skilbeck continued. \u201cThere\u2019s no way we can prevent that entirely, but we do have as many structures around us as we feel we\u2019re able to at the moment. We\u2019re constantly questioning and trying to develop those structures to create those spaces that feel sufficiently secure for the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

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        1. Reflective practice<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Reflective practice is another key component of expanding capacity. \u201cIn reflective practice, I work with students on taking the observer position so that they can create some space from the sensation, the experience of the release, as much as possible,\u201d said Skilbeck. It is a useful means for acting students to \u201cdevelop the skills\u201d to reflect on their progress and development and RADA also encourages its students to keep reflective journals. As discussed in part one, RADA reins in formal feedback for the most part in years one and two. A recent course review suggested that even more time be carved out for self-reflection. That can be easier said than done. \u201cThat\u2019s like the $64,000 question,\u201d said Skilbeck, who explained that RADA has cleared the calendars for three hours on Thursday afternoons for first and second-year students. She noted that much of the curriculum contributes to the development of independent practice but \u201cwe haven\u2019t tied that together sufficiently for students to come out the other way end going \u2018I\u2019m really clear on what my skills for independence practice are\u2019.\u201d To this end, RADA has been exploring a second-year project for self-led work. The goal is \u201cto make sure students are confident in their understanding of what ultimately becomes the capacity to create, devise and lead on their own project work and production work, if they so choose to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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          1. Embracing failure<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Just as Skilbeck believes teachers will get things wrong in their practice, so will students \u2013 and this is to be embraced. \u201cThis is something we talk about a lot because we\u2019re encouraging people to not to try and get it right and to allow failure to be part of one\u2019s creative practice,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t have a creative practice if you\u2019re not willing to fail. You can only have a complacent practice because you\u2019ll only try the things that you know will succeed. To have a creative practice you have to be willing to accept a degree of failure \u2013 and I think that goes for all of us \u2013 those trying to lead, run and develop courses as well as those who are participating on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

            Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

            ‘At RADA we Want Teachers to Follow the Students as Well as Guide them’<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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