The Provost of Trinity College Invites Professor Nicholas Grene to Chair Forum to Review Actor Training in Ireland

Posted on: 07 February 2007

The Provost of Trinity College has invited Professor Nicholas Grene of the TCD School of English to chair a forum to review the needs of undergraduate actor training in Ireland and how best it can be delivered at a national level. The forum will include key stakeholders in the theatre profession and will be convened at the end of the month.
 
Professor Nicholas Grene is an authority on Irish drama and has published extensively on the subject, including The Politics of Irish Drama, a study of drama from the late nineteenth century to the contemporary period. He was the founder director of the Synge Summer School and has also published widely on the playwright. He is chair of the Irish Theatrical Diaspora Project and in 2006 he was a judge for the Irish Times Theatre Awards.

The College proposes that the following issues, inter alia, should be discussed at the forum which will be chaired by Professor Grene:
 the role of academic institutions, including Trinity College, in the training of actors;
 the suitability of a three-year course to train actors;
 the potential role of a national institute for dramatic arts to draw on the best experience and expertise from both the third level sector and the theatre profession.
The work of the forum is expected to commence by the end of February. 
Trinity College continues its commitment to drama education in Ireland as evidenced in its existing drama courses which produce some of country’s finest actors and theatre practitioners. These drama courses with a combined intake of 50 students a year include:
 the single honours  BA in Drama and Theatre which will be expanded; 
 Drama taken in conjunction with another subject, the Two Subject Moderatorship (TSM);
 the M.Phil in Theatre and Performance.
Trinity College will also be initiating an M. Phil, a postgraduate one-year degree in acting as well as expanding the BA in Drama and Theatre Studies to include acting strands.  The M. Phil will provide Drama graduates – who in the past had to emigrate to pursue postgraduate studies in this area – with an opportunity for the first time to continue their studies in Ireland.