Buckinghamshire New University

BA (Hons) Musical Theatre (Foundation Year)

This course is also offered as a four-year programme, including an initial Foundation Year. The Foundation Year will allow you to develop your academic study skills and build confidence in your abilities, identifying your own strengths and development needs for progression onto an undergraduate programme.

The BA (Hons) Musical Theatre equips you with the fundamentals of musical theatre performance skills, enabling you to emerge with the confidence and creativity to launch a career as a performer.

The notion of the ‘thinking practitioner’ is central to our approach on this course, the ability to understand yourself as a performer and have the confidence to engage creatively and thoughtfully with the industry, and its innovations, is at the heart of our working ethos. 

Throughout this musical theatre degree, you will be exploring both the practical and theory of musical theatre. The production module strand will require you to engage with increasingly demanding productions within genres such as: Pre-1950 Classical, Contemporary Broadway, Variety and Cabaret and Political Musical Theatre. 

You will take part in fully realised productions as a key part of your BNU Musical Theatre education, often performing in large-scale productions. These are created in an intensive ‘timetable takeover style’ which mimics the experience of producing a show in a professional setting.

The course is a high-quality practical training designed to hone your performance skills and stimulate your creative thinking. You’ll focus on acting, singing, and dancing throughout the course. You’ll become a member of our repertory musical theatre company, producing both studio and theatre performances.

As well as this you will engage with industry professionals via a programme of workshops, seminars, lectures and performances.  You will work collaboratively with a professional creative team to design, create and produce high quality productions. Experienced professional lecturers will tutor students in a range of acting, singing and dance styles, closely aligned to the industry’s constantly evolving sense of genre.

The course progression will develop those skills necessary for entry to the performing arts industry. These will include the knowledge and skills you need to manage a professional freelance creative career and develop promotional materials such as showreels, an online portfolio and self-taped auditions. You will also take part in our Graduate Showcase.

Upon graduating from this course you’ll be able to show you are a versatile performer, with valuable industry connections, experience and knowledge towards making your passion a career.