Course Title: BA Technical and Production Arts (3 yrs full time)
Validating Body: RSAMD
Hours per week: minimum 35 hours
Places: 30
Entry requirements: 2 x A Level or 3 highers or equivalent, interview and portfolio, experience
Minimum age: 17
Closing Date: 31st May 2005
Academy Principal: Professor John Wallace OBE
Course Leader: Ros Maddison

Course Description:
For more than 30 years RSAMD has been contributing to the diverse and changing performing arts environment, providing creative, professional and innovative training for those talented and dedicated students who wish to pursue both a broad and intensive learning experience in production, technology, design and management.

The Department of Technical and Production Arts adopts an integrated approach to learning with an emphasis on vocational, practice-based work on a wide range of productions from across the Academy including opera, contemporary theatre and traditional, text-based dramas.

The BA Technical and Production Arts is delivered through a combination of formal taught courses, workshop studies and practical production assignments, to deliver training in a broad range of disciplines. Subjects covered include Stage and Production Management, Stage Technology, Theatre Lighting and Sound Design, Set Construction, Costume Technology and Theatre Design as well as the applied arts, including Prop Making and Scenic Art. Our students learn in one of Europe's most exciting arts complexes, which offer a fantastic and varied range of performance venues and spaces.

The course is structured around three levels of study. Each level is complementary to the other and each has a different focus. These levels of ascendancy are designed to increase in complexity, so that you are continually challenged throughout your course.

After initial group teaching in all subject areas there is an opportunity to experience each production department in a hands-on capacity. Working alongside staff, students and visiting guest professionals you will be involved in a variety of Academy shows in assistant roles, experiencing first hand the busy production throughput of the department. After this fundamental grounding in the core skills, we will help you carve out an individual pathway through your remaining study time, whether you wish to specialise in one discipline or to keep your studies broadly based and your options open.

Further teaching in elected subject areas along with contextual and support studies, prepare you for your final four terms when senior students are free to match their skills and strengths to major production roles, working alongside both professional practitioners and student colleagues on the Academy's opera and theatre productions. Course choices at this stage are very tailored to your needs on the final pathway to employment. Research and self determined study play a large part in the curriculum and students are expected to achieve professional standards at all times.

Our students come from a broad range of backgrounds and we actively encourage applications from candidates with all types of experience including creative artists, electricians, carpenters, managers, mature students and school leavers. Graduates from the course who wish to pursue a career in the entertainment industry enjoy a very high employment rate. Graduates are currently in employment for companies as diverse as English National Opera, the Sage Gateshead, Royal Caribbean and Cirque du Soleil as well as a variety of Scottish companies including Scottish Opera and the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. Scotland has a vibrant theatre culture and freelance casual work is often available for current students as well as graduates.

We believe our approach to training will ensure you learn both the fundamental concepts and inter-relationships between all the disciplines we cover. At the same time, you will become a confident learner, developing professional capabilities in communication; team working; critical thinking; problem solving; research and the use of techniques and technology. We strive to provide a comprehensive range of theoretical and practical training units that will give you the skills you need and a variety of experiential learning opportunities in which to practice them.