Central School of Speech and Drama

The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students. The school has been a constituent college of the University of London since 2005.

Before the war, the Central School of Speech and Drama was based at the Royal Albert Hall. During the war it moved to Exeter. In 1963, a breakaway group of teachers and students founded Drama Centre London in nearby Chalk Farm. Nowadays, Central's campus is centred around the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage, North London. As a government-funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, it benefits from state-of-the-art facilities.

Central is not only an acting school; it offers training and education in the broadest range of vocational and applied theatre specialisms available anywhere in the world. Courses are provided in acting, costume design, design for the stage, directing, applied theatre & education, drama and movement therapy, dramaturgy, lighting design and production, media and drama education, musical theatre, performance arts, prop-making, puppetry, scenic art, scenic construction, costume construction, scenography, set design, theatre sound, stage management, technical and production management and writing.

Central, with over 850 registered students and a faculty of 50 specialist academic staff claims to be "the UK’s largest and most wide-ranging specialist drama institution" [http://www.cssd.ac.uk/coursespec/under/BAAC%20Course%20Spec.pdf] , says that the School's staff is the "largest grouping of drama/theatre/performance specialists in the UK", and that the postgraduate body is "one of the largest gatherings of specialist Postgraduates in Europe". [ [http://www.cssd.ac.uk/postgrad.php/30/research_degrees.html Cssd Postgraduate Courses - Research Degrees ] ] While retaining the conservatoire ethos of its world-famous actor training programme and its industry-focused specialist technical theatre training, it has also recently developed its research profile, and recruited its own doctoral students. In 2005, the School became a largely independent college of the federal University of London and was designated the Centre for Excellence in Training for Theatre by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Honorary Fellows include Declan Donnellan, Richard Schechner, Jude Kelly, Ronald Harwood and Catherine Tate.

Notable alumni

* See also .

Famous past students include:

*Joss Ackland
*Rodney Ackland
*Riz Ahmed
*Hajaz Akram
*Peggy Ashcroft
*Ewan Bailey
*Paul Bailey
*Rae Baker
*Jill Balcon
*Lynda Bellingham
*Gael Garcia Bernal
*Claire Bloom
*James Bolam
*Jeremy Brett
*Fern Britton
*Ben Browder
*Michael Cacoyannis
*Phyllis Calvert
*Jim Cartwright
*Oliver Chris
*Julie Christie
*Jeremy Clyde
*Lucy Cohu
*Pauline Collins
*Wendy Craig
*Anna Cropper
*Peter Davison
*Dame Judi Dench
*Shaun Dingwall
*Amanda Donohoe
*Christopher Eccleston
*Jennifer Ehle
*Michael Elphick
*Rupert Everett

*Jonathan Firth
*Carrie Fisher
*Jerome Flynn
*Barry Foster
*James Frain
*Martin Freeman
*Dawn French
*Demetri Goritsas
*Selina Griffiths
*Trevor Griffiths
*Philip Glenister
*Suzanna Hamilton
*Alex Hassell
*Will Houston
*Jason Isaacs
*Ann Jellicoe
*Alice Krige
*John Laurie
*Derren Litten
*Rebecca Lenkiewicz
*Jon Lord
*Cherie Lunghi
*Susan Lynch
*Angus MacFadyen
*Anna Madeley
*Sarah Manners
*Virginia McKenna
*Neil McPherson
*Kim Medcalf
*Leonie Mellinger
*Camille Mitchell
*Stephen Moore
*Ashley Mulheron
*Aoife Mulholland

*James Nesbitt
*Graham Norton
*Tracy-Ann Oberman
*Laurence Olivier
*John Owen-Jones
*Richard Pasco
*Tom Payne
*Neil Pearson
*Harold Pinter
*Ben Price
*James Purefoy
*Lynn Redgrave
*Vanessa Redgrave
*George Rose
*Julian Rhind-Tutt
*Natasha Richardson
*David Robb
*Bruce Robinson
*Tony Robinson
*Jennifer Saunders
*Rufus Sewell
*Emma Stansfield
*Catherine Tate
*Ann Todd
*Kathleen Turner
*Mary Ure
*Deepak Verma
*Zoe Wanamaker
*Lalla Ward
*Michael Ward
*Kevin Whately
*Finty Williams
*Mary Wimbush
*Frank Windsor
*Irene Worth

References

External links

* [http://www.cssd.ac.uk Central School of Speech and Drama] – Official Website