Learn to teach musical theatre and audition to perform at local theatres
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Overview
Learn to share your passion with others
Are you passionate about both performing and teaching musical theatre? Our BA (Hons) in Teaching Musical Theatre is a distinctive and comprehensive degree designed for those who aspire to become highly skilled performers with a deep understanding of pedagogy. Whether you’re aiming to perform professionally, become a specialist dance or vocal coach, or inspire the next generation of musical theatre talent, this course offers the perfect blend of performance training and teaching expertise.
What sets this programme apart is its dual focus: intensive performance training alongside dedicated teaching modules. With an emphasis on versatility, you’ll gain expertise in various dance styles, vocal techniques, and acting, while also developing the teaching skills needed to lead and mentor others in the field. Additionally, students can work toward their Level 4 Diploma in Dance Education (DDE) awarded by the ISTD, enhancing both their credentials and employability.
You’ll also have the chance to participate in multiple performance opportunities throughout the academic year, ranging from Christmas and Summer productions to student-led showcases and an agent showcase in your final year. This combination of rigorous training, hands-on teaching experience, and professional performance exposure makes our programme truly unique.
Key features and unique selling points (USPs):
- Weekly Teaching-Focused Lectures: Gain in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in teaching acting, dance, and singing.
- DDE Qualification: Work toward earning your ISTD Level 4 Diploma in Dance Education alongside your degree.
- Extensive Performance Opportunities: Participate in a range of productions and showcases, including a final-year agent showcase to launch your professional career.
- Mentoring and Assistant Placements: Develop your teaching practice through real-world experience, guided by industry professionals.
- Comprehensive Training Across Genres: Build versatility with training in ballet, jazz, tap, street dance, acting and vocal performance.
Who is this course for?
This course is ideal for aspiring performers who want to complement their artistic skills with high-level teaching expertise. Whether you’re looking to become a professional performer with a robust teaching background or envision a career as a dance, acting or vocal coach, our BA (Hons) Teaching Musical Theatre will equip you with the skills, knowledge, and qualifications needed to excel in a competitive industry.
Join us and embark on a journey where performance meets pedagogy, preparing you for a dynamic and rewarding career in the world of musical theatre!
Teaching and Assessment
How you will learn
You will be taught by a core team of experienced and highly-qualified tutors together with a wide-ranging team of acting, dance and vocal coaches drawn from a team of more than 200 specialist staff.
You will be assessed by a range of assignments including essays, portfolios, examinations, performances, practical work, project work, presentations and seminar discussions.
The Course
What you will study
Core performance and foundational teaching modules
Core performance training is designed to provide students with a solid foundation in essential disciplines, including ballet, jazz, tap, street dance, vocal repertoire, acting, 1-to-1 singing lessons, and body conditioning. This intensive training ensures students develop versatility and technical proficiency across key genres in musical theatre.
Alongside performance training, students engage in foundational teaching modules that introduce them to key pedagogical concepts. These modules include introduction to pedagogy in dance, singing, and acting, methods of teaching: observation and feedback, and psychology of learning in performing arts. Through these courses, students gain an understanding of how to effectively teach and inspire future performers.
Performance projects
Throughout the 3-year programme, students are encouraged to participate in a variety of performance projects. These include Intensive Ensemble Weeks, where students collaborate to create dynamic group performances, as well as Christmas and Summer Productions that showcase their talents. Student-led showcase productions provide a platform for creativity and leadership, while the final-year agent showcase offers students the opportunity to perform in front of industry professionals, potentially launching their careers.
Placement opportunities
To enhance their teaching practice, students can participate in an assistant teaching placement within their training setting, where they will gain valuable real-world experience. Additionally, they are mentored by industry professionals who offer guidance and share insights into effective teaching practices. These placements and mentorship opportunities are instrumental in bridging the gap between academic learning and professional application.
Professional development
Professional development is a key focus of the programme, ensuring students are well-prepared for careers in both performance and teaching. This includes modules on teaching practice and reflective pedagogy, where students refine their instructional techniques through critical self-assessment. Students also work toward earning the ISTD Level 4 Diploma in Dance Education (DDE), which is open to participants across all levels and adds a valuable qualification to their resume. Finally, career development and audition techniques are taught to prepare students for the professional world, ensuring they graduate with both the skills and confidence to succeed.
Modules
Select a year
Grades and Development in Playing, Singing or Dance
This module examines the connections between the measured progress of the young player, singer or dancer and the general creative development of the child.
Sessions are focused on graded development at early stages, with particular attention being paid to the acquisition of aural training and sight reading skills.
You will consider general aspects of repertoire and skill development and will be encouraged to focus at least part of your study on an elected specialist area.
Introduction to Musical Theatre
The module introduces you to key skills in examining repertoire drawn from succeeding periods of musical theatre history, supporting an examination of musical structure with a parallel focus on developments in dance and drama within the genre.
Musical Grammar 1
This module will introduce, reintroduce and familiarise you with a range of aspects of musical structure and its notation. Alongside this, you will present and discuss your work, both individually and in groups 鈥� enhancing skills in teamwork and presentation and building confidence.
Musical Theatre Skills 1
This all-year module focuses on the technical training in dance (jazz, ballet, tap) acting and singing which will form the foundation of your training for musical theatre. You will study a combination of dance technique and routines, acting techniques, vocal repertoire classes, musical styles and performance skills.
Performance Development
This includes your 1 to 1 tuition in your selected instrumental or vocal study.
Professional Resilience
This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce students to a number of different models of successful self-development.
Technique for the Young Performer
You will explore sound approaches to technique and analyse a range of technique strategies as you draw upon your own experience as a learner.
Musical Theatre Skills 2
Building on the foundation of your first year of study this all-year module focuses on further developing your technical training in dance (jazz, ballet, tap, commercial, body conditioning), acting and singing. You will study a combination of more advanced dance techniques and routines, acting techniques including duologues, vocal repertoire classes, musical style and performance skills.
Opera and Operetta
Available in two different delivery modes, this module can be followed as either a conventional weekly series of lectures during semester two, or as a week-long intensive culminating in a staged performance outside the semester period.
Learning is focused on examples drawn from 19th century opera forms, seeking to develop a lively sense of the evolving performance context which came to be described as operetta.
Performance Anxiety
Examine the problem of performance anxiety and stage nerves and study the theoretical background and how to effectively deal with anxiety.
You will look at the performance itself and the surrounding physiological and psychological factors that lead to stage nerves during performance.
This module introduces a wide range of theories from relevant disciplines including cognitive behavioural therapy and neuro-linguistic programming.
Performance Development
This includes your 1 to 1 tuition in your selected instrumental or vocal study.
Preparing Young Musicians for Assessment and Performance
The practical, placement experience allows you to become a beginner all over again by learning a 鈥榥ew鈥� instrument during this term, recreating the feelings experienced by beginners.
Reflections on this experience will inform and shape your approach to teaching in placement contexts.
You will also observe school children in the early stages of learning to sing and will reflect on how the observations relate to their personal experience during the module. Various repertoire, aural tests, scales and sight reading will be included in a broad exploration of assessment, and discussions will cover the pressures or constraints that exams place on students.
Professional Resilience
This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce students to a number of different models of successful self-development.
Psychology of Learning and Teaching
This module explores the psychology, or the internal processes, of both the teacher and student perspective during musical learning. You will develop a general understanding of the historical framework of learning theories and social frameworks with psychology.
Self-Employment, Employment and Visualising Success
This module explores the local and national marketplace and will introduce you to a number of different models of successful positioning within it.
A successful career as a music professional needs to be informed, alongside musical and communication skills, by an understanding of the nature of self employment in business.
This module will seek to develop this, and to encourage a confident approach to the world beyond university, enabling a tailored financial and business planning which encourages an awareness of local markets and circumstances.
The Movie Musical
The module will introduce students to key skills in examining repertoire drawn from succeeding periods of movie musical history, supporting an examination of musical structure with a parallel focus on developments in dance and drama within the genre.
The Musical Theatre Business
You will explore examples of different types of musical theatre performance and the function of a range of professional roles in commercial and publicly funded contexts.
Business Project
This module is taken by Arts Management students and aims to develop competency in business planning and imaginative use of physical and creative resources.
Communicating Music Through Movement & Gesture
This module explores the opportunities that exist for enhanced communication within the formal performance context, using the performer鈥檚 own physical projection of self and personal narrative of intention.
Work will also be developed in a broader context, allowing a deeper understanding of the semiotics of movement 鈥� the kinesic variables which impact upon the viewer 鈥� and the generic codes which attach to the music they play.
Group Teaching
You will engage in workshop activities to explore the potential of strategies and material that could be used in a range of teaching contexts.
You will reflect on relationships between this activity and your practical workshop experience and complete practical experience with a musical group/class/ensemble at the university, a school or a performance centre where you will observe the methods, manner and style of the teacher and then design a piece for that group.
Introduction to Fundraising in the Arts
The module will consider the third-sector in relation to the other two sectors, the legal structures for non-profit organisations and regional variations in regulation, alongside the charity model in at least one other country.
Musical Theatre Skills 3
This year-long module consolidates all the learning in Years 1 and 2, with training in the musical theatre disciplines of dance, acting and singing with a focus on advancing your technical understanding in your final year of study.
One to One Teaching
This module introduces a range of techniques in structuring lessons, communicating expressive and performance based concepts and problem solving designed to create an exciting and stimulating learning experience for individual singers, dancers and actors embarking on the early stages of study.
You will set your own goals in teaching and develop skills in analysing and measuring the outcomes of lessons, using this information to inform planning for effective teaching practices.
Opera
This module takes a chronological approach to the study of the genre, beginning with the early Baroque and offering examples of differing musical styles up until the first half of the 20th century, with a particular focus on the late 18th to mid 19th centuries.
The relationship between narrative and the musical expression of dramatic tension will be explored.
Your lectures will make connections between the function of musical structure and form within individual works and the development of character and plot.
Personal Study (Written)
This module provides you with an opportunity to select an area of study of your choice, to research it and present your findings in written form, and to develop this over an extended period.
Professional Resilience
This module will explore a range of different strategies designed to offer support to the emerging arts practitioner and will introduce students to a number of different models of successful self-development.
Swing Project
This module allows you to enhance your contribution to ensemble performance and to develop your skills in solo work in the context of a large performance project.
Longer term planning, rehearsal and preparation strategies for performance techniques will be emphasised. The module will work towards, and culminate in, a semi-staged performance. You will be required to prepare effectively and thoroughly for this performance.
Facilities
Use industry-standard spaces and equipment
This programme is mainly taught at our 八卦爆料 campus and is located in one of the largest music departments in the UK, with enviable teaching, performance and practice resources.
The ShowRoom
At the heart of the learning experience of the Theatre department is a fully equipped 212-seat public theatre venue - The Showroom.
Learning Resource Centre
The Learning Resource Centre (LRC) contains the library, a caf茅, IT/teaching rooms and the Support and Information Zone (SIZ).
Library
Our campus library holds more than 200,000 books and over 500,000 eBooks.
You will also use the 350-seater Alexandra Theatre in Bognor Regis, on campus recital and orchestral performance spaces and a range of external venues in the UK and overseas.
The Bognor Regis campus is seven miles from the Bishop Otter campus and is connected by frequent buses. Our students therefore have access to both an historic cathedral city and an iconic south-coast seaside resort!
Study Abroad
Explore the opportunity to study part of your course abroad
As a student at the 八卦爆料, you can explore opportunities to study abroad during your studies to enrich your educational experiences.
It’s a chance to broaden your horizons, a great opportunity to meet new people, undertake further travelling and to immerse yourself within a new culture.
You will be fully supported throughout the process to help find the right destination and institution for you and your course. We can take you through everything that you will need to consider, from visas to financial support, to ensure you get the best out of your time studying abroad.
Careers
Where you could go after your studies
Students will be able to enter into a large variety of work opportunities following studying on this course.
Pathways include:
- Dance schools recognised by the ISTD
- Cabaret Clubs Musical Theatre Shows
- Holiday Park Entertainment
- Disney Park Entertainment
- Guest Entertainers in a variety of entertainment settings in the UK and Abroad
Further Study
You could choose to continue your studies at postgraduate level.
Study options at the 八卦爆料 include:
- MA Music Performance
- MA Music Teaching
- PGCE
- PhD/MPhil.
八卦爆料 alumni who have completed a full undergraduate degree at the University will receive a 15% discount on their postgraduate fees.
Course Costs
Course Fees 2025/26
UK fee
International fee
EU/EEA Fee Reduction Scholarship
EU/EEA students automatically pay the equivalent of UK fees via the EU/EEA Fee Reduction Scholarship
For further details about fees, please see our Tuition Fee page.
For further details about international scholarships, please see our Scholarships page.
To find out about any additional costs on this course, please see our Additional Costs page.
Entry Requirements
Typical offers (individual offers may vary):
UCAS
BTEC
IB
IELTS
Auditions
You will need to demonstrate your ability in dance, acting and singing in a performance audition. Applicants with high levels of performance skills may be considered for a lower academic offer.
Contextual offers
We believe everyone deserves an equal opportunity to pursue higher education, regardless of their background.
When we receive your application we consider your personal circumstances and the factors surrounding your achievements to see if you are eligible for a contextual offer. This is an offer with a reduced entry tariff – typically the equivalent of 16 fewer UCAS points (two A-level grades).
Find out more about our contextual offers.
Interviews and Auditions
Auditions and interviews usually run from January until March/April.
We aim to offer you a genuine dialogue during your application process. This gives you a sense of worth and achievement from the audition process itself; a sense of ownership for you during the process and, ultimately, is an opportunity for us to get a clear understanding of who you are, what you need and how we can best prepare you for your degree.
We judge you on your skills, your potential and your personality, not your background.
If you are invited to audition you will receive an email asking you to book your audition date on ChiView. If you are unsuccessful we will email you to let you know.
You can usually choose between multiple days on ChiView at one time. If none of the current dates suit you please contact admissions@chi.ac.uk.
Once you have booked your audition, you will be able to access the audition guidance document on ChiView 鈥� just log into the ChiView portal, click on 鈥楨vents schedule鈥� and then 鈥榁iew details鈥� to access the document, which will tell you how to prepare for your audition, what to expect on the day, etc.
If your situation changes, and you can no longer attend your audition date, you should cancel your booking in ChiView by visiting your 鈥楨vent Schedule鈥� and clicking 鈥楥ancel Attendance鈥�. You also need to inform the admissions team by emailing admissions@chi.ac.uk, so we can send you a new audition invitation.
Sometimes if you are viewing your ChiView portal on a phone, you will not be able to see the page correctly. If this happens you should try again on another device.聽You may need to clear your browser history.
If you are still unable to see the 鈥榁iew details鈥� button, please check that you have successfully booked your audition by clicking 鈥榬espond to interview invitation鈥�.
If all else fails please email admissions@chi.ac.uk with your query and applicant number.
Once you have booked your audition, please log into the ChiView portal, click on 鈥楨vents schedule鈥� and then 鈥榁iew details鈥� to access the audition guidance document, which will tell you (amongst other things) what will happen at the audition itself, a basic itinerary of the whole day, parking information, etc.
In brief, there should be an introductory talk by the department, the chance to meet lecturers and other applicants, as well as your opportunity to perform for the audition panel.
After your audition, the panel will discuss your performance and pass our decision onto the admissions team, who will update UCAS and email you with the outcome, whatever it might be.
- We make bespoke offers: Your offer is specifically for you. If we offer less than your predicted grades, this will reflect the potential and quality of your audition and we鈥檇 like to take a bit of pressure off of you heading into your exams.
- We don鈥檛 do unconditional offers: Unless you already have your grades (you are a mature student), we will always insist on certain grade achievements because we want you to succeed in all aspects of your academic life including your A levels, BTEC, etc.
- If you do not get the grades you wanted: Don鈥檛 panic. You received an offer because you were good enough for the department at audition. On Results Day, just ring us on the clearing hotline, so we can discuss things with you.
- We may offer you a different course: We may offer you a place on an alternative, relevant course within the department, rather than offer you the course you applied for. If this is the case, we will state this in your offer letter/email and update your course on UCAS. We will explain our reasoning, which will revolve around placing you on the most appropriate course where we think you will thrive.
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FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Click the ‘Apply now’ button to go to relevant UCAS page.
Many qualifications have a UCAS Tariff value. The score depends on the qualification, and the grade you achieved.
Head to the web page where you can find a tariff points calculator that can tell you how much your qualification and grades are worth.
