What
CDS Conference 2008
Conference Working Party
Niamh Dowling, Head of School of Drama, Manchester Metropolitan
University
Saul Hyman, CDS Executive Secretary
Richard Ings, Conference Facilitator
Maggie Kinloch, Director School of Drama, Royal Scottish Academy
of Music and Drama
Alastair Pearce, CDS Chair & Principal, Rose Bruford College
Speakers
Alberto Bonilla is on the teaching faculty of The New York
Conservatory for Dramatic Arts School of Film and Television. He studied
at Arizona State University, The British American Dramatic Academy
in Oxford and Rutgers University. Alberto has numerous theatre,
television and film credits and was part of the 78th Street Theatre Lab
where he wrote Walking To America, published in Plays and
Playwrights 2005.
Robert Hewison is Professor of Cultural Policy and Leadership
Studies in the Department of Cultural Policy and Management at City
University, London. An associate of Demos, he helped to devise the
Clore Leadership Programme. Robert has published extensively on
John Ruskin and postwar British arts and culture. He writes on
theatre for the Sunday Times and chairs the National Student Drama
Festival.
Dame Janet Ritterman has spent much of her career working in
higher education, most recently as Director of the Royal College of
Music and Visiting Professor of the University of Plymouth. Active as
consultant and adviser on music, the arts and higher education here
and abroad, she now chairs a review group advising the Higher
Education Funding Council for England on exceptional funding for
institutions.
Lawrence Till is currently the producer and director of the BAFTA
Award-winning Channel 4 Series Shameless, created by Paul Abbott.
Over fifteen years he has commissioned over forty new plays and
produced almost two hundred and has been nominated three times
as Best Director in the Barclays/Theatrical Management Association
British Regional Theatre Awards.
The Conference of Drama Schools
The Conference of Drama Schools Ltd
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Editor Richard Ings | richardings@blueyonder.co.uk
Design + print |
Picture credits | Ellie Kurtzz and Francis Ware
will drama
CDS members
schools
look like
ALRA – Academy of Live & Recorded Arts
Arts Educational Schools London
Birmingham School of Acting
in ten years?
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
Central School of Speech & Drama
Cygnet Training Theatre
Drama Centre London
Drama Studio London
East 15 Acting School
GSA – Guildford School of Acting
The 2008 Annual Meeting of the Conference
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
End of conference ‘Provided that
of Drama Schools (CDS)
institutions are agile,
Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts
LIPA – Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
recommendations are alert to the changing
environment and act
The drama school of 2018 will be responsive to
three main ‘drivers’: the ambitions of its students,
successful drama school will argue convincingly that its work
within widening participation, employer engagement and
LAMDA – London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art the needs of its industries and the climate of cultural innovation is not only of artistic value but also a sign
Manchester Metropolitan University School of Theatre
On cultural leadership while there are still public funding. Elements of each of these are of a healthy society that the taxpayer should support. The
Consider how could CDS become a stronger voice within alternatives, there is already discernable. An autonomous drama school school will need to define what it is doing, why it is doing it,
Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts
a wider cultural context. every reason to believe today which is not responsive to these drivers will why it is valuable to society and why the right students can’t
Oxford School of Drama be expected pay for all of it.
Create a CDS conference based on training for cultural that the future for the probably not be an autonomous drama school
QMU – School of Drama & Creative Industries come 2018.
leadership. best drama schools From these general points another inevitably flows,
Rose Bruford College
Seek funding (or collaboration) for a leadership initiative should be a positive one.’ It is clear that a shift in responsibility for funding our sector is concerning the differentiation of drama schools. With the
RADA – Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
for senior staff in drama schools – placements, mentoring, Dame Janet Ritterman already underway. The introduction of top-up (variable) fees and student morphing into an investor, and public money from the
RSAMD – Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama
coaching, courses and so on. student loans, together with limits placed on other funding annual cheque into an unreliable income stream that must be
RWCMD – Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama streams such as the Dance and Drama (DaDA) Awards, earned, comes the need for each school to be yet more
explicit about what it does and why it does it. Without this
indicates that increasing responsibility for funding education
On funding will rest on the main beneficiary of that education: the graduate. clarity students are less likely to invest and governments less
CDS should engage in focused and long-term ‘pre-emptive’ The cap on variable fees is likely to rise in a few years, whilst likely to buy – for who would risk their money on an institution
unable to define its mission, purpose and ambition? The days
lobbying, professionally led – this should focus on ‘retelling’ some institutions are already arguing for the cap to be removed
have passed when the student took on trust the competence
our story, emphasising the positives. completely leading to colleges charging what they wish. From
this expansion of ‘the market’ and contraction of the ‘public of the college or the government or the public-spirited
sector’, several likely consequences flow. altruism of any institution. The social stakes are now too high,
the hit to the student’s back pocket too painful.
On links with creative industries First, the student becomes a customer perhaps more
Alastair Pearce, CDS Chair.
explicitly aware than at present of what their money is buying.
Appoint an industry-linked president.
This is likely to encourage successful drama schools to
reinforce yet more strongly their links with allied industries into The Annual Meeting of the Conference of Drama
Schools was held in May 2008 at The City Inn,
which their graduates hope to move. Industrial placements and
Manchester. This report of its deliberations is
On drama training shared teaching are thus more likely to grow in importance as is
aimed not just at CDS members but at anyone
the provision of long-term continuing professional development
CDS to explore the current state of training for 11-18 year (CPD), allowing the graduate to continue to benefit from the wanting to know how this sector is trying to
olds – particularly the quality available. college’s expertise and links with industry. The student thus engage with the future and the challenges it
Regular symposia - perhaps as a fixed feature of the becomes an investor in their own future. And like any investor might bring – reaching out to potential partners
they will expect to see a return on that investment. The deal is a vital part of this process. The following
annual conference – with a range of theatre, TV and
becomes quite simple: ‘If you’ve accepted me onto your course pages examine three kinds of challenge:
film directors. financial, leadership and pedagogic.
we have a shared responsibility to ensure I have a sustained
career – that’s what I’m buying.’
Secondly, as the student pays more the state will pay less.
What will it be buying? It will purchase ‘public value’ – education
and training that whilst beneficial to society is unlikely to be
delivered through the market. Within this changed world the
The
challenges
we face
From NICE
to nasty
The financial challenge
‘We are a critical moment – the credit cycle
has turned, prices are rising and we are
travelling along a bumpy road as the economy
“rebalances”. Almost everyone will feel the
pinch, perhaps especially those relying on
public funding. As the Governor of the Bank
of England has remarked, the NICE –
non-inflationary consistent expansion – decade
is behind us.’
‘Provided that institutions are
agile, are alert to the changing
environment and act while there
are still alternatives, there is every
reason to believe that the future for
the best drama schools should be
a positive one.’
Dame Janet Ritterman
What might be the consequences of this
downturn for the drama school sector?
It is likely that Government funding will fall
as a percentage of total institutional
income, meaning that more money will
need to be raised from other sources.
The emphasis on public value, defined by
achievement of national targets, will deepen
and the criteria for exceptional funding will
be tighter. Institutions like ours will suffer
from the way the national education budget
is divided up and size may become an
issue if greater emphasis is placed on
formula funding – it is noticeable that the
words ‘small’, ‘specialist’ and ‘premium’
have disappeared from HEFCE’s lexicon, to
be replaced by ‘exceptional’ and ‘targeted
allocation’. For our sector, this implies the
‘funding of last resort’.
Although changes in terms of student
tuition fees are less predictable, changes
there will certainly be – including changes
to student grants. Although the cap on HE
undergraduate tuition fees will remain in the
short term, it is probable that those fees will
represent a higher proportion of total
institutional income by the end of the next
decade – and institutions will be funding
a larger proportion of them through
scholarships, bursaries and fee remission.
The ongoing transformation
of tertiary education
Proof that the tertiary sector has been
transformed can be found in comparing our
own sector twenty years ago – when there
were 17 general colleges and 42 specialist
colleges – and the situation now, following
the huge expansion in higher education
begun with the 1987 White Paper. Most
general colleges have grown (or merged)
to become universities, with only one
college still to reach 4,000 students, whilst
specialist colleges have dwindled to 19.
Following the election of New Labour in
1997, this has been accompanied by
increasing centralisation and the imposition
of a ‘social contract’, tying public funding
to the fulfilment of explicit social and
economic purposes determined by the
government. There has been a combination
of rapid growth in student numbers with a
reduction in the proportion of public
funding of teaching – and a plethora of
education policies and initiatives for
institutions to cope with. Further education
colleges are to get degree-awarding powers,
while 20 new HE Institutes have been
announced – and skills, funding and public
value are all being reviewed.
If demographics alone are considered,
things are set to change – after peaking in
2010/11, the number of 18-20 year olds
(who account for 67 per cent of full-time
HE entrants) will begin to decline by more
than twelve per cent over the following
decade. Although it is likely that the
demand for higher education will continue
to come from those aged under 30 –
especially in our sector, where the ratio of
applications to places is also very high – it
may well be that there will be fewer
potential students of the traditional kind
and more who will expect more – and
different – things. In particular, students
are now looking not just for technical and
administrative competence but for social
and personal support – quite worrying,
given that performing arts, ranked 33rd out
of 41 subject areas in the 2007 Student
Satisfaction Survey, is perceived as being
better at providing learning resources and
admin than teaching and personal
development.
Accentuating the positive
In the discussions that followed with
delegates, a number of ‘opportunities’
were gleaned from these ‘threats’. One,
exemplified by the publication of Creative
Britain: New Talents for the New Economy
by the DCMS, was the creativity and skills
agenda; the sector – whose business is,
after all, entirely about creativity and skills –
could establish a confident dialogue with
government. As partly private institutions,
drama schools have a strong track record
in drawing on funding outside the box and
from the private purse, which bodes well.
Most important of all, the passionate
commitment in the sector could – and
should – push schools (and CDS) beyond
their current dialectic of ‘conviviality and
competitiveness’ and towards a more
unified approach to lobbying and
campaigning for support.
The sector is flexible enough, it was felt,
to adjust to changing agendas and
government, and to shifts in student
expectations but, if one element is needed
most, it is greater visibility to the outside
world. This can be achieved in modest
ways – ensuring, for example, that schools
are all included in the relevant university
and career guides – but also
in more ambitious ways, working
collaboratively within and beyond the sector
and with institutions inside and outside
education. It is time for partnership.
Reach for the top
The leadership challenge
‘Business leadership is measured
by share price, earnings per share
and the bottom line. Cultural
leadership is evaluated by creativity,
audience engagement and the
commodity in which there can be no
futures market: trust.’
Prof. Robert Hewison
A recent phenomenon amongst drama
schools has been the appointment of
directors and managers who do not come
from within the sector, who may lack
specialist knowledge and who may have
trained in other disciplines – and not always
in another artform. Does this mean that
there is a dearth of leadership potential in
the sector itself? Or does it mean that
running a modern drama school, perhaps
because so many are now integrated into
universities, requires a range of skills that
few in the sector have had the opportunity
to acquire? These questions raise even
wider questions about what ‘leadership’
might actually mean in a creative context –
and where (and how) good management
can also deliver ‘the vision thing’.
As someone involved in devising the Clore
Cultural Leadership Programme, Robert
Hewison is well aware that until very
recently indeed, leadership in the cultural
sector has been thought of as something
that emerges spontaneously. Very often it
has taken the form of a charismatic person
who virtually creates an arts organisation
in their own image. Robert suggested to
delegates what had led to the belated
realisation that this was no longer a viable
vision of leadership.
‘Until the turn of the century, the cultural
sector got by on what has been called,
pejoratively, a “culture of professionalism”.
It was believed that professional subject
expertise – be it curatorial knowledge or
artistic flair – should be more highly prized
than ordinary management skills. Then, for
a number of reasons, including persistent
under-funding, there was a series of
spectacular crises in leading cultural
organisations: the Royal Opera House,
the RSC, English National Opera and the
British Museum. Although the crises
manifested themselves as financial, it was
believed that a failure of leadership was
responsible.’
Since the turn of the millennium, the
business sector has moved from a focus on
management to a concern with leadership,
and its constituent skills and behaviours.
This is partly because management is, in
essence, about dealing effectively with a
predictable and stable situation. The
economic weather we have now moved
into, shaped by the sudden shifts of a
globalised market, is far less predictable
and stable. What is needed now is not a
routine response but flexibility and creativity
– two characteristics of good leadership.
Unfortunately, recent research seems to
indicate that the demand for leadership is
not matched by supply. One study cited by
Robert indicates that the most desirable
qualities managers want to see in their
leaders are inspiration, strategic thinking
and foresight; what they get, in the main, is
personal ambition – only one per cent of
respondents rated their leaders as excellent.
Designing the ideal leader
To try to determine what particular
characteristics of leadership might be
required in the drama school sector, Robert
held a workshop to ‘design’ a leader
for a 21st-centry drama school. Ideas were
pooled, ranging from ‘having an eye for an
opportunity’ and ‘taking calculated risks’ to,
more intriguingly, ‘intimate distance’ –
meaning how a leader needed to engage at
two levels, with the immediate issue or
person but also strategically.At this point,
Robert introduced a typology of leadership:
the transactional leader, who is, in effect, a
good manager; the transformational leader,
who is the charismatic visionary whose
personal drive often raises the game for the
whole organisation (a type often encountered
in the arts); and the relational leader, who
also has vision and is competent at
management but who leads consensually.
Clearly, these are overlapping models and
individuals might display a range of skills
and behaviours to suit particular situations,
but they are useful in thinking about what
might be most effective approaches to a
rapidly changing culture. If the transactional
approach is inadequate in the new
economic weather, there are problems,
too, for the transformational approach. As
Robert explained, the visionary maverick is
now faced with the ‘audit society’ – a world
of ‘targets, tables and testing’ brought into
being when the state withdrew from direct
participation in the economy and tried to
make its own bureaucracies behave more
like businesses. Worse than all the
measurement has been the erosion of trust:
‘The leader was no longer free to lead; the
manager was more and more the servant
of external demands driven by the
government’s agenda.’
In these circumstances, a leader who can
create consensus – and trust – within and
beyond the organisation is urgently needed.
That conclusion was reached, too, by
delegates who ended their discussion with
this list of what makes an ideal leader:
Skills communication, knowledge,
good management, strategy,
observation, analysis.
Behaviours visible (to staff and to
outside world), able to listen and to
admit limitations, empowering, flexible,
clear, decisive, aware that no one person
can be a guarantor of an
organisation’s health.
Get with the
programme!
The pedagogic challenge
‘This industry has just got
tougher. Talent is not the crucial
factor for this generation – the
actors that will survive today are
the ones who have – and use –
electronic access to the latest
information.’
Alberto Bonillo
‘Knowing your lines means being
able to access the emotional
intelligence of a character, their
inner life. This requires curiosity
and courage. Curiosity makes us
knock on the door and courage
takes us through it. As adults we
can lock down and become
secretive and timid. That’s not
what I expect of actors.’
Lawrence Till
In considering the strengths and
weaknesses of drama training, keynote
speakers Lawrence Till – working in UK
television – and Alberto Bonillo – working
in New York theatre – brought contrasting
but complementary messages about
drama training. On the one hand, a plea
for actors to rise to the challenge of
galvanising our increasingly anodyne
small-screen culture, both through
discipline – turn up on time, know your
lines – and by taking greater emotional
risks. On the other, a wake-up call to
those training actors about the crucial role
that new technology is already playing in
their lives, from online auditions and
‘webisodes’ to learning how to film and
edit their own presentations.
The actor gets connected connected but to develop new skills, ones
that are not staple ingredients on most
Alberto sketched a sample day-in-the-life drama school curricula. So, added to the
scenario of a New York actor on the first
demand to ‘act, dance and sing’, the
rungs of their career: student actor now has to know how to
operate and perform before a single
On waking, downloads a podcast of camera – and before multiple cameras.
vocal warm-ups.
They have to be prepared for a rapidly
changing media scene, where new
Checks email - making virtual contact
opportunities – acting in four-minute
with professionals through Breakdown
webisodes on the Internet – vie with new
Services & ActorsAccess.
challenges, such as ‘green screen’ acting
and the impact of HD-technology on
Checks iPhone and finds invitations
close-up work. And, if student debt
to two auditions.
becomes as serious here as it is in the
States, more actors will need to know how
Checks Facebook and MySpace for
to perform in commercials – one way out
publicity on current play.
of financial crisis, as Alberto himself
Pays Equity dues online to save discovered as a young actor.
waiting in line.
All this implies, too, that those who teach
actors will need to bring themselves up to
Leaves the apartment and heads to
date with new technology and media
audition, a call-back from
developments.
McDonalds for an ad.
Although the advertisers are in
Chicago, the audition happens in a
web conference and there is instant
feedback,.
Meanwhile, the actor’s manager
(based in LA but ‘bi-coastal’) has
sent a PDF detailing a new HBO
audition to the actor’s iPhone.
After the call-back, the actor tapes
and edits an audition, emails it to
manager straightaway and uploads
it onto actor’s own website.
Spends the rest of the day checking
emails and submitting headshots
and résumés electronically.
The advent of this brave new world –
where casting is done over the web, in a
video conference and in real time – means
that an actor has to be able not just to stay