Students from the academy have been chosen to become part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) first ever young acting company – RSC Next Generation ACT.

Students from the academy have been chosen to become part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) first ever young acting company – RSC Next Generation ACT.

Students Adam, Kieran and Paige will join 17 other young people who all demonstrated exceptional talent, focus, commitment and passion, when they took part in a series of masterclasses that took place across the country earlier this year.

The masterclasses involved 180 students from the RSC’s Associate Schools Programme, and were held in Cornwall, London, Kent, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, York, Hull, Bradford, Blackpool and Stoke. The 20 members of RSC Next Generation ACT are all aged between 12 and 16 years old, and were selected by a panel of RSC actors and representatives from the RSC’s Casting and Education departments. Alongside an obvious talent for acting, they were looking to recruit young people who might ordinarily find it hard to break into a career in the theatre.

Drama teacher Lyndsay Yale said, 'This is a great achievement as the students auditioned against thousands of students across the country for a place in the Next Generation Theatre Group. There have been only twenty students selected from across the country and I am absolutely delighted that three of the students were from our academy.'

Adam, Kieran and Paige joined the rest of the RSC Next Generation ACT company members last week when the group came together for the first time in Stratford-upon-Avon on the 14-16 September 2017. During their inaugural weekend as a company, the young people were introduced to key staff and departments at the RSC and attended skills-based workshops and classes run by some of the world’s most experienced actors, directors, voice, movement and text experts. The group also attended mentoring sessions with established RSC actors and began to familiarise themselves with the play they will perform at the end of their first year together in July 2018.