The Theatre specialisation is an intensive studio-based training program for actors and theatre makers that prepares artists to become both accomplished performers and skilled devisers of their own work.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre) course is an innovative and unique training program for theatre-makers. Throughout the course, you will develop your own voice and vision as a practising theatre maker and build your expertise across various facets of contemporary theatre practice - acting, theatre making, devising and performing in a variety of contexts and forms, writing, dramaturgy and directing, while also selecting breadth subjects from a huge range across the University to pursue your individual interests.

As a Theatre student, you will collaborate throughout the course with VCA students from other disciplines, including Acting, Writing, Directing, Dance, Interactive Composition, Production and Film & Television. You will have opportunities to engage in company residencies, immersive field trips and study tours, building on existing expertise and approaches to industry readiness for the independent artist and practitioner.

Breadth subjects at each year level enable you to explore cross disciplinary studies from the wider University community, accessing multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills that will build on existing knowledge or present opportunities for you to investigate and develop new interests.

You will

• Develop a command of performance and theatre skills, including body, voice, movement, acting, devising and collaboration
• Gain experience in creating new work from a range of sources and stimuli in a variety of devising and generative contexts
• Participate in an immersive study tour or residency project
• Develop new performance work in collaboration with peers
• Consolidate a working methodology as a performer and as an ensemble company member and theatre maker.

Future pathways

Upon completion of the course, you may choose to apply for a fourth-year Honours degree. An honours year provides an intensive mode of study allowing you to master your specialisation and create a pathway into advanced graduate study options in acting.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre) is a full time immersive and rigorous, intensive studio-based training for the 21st century performer and theatre maker. The course celebrates the creative potential of the performer as a collaborative artist and prepares students to become accomplished actors and highly skilled devisors of their own work.

This course provides students with ongoing training and skills development in performing, devising, movement, voice, collaborative practice and dramaturgy to support the performance and creation of new work. Students experience a range of theatre-making provocations - solo and ensemble practice, site-specific work, applied theatre and contemporary performance.

Students will develop their own practice as theatre artists informed by an understanding of historical paradigms and an application of current methodologies. Students have opportunities to engage in regional and national projects, including site-responsive and applied theatre projects, intensive residencies and multiple public performance seasons.

The program culminates in the creation and performance of fully produced devised works in which students collaborate to conceive, develop, rehearse and present original works. These works are showcased to invited industry guests.

Students will learn from highly experienced staff and collaborate in a range of live and digital theatre making contexts with invited industry professionals. Theatre students also collaborate throughout the course with students from other disciplines and schools at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) including students in Dance, Film and TV and Production.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (Theatre) enables graduates to enter the profession with the capacity to contribute to Australia’s theatre ecology and instigate change and leadership with clarity and skill. Graduates work at all levels of the profession and are renowned for their capacity to work creatively and collaboratively, in both independent and mainstage professional theatre as well as in community cultural development, film, television, radio, new media, and education.

Your breadth studies

As part of your course at each year level, you can select breadth subjects either from our VCA elective subjects, or explore cross disciplinary studies from the wider University community, accessing multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills that will build on existing knowledge or present opportunities for you to investigate and develop new interests.

The breadth subjects available to commencing BFA students include those in fine arts (acting, animation, dance, production, film and television, music theatre, screenwriting, theatre and visual art), as well as music education, Indigenous knowledges, law, languages, psychology, social sciences, humanities, science, marketing and many more.

Find out more about the University’s breadth subjects

Workload

Theatre requires full-time commitment from students: essentially 9am–6pm Monday to Friday, with extended hours during performance seasons.

Sample course plan

View some sample course plans to help you select subjects that will meet the requirements for this bachelor.

300-point program

3 years full-time

Our graduates work at all levels of the theatre, film and television industries, and are renowned for their capacity to work creatively and collaboratively, in both traditional and ground-breaking performance contexts within the multifaceted theatre industry in the Asia-Pacific and beyond as:

• Actors and performers
• Directors and writers
• Devisers and theatre-makers
• Community Cultural Development Artists
• Performance and Live Art practitioners
• Interdisciplinary theatre makers
• Socially engaged artists
• Producers and Programmers

Completed secondary education recently (within the past two years); Completed some or all of a higher education qualification; Completed some or all of a VET qualification; Applicants with wo

TOEFL Internet-based test: total score of at least 79 and scores of 21 for writing, 18 for speaking, 13 for reading and 13 for listening; IELTS: total score of at least 6.5 in the Academic International English Language Testing System (IELTS), with no bands less than 6.0; Pearson Test of English Academic : overall score of at least 58 and no PTE communicative skills score below 50; Cambridge English, Advanced/Certificate in Advanced English (CAE): Cambridge English Score of at least 176 with no skill below 169; C2 Proficiency (previously called Cambridge English: Proficiency (CPE) examination): Cambridge English Score of at least 180 with no skill below 180.