Keith Bruce
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow will admit the first students to a new degree course tailor-made for deaf performers at the start of its new session on September 28.
The eight students, seven of them Scots and another from Eastern Europe, will begin a BA Performance in British Sign Language and English, which has been five years in development with specialist theatre company Solar Bear and is the only one of its kind in the UK.
Speaking at yesterday's launch of the new season at the Conservatoire, Deputy Principal Maggie Kinloch said that the course would fill a need for access to training for deaf theatre-makers and actors for the screen and live theatre to perform and create shows, and had been developed in consultation with the BBC, agents and casting directors, as well as Solar Bear and the National Theatre of Scotland.
"There has been a very positive response from the profession and I think over the next three intakes we will see many more applicants and opportunities for graduates," she said.
The new course has attracted an additional £250,000 of new money from the Scottish Funding Council and the 2015 class will be followed by another of a minimum of eight students in three years, when they have completed their degrees. Professor Kinloch said that the Conservatoire, which boasts of its record in students finding employment, wanted to be sure that the sector could provide work for those studying on the new course. Playwrights and directors will be invited to work with the hearing-impaired students as an opportunity to learn about writing for and working with them.
The course, which will be run by returning Conservatoire graduate Claire Lamont, will include public performances in years two and three, and a touring show, co-produced by the RCS and Solar Bear, in the final year. In Europe, only Sweden and Moscow currently have conservatoire courses designed for deaf performers.
RCS Principal Jeffrey Sharkey yesterday launched the new season brochure of work open to the public at the Conservatoire, saying that it should cease to be "the best kept secret in Glasgow." In November, the RCS is providing a home for two shows that were due to play at the Arches after their success on the Edinburgh Fringe, Caroline Bowditch's Falling in Love with Frida, and Joan Cleville Dance's Plan B for Utopia.
BA Acting students are celebrating Robert Louis Stevenson with stagings of Kidnapped (directed by Graham McLaren of the National Theatre of Scotland) and The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, and the 450th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare with productions of The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and a Midsummer Night's Dream project in partnership with Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow University and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. A season of Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts dedicated to pianist Hilary Rosin begins with Professor Sharkey performing Schumann's First Piano Trio at the end of October.
The new season also sees the launch of a new £5 ticket scheme for under 26s in partnership with student accommodation provider Liberty Living, with the cheap tickets available to any young person for every RCS show.
www.rcs.ac.uk
Herald x-ref: Neil Cooper writes about Solar Bear's new production Kind of Silence on page 17.
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