The Stage

Trinity Dublin to launch drama academy with help from RADA

Published Monday 7 December 2009 at 10:17 by Anthony Garvey

A new academy for the dramatic arts, to train actors, directors and designers, is to be established at Dublin’s Trinity College, in collaboration with RADA.

The project is being funded by a trust set up in memory of Cathal Ryan, an arts lover and son of Ryanair founder Tony Ryan, who died three years ago. His daughter, Danielle, a RADA graduate, announcing details of the plan in Dublin at the weekend, said it had always been her father’s ambition to create such an academy in Ireland.

She added: “The Trust and Trinity share a common passion to create a training academy that will have a world-class reputation in the dramatic arts, one that will enable Irish students to realise their ambitions.”

RADA will be involved in designing the academy courses and in staff and student selection. Director Edward Kemp, who was present for the announcement, described the project as “a significant milestone” in the development of theatre and related media within Ireland, and internationally. He also paid tribute to the role of Trinity College in producing “so many of our great writers and playwrights”

The first student intake is planned for the 2011/12 academic year. Places will be limited, with entry by audition and/or interview. The academy will offer a three-year degree course in acting, a two-year higher diploma in stage management and technical theatre, plus a master’s course in fine art, specialising in playwriting and directing, as well as stage, lighting and costume design.

The announcement of the academy comes just two years after Trinity College provoked controversy and criticism by axing its degree course in acting, the only one available in the Irish Republic, reportedly on cost grounds. One of the critics was Trinity graduate Michael Colgan, director of Dublin’s Gate Theatre.

Welcoming the latest announcement, he said: “When I heard that we were going to get an independent academy for the dramatic arts, in association with Trinity and RADA, my first thought was that Godot has finally come.”