Principal: Professor Gavin Henderson

Central aims to combine the best traditions of the conservatoire with the cutting edge innovation and enquiry you would expect of the best university departments.

Central is a university-sector specialist college established in 1906 and recognised world-wide as a provider of conservatoire higher education in dramatic arts practice.  Based in Swiss Cottage, north London, Central has a staff base of 145 (55 academic) and over 400 visiting tutors.

At present c.900 students are taught across three undergraduate programmes and a portfolio of specialist postgraduate courses, as well as short courses and summer schools, cover the full range of performance techniques and genres including acting, design, voice, music theatre, puppetry, drama education and teaching, drama therapy and applied theatre. Postgraduate programmes (c.300 students) constitute the largest platform of specialist drama-related provision in the UK.

With effect from September 2005, Central became a federal college of the University of London and in the same year became the only drama school to be designated by the Higher Education Funding Council for England as the Centre for Excellence in Training for Theatre (CETT).

Alumni include: Laurence Olivier, Cameron Mackintosh, Judi Dench, Julie Christie, Gael Garcia Bernal, Harold Pinter, Vanessa Redgrave, Carrie Fisher, Graham Norton.

 

 

For more information about Central School of Speech and Drama, please visit their website at www.cssd.ac.uk