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.