Teaching Theatre Skills Online

Presenters:

Professor Jonathan Pitches - University of Leeds

Dr Amy Skinner - University of Hull

What is to be gained when hands-on approaches to teaching and learning theatre move into the digital world? What are the challenges of teaching theatre online? Shouldn’t actor training in the studio remain in the studio?

This illustrated lecture was streamed live in June 2020 and was co-presented by Prof. Jonathan Pitches and Dr Amy Skinner. It reflects on five years of experience of running a theatre training course on the online platform FutureLearn. Years before the global pandemic moved everything online, Russian Actor Training (Vsevolod Meyerhold’s biomechanics) was being taught to students across the world, using a mix of video lectures, artists’ interviews, discussion forums and practical exercises. Here, we reflect on what has been learnt over the years, speculating what this experience might tell us about the future of teaching practices.