'"Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.” - Martha Graham - drama and dance philosopher.  

 A-Level Drama is a hive of activity where embodied learning requires students to take risks and in doing so, push themselves and their idea of what theatre is and can be.  

What We Study

A-Level Drama is not readily offered in many of London’s top Sixth Forms and we are proud at Sacred Heart to consistently run the course to an exceptionally high standard where visiting examiners and artists compliment our students on their artistry, commitment and creativity.  

A-Level Drama and Theatre Studies students are auteurs. Auteurs are both authors of their own work and adapt the work of others as storytellers, entertainers and disruptors. Students become theatre practitioners themselves who take the theories and practices of renowned dramatists and use these in the creation of their own work, or the adaptation of an established text. In doing so, they construct new meanings and purposes for engaging an audience.  

A Sacred Heart High School Sixth Form Drama student is a professional theatre practitioner who embraces the extreme; taking risks on stage while appreciating the history of theatre.  A-Level students have a fierce theatre literacy that can be communicated through both theory and practice. It is important that students appreciate the social, historical and cultural contexts which dramatic styles have been born out of. While each style and form are a product of their time, it is also a reaction to the dramatic style that came before it. As such, our set texts are classics – Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Small Island from the National Theatre. From here, students embrace the contemporary through a range of key practitioners when making and performing theatre. These practitioners include: Steven Berkoff, The Emma Rice Company, Punchdrunk Theatre, Antonin Artaud and Stanislavski.

Beyond the Classroom

Live theatre forms the basis of everything taught in the classroom and is a living (albeit ephemeral) example of the theory taught in class. How can you cook if you have never been in a kitchen? The same theory applies to Drama – how can you make theatre if you don’t go to the theatre? And at Sacred Heart Sixth Form we are proud to take our students to close to 10 pieces of live theatre a year. From large scale West End productions to tiny fringe theatres in railway arches.  From big-name celebrities at the National to the next generation of actors at RADA we go and see it all to experience what theatre is and can be in the theatrical mecca that is London!  

Students also participate in a range of workshops from companies and artists, including The Bush Theatre, The Lyric Hammersmith, Box House Theatre, Ockham Razor Contemporary Circus and Splendid Productions. Students also begin to attend opportunities tailored to their individual interests. In previous years, students have attended Donmar by Design and participated in the National Youth Theatre summer holiday program as a costume designer and work experience at local theatres.  

Where it might lead 

Students regularly go on to study Drama, Musical Theatre, Drama/English and Film/TV production at university or specialised performing arts schools and conservatoires. Past students have gone on to study at Bristol, Manchester, Warwick, York, Royal Holloway and Essex University. Birmingham University and Royal Holloway University. Students have also successfully auditioned for the Central School of Speech and Drama, Arts Ed, Bournemouth University of the Arts and LAMDA.  

The Sixth Form Drama experience prepares students for a range of university degrees and career pathways both in and outside the performing arts through the creativity and collaborative skills learnt throughout the course. These degrees include History, Theology, Geography, Law, Psychology and Business.