How LAMDA’s Summer Shakespeare Short Course inspired my next acting step
A four-week course can sound brief on paper. In practice, four full-time weeks at LAMDA felt like stepping into a concentrated version of the actor’s life: text in the morning, movement in the body, voice in the room, and Shakespeare waiting to test every choice.
In the summer of 2026, I joined LAMDA’s Summer Shakespeare Short Course with curiosity, excitement, and a fair amount of humility. I expected good teaching. I expected hard work. I did not quite expect the experience to shift my sense of what I might do next as an actor.
By the end, it had helped me make a clear decision: to apply for an MA at LAMDA and continue my work in classical acting.
Four weeks of full-time Shakespeare
The course was full time for four weeks, and it covered far more than simply learning lines and staging scenes. The timetable gave us a broad taste of the craft needed to perform Shakespeare with clarity and confidence.
The work included:
Text and scene breakdown
Acting classes
Theatrical movement and general movement work
Voice work
Singing
Period dance
An introduction to stage combat
That range mattered. Shakespeare does not sit neatly in one part of the actor’s toolkit. The language asks for intellectual precision, but the plays also demand breath, rhythm, musicality, physical command, and a willingness to play.
Some days were about structure and meaning. Other days were about how a body moves through status, threat, love, mischief, or ceremony. Bit by bit, the course made it clear that classical acting is not a museum skill. It is alive, practical, and deeply physical.
Building our own Midsummer
The main focus of the course was our own version of one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. Our merry group of 17 over-25s tackled an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, cleverly trimmed to fit a 1 hour and 10 minute slot.
That time limit gave the work urgency. Every cut and staging choice had to serve the story. There was no space for indulgence. The play had to move, breathe, and land.
Our version was directed by Sophie Russell, a wonderful and highly experienced theatre maker whose feet have trodden the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe many times. Her knowledge of what it means to perform in that space became an education in itself.
She brought a practical understanding of Shakespeare that could only come from repeated contact with the work in performance. Her insights into playing at the Globe, speaking to an audience, and trusting the scale of the language were almost a separate course inside the course.
For me, that was one of the richest parts of the experience. It connected the classroom to a living theatrical tradition. Shakespeare was not an academic object. He was a playwright whose words still ask to be spoken out loud, to real people, in real space.
Theseus, Peasblossom, and the pleasure of contrast
Casting was shared across the group in a way that made room for everyone. Some parts were played by more than one actor, while other actors took on more than one shorter role. That structure gave the production a generous, ensemble spirit.
My white beard and age made me a natural fit for Theseus, the Duke and governor of Shakespeare’s Athens. It was a role that suited my presence, and I enjoyed the authority and formality that came with him.
Yet Theseus appears mainly at the beginning and end of the play. So I was also offered one of the fairies: Peasblossom.
That was a gift.
I chose to take Peasblossom as far away from the expected image of a fairy as I could. No delicate fluttering. No sweet little woodland sprite. My Peasblossom became more like a London East End lout, rough around the edges and full of swagger.
That contrast taught me a great deal. Theseus asked for public control, rank, and ceremony. Peasblossom invited mischief, freedom, and a different sort of physical energy. Moving between the two helped me feel how much a character can change through rhythm, posture, voice, and social temperature.
It also reminded me that Shakespeare gives actors permission to be bold. The text is strong enough to hold unexpected choices, as long as they come from a truthful reading of the world of the play.
And as usual, the play also gave me a chance to practice my prop building skills – which is something I always enjoy.
Learning from a truly international room
One of the most enriching parts of the course was the group itself. We were 17 players from many different countries, all bringing our own histories, accents, instincts, and ways of reading the play.
That made the room larger than its four walls. A scene could shift because someone heard a line through a different cultural lens. A comic moment could open up because another actor brought a rhythm or physical instinct I would never have found on my own.
Those differences did not dilute the work. They strengthened it.
The friendships that grew during the course felt just as valuable as the formal training. There is something particular about bonding through rehearsal. You see people try, fail, adjust, laugh, and keep going. You learn quickly who they are when the work gets difficult.
I hope to maintain and develop those friendships in the years to come. They are part of what I will carry forward from the course.
Penny Cherns and the precision of the text
Alongside Sophie Russell’s direction, I was privileged to receive in-depth text tuition from the legendary Penny Cherns.
Her precision was extraordinary. So was her knowledge of Shakespeare’s writing and interpretation. She has the kind of command that makes a line suddenly become clearer, not because she simplifies it, but because she reveals how much is already there.
Working with her raised my appreciation of the Bard’s skill and value. She reminded us that the actor’s job is not to decorate the text. The job is to listen to it, investigate it, and serve it with intelligence.
That kind of teaching stays with you. It changes how you approach a line before you even speak it. Where is the thought turning? What does the rhythm tell you? Why this word and not another? What is the character doing through the language?
Those questions became part of the craft.
Why the course changed my next step
By the end of the four weeks, I knew the experience had done more than give me a summer of excellent training. It had sharpened my appetite for deeper study.
The LAMDA Summer Shakespeare Short Course gave me a clearer view of the actor I want to become. It brought together the academic and the practical, the body and the word, the ensemble and the individual. It also showed me how much more there is to learn.
That is why it contributed so strongly to my decision to apply for an MA degree at LAMDA. I want to continue developing both my academic understanding and my acting craft within the classical acting genre.
The course gave me confidence, but it also gave me the better gift of renewed ambition. It made me want to work harder, read more closely, move more freely, listen more fully, and keep asking what Shakespeare can demand from an actor today.
For four weeks, I entered a rehearsal room with 16 other people and a shortened Midsummer. I left with new friends, sharper tools, and a much clearer path ahead.
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