Applications to technical theatre courses on the rise

Leading drama schools have reported an increase in applications to technical and backstage courses in the past 12 months.

London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA) says applications are “through the roof” after it put its technical courses on university application platform UCAS.

Meanwhile, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama has said the last academic year brought a continued rise in applications following five years of “stability”.

The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama reported an uplift in numbers to its design course following a drop in numbers three years ago, while Mountview has seen “a bit of uplift this year”, although added it was “not quite where we would like to be”.

Reporting from The Stage added that LAMDA, Mountview and Central have all seen small improvement in the diversity of their technical and production cohorts alongside the rise in application numbers.