Professional Theatre Awards

The Northern Theatre Company believe in the importance of the individual. This belief is underpinned by allowing each student to develop and extend their artistic skills through the performing arts. It is for this reason that the Professional Theatre Awards were developed, which aim to reward students by supporting their personal and social development through carefully created exams that are suited to their own needs and identity.

The aim of the Professional Theatre Awards in dance and drama is to provide a vocationally structured syllabus reflecting some of the needs of the commercial theatre, whilst still retaining an educational dimension. The Professional Theatre Awards offer students graded examinations in areas of the performing arts not covered by the more specialist speech and drama syllabi. The examinations are designed to be inclusive and can be taken by students in mainstream education as well as through dance / drama schools and performing arts clubs/societies. The syllabus aims to reflect the students’ social and cultural roots and to encourage the exploration of styles and genres from different periods.

Students taking the dance exams do not have to have a history of traditional dance training but rather an aptitude and a desire to dance. Dance exams cover Street Jazz, Cheerleading and Contemporary dance. The drama exams are focused on group and classroom drama offering exams in Scripted work, Musical Theatre and Devised performances as well as Mime and Dance Drama. The approach of the syllabus allows both teacher and students to follow a very carefully designed progression in their work, with graded exams to provide motivation for student achievement.

Further details, and copies of the Syllabus and Information for Centres booklet, are available from
The Subject Officer, Professional Theatre Awards, Samman House, 4 Bowlalley Lane, Hull HU1 1XR
These documents will also shortly be downloadable from this page..