The Playing Space Gold

This course gives young adults and adults an intensive preparation for the LAMDA gold-medal exam (Grade 8). Currently The Playing Space offers Gold courses in:

• Acting (solo)
• Acting (duologue)
• The Speaking of Verse and Prose

2010 Courses will run between these dates:
Monday 6 September – Friday 11 December

LAMDA exams at The Playing Space will take place on:
Saturday 11 December 2010
Sunday 12 December 2010

Students attend five hours per week (2½ hours per day over two days). The course runs for fourteen weeks. At the end of the course, a LAMDA examiner visits our studio to examine students.

Entry to The Playing Space Gold is by interview (incorporating a short audition). Please contact us for dates and times.

The LAMDA gold medal

The gold-medal exam (Grade 8) is the culmination of LAMDA’s Graded Examinations system for young actors. It is an essential prerequisite for anyone wishing to take the PCertLam (the LAMDA Certificate in Speech and Drama: Performance Studies).

Gold-medal acting students are expected to demonstrate sophistication and maturity in:

• creating and fully inhabiting a character
• portraying a character’s thoughts, moods, intentions and objectives
• communicating subtext and context
• demonstrating vocal and physical flexibility and dexterity
• acting in accordance with style and period
• understanding and discussing dramatic texts
• understanding and discussing the acting process and acting theory

Gold-medal verse-and-prose students are expected to demonstrate sophistication and maturity in:

• using the voice to express the form and style of a text
• engaging with and expressing the emotional content of a text
• communicating subtext and context
• sight-reading
• relating a writer’s life to his or her work
• understanding and discussing a range of literary texts
• understanding and discussing verse form, figures of speech, metre and rhythm
• understanding and discussing modulation, articulation and projection

The gold-medal exam is marked as follows (maximum score is 100):

80+ Distinction
65–80 Merit
50–65 Pass

LAMDA exams are part of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF). The bronze-, silver- and gold-medal exams are recognised within the UCAS tariff for UK university entrance. A Merit in the exam gains the same number of UCAS points (60) as an A at AS level. There is plenty more information on our LAMDA exams page.