The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

100 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G2 3DB
Tel: 0141-332 4101
Fax: 0141-332 8901
Email: registry@rsamd.ac.uk
Programme Leader - BA Technical and Production Arts: Ros Maddison

Description

Located on Renfrew Street in Glasgow, the Academy complex consists of a wide variety of specially designed studios, dressing rooms, classrooms and rehearsal spaces, including teaching and practice rooms. In addition, there are a number of ancillary facilities in the Academy such as a cafeteria, foyer snack bar, library and IT suite, gallery spaces, meeting and conference rooms and common rooms for staff and students.

Because the Academy is housed in a modern building the facilities are arguably amongst the best in Europe. The Academy complex contains a variety of sophisticated, state-of-the-art venues, which were purpose-built to accommodate different types of performance genre and production styles to varying audience sizes.

The Alexander Gibson Opera School houses rehearsal and coaching rooms and a relatively adaptable performance space for small-scale drama projects and opera scenes type studies, music recitals and concerts.

The New Athenaeum Theatre is the largest performance space and principal auditorium, seating 344. In terms of throughput this venue functions in exactly the same way as any professional producing theatre housing both drama and opera productions. It has stage left dock door access directly into the paint and workshop areas. The counterweight flying system is situated on the stage right side of the space. The proscenium opening is variable and the orchestra pit can be mechanically raised to form an extended forestage.

The Chandler Studio is a flexible space with approximately 100 seats, which are movable, modular units that can be arranged to represent end-on, traverse or promenade staging configurations. The Studio is often used for smaller scale, more intimate and experimental theatre work, but is nevertheless fully equipped with lighting and sound equipment, and has appropriate backstage access to the construction and painting workshops.

The Academy also maintains excellent, fully equipped workshop spaces where both production work and student practical training occur. These facilities are second to none and include wet and dry prop rooms, a scenic art / paint shop, with fully mechanised paint frame, scenery construction space, with separate scene store facilities and workshop training area, a lighting workshop and sound recording suite and a costume workshop with considerable wardrobe stock stores close by.

These workshops and office spaces represent state-of-the-art training facilities. As part of the planning and departmental management remit of the Technical and Production staff and the Technical Services Manager, the equipment contained therein is continually monitored and up-graded to maintain professional specifications and standards