Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree founded RADA in 1904 to train actors properly, in the terraces off Gower Street; the Academy remains there, a set of Georgian houses fitted with theatres. Intake is famously small — barely two hundred students at a time — and the training famously thorough.
The roll of alumni reads like a century of London theatre: Gielgud and Guinness mid-century, Anthony Hopkins and Alan Rickman later, Ralph Fiennes and Cynthia Erivo since. The Academy's royal charter dates from 1920, and its three theatres run student productions the public can book — the cheapest way to see the next generation's names first.
Field notes
- RADA's Gower Street façades are Georgian houses — the theatres are hidden behind them.
- Student productions are open to the public; booking is the cheapest form of futures trading in British acting.
- Its 1904 prospectus promised training 'in the art of acting' — the definite article has been defended ever since.
Notable connections
In brief — from the field guide
Herbert Beerbohm Tree's drama school, founded in 1904 in Gower Street townhouses. The smallest institution in this guide by student count — and among the most name-checked on any cast list.
The live encyclopaedia brief loads when available · read the full article · reused under CC BY-SA