Disciplines and Study Areas

Theater Academies - EU Recognized Theater Schools

Under Article 11 of DPR 212/2005, for the issuance of the 1st Level Academic Diploma in Acting, equivalent to a Bachelor's Degree, for admission to public competitions in accordance with Law 228/12, the Acting Academy, following Ministerial Decree 111 of 15/1/21 which approved the new Educational Order, plans for the A.Y. 2022/23 an intensive study plan, structured in the following disciplines and study areas:

  • Actor's disciplines
  • Acting disciplines
  • Physical and vocal disciplines
  • Dramaturgy and Screenwriting
  • Music disciplines
  • Scenic Design
  • Historical and critical disciplines
  • Linguistic practices disciplines

1st year

Acting Techniques I

Ancient Tragedy

  • Stage presence - Neutral mask
  • Tragic monologue - Text analysis
  • Myths and Rituals
  • Greek tragedy: Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles

Narrative Techniques

  • Eastern and Western tales and fables
  • Mysteries and Sacred representations
  • Narrator/mime
  • Public calls and storytelling

Character Study

  • Gestural anthropology - Archetypes
  • Basel larval masks
  • Character/counter-character construction: Lecoq Method
  • Character construction: Stanislavski - Strasberg Method
  • Character construction in Author's theater

Modern Drama

  • Poetic acting
  • Great emotions
  • Modern drama: cinema and theater
  • Psychology and environments
  • Narrative theater
  • Comic melodrama

2nd year

Acting Techniques II

Commedia dell'Arte

  • Spontaneous and human Commedia
  • The Semi-masks of Commedia dell’arte
  • Characters, plots, gags, and scripts
  • Farcesque themes - Primary needs
  • Binary and modular relations

Molière

  • From Commedia dell'arte to author's comedy
  • Archetypes and satire of customs
  • The Illustrious Theatre
  • Satire of the bourgeois class
  • Satire of the ecclesiastical class
  • Satire of the medical class

Comedy - Irony

  • Comedy: mechanisms and dysfunctions
  • “Comic timing” - The “gag”
  • Improvisation technique
  • Theatrical Clown - The comic duo
  • Anomaly, detachment, innocence
  • Allegorical - Grotesque - Deformation
  • Medieval and modern Jester

Shakespeare - Theater and Cinema

  • Tragedies and Comedies
  • Monologues - Dialogues
  • Text analysis - Verses and Prose
  • The “fool” figure
  • Power, madness, misunderstanding, premonition
  • Catharsis - Scene and counter-scene

3rd year

Acting Techniques III

Modern Theater - The 20th Century

  • A. Chekhov - H. Ibsen - A. Strindberg
  • F. G. Lorca - L. Pirandello - J. Genet
  • F. Dürrenmatt - B. Strauss
  • The avant-gardes and Visual Arts
  • Dadaist Theater - Surrealist - Futurist
  • J. Cocteau - V. Mayakovsky
  • The Theater of Cruelty: Artaud
  • Epic Theater: Brecht
  • The Theater of the Absurd - "Nonsense"
  • A. Jarry - S. Beckett - E. Ionesco
  • G. Perec - H. Pinter - R. Queneau
  • Absurdity in cinema: Monty Python

Modern Comedy

  • Situational comedy and repetition
  • Theater within Theater - Style Exercises
  • English farce: O. Wilde, M. Frayn, R. Cooney, P. Shaffer
  • Eduardo's Comedy
  • Comedy: noir, brilliant, grotesque

Satire and Parody in Current Affairs

  • Current affairs satire
  • Imitation - Caricature - Parody
  • Image and Frame
  • Cartoon and Comic
  • Media Sociology - Dysfunctions

1st year

Cinematic Acting

Acting: Stanislavski - Strasberg

  • Concentration, observation, attention
  • Psychological and behavioral analysis
  • The "ifs" and given circumstances
  • Character motivations
  • Analytical - affective - emotional memory
  • Public / private character
  • Dramatic action and narrative arc
  • Non-consequential interpretation
  • Audition techniques
  • Acting - on-camera acting
  • Repertoire from auteur cinema
  • Framing: shot and counter-shot
  • Acting in close-up and extreme close-up

2nd year

Acting and New Media

Web series and seriality

  • Writing techniques
  • Shooting techniques
  • Site specific

1st/2nd year

Improvisation Techniques I and II

Eastern and Western tales and fables

  • Movement and gesture
  • Word and sound
  • Great emotions and imagination

Improvisation Techniques

  • Gestural decomposition
  • Non-verbal language
  • Silence zones

1st year

Orthoepy of the Italian language

  • Phonology - Pronunciation
  • Syllabification - Phrasing
  • Diction - Orthoepy
  • Tonal height, accent
  • Alteration - Deformation

1st year

Technical reading exercises

  • Prosody - Intonation
  • Impromptu and dramatic reading
  • Intentions and subtext
  • Verse and prose reading
  • Soliloquy - Monologue - Dialogue

1st/2nd year

Techniques of emission, phonetic-articulatory and resonators I and II

  • Rhythm - involuntary breathing
  • Voice projection: sound channels
  • Tonal height - accent - rhythm
  • Natural breathing
  • Autogenic - energy training
  • Facial mask - Vocal training
  • Timbre - Volume - Range - Articulation
  • From technical to expressive speech
  • Organic vocal body
  • Onomatopoeic - "Grammelot"

3rd year

Voice Education

  • Dramatic sound scores
  • Onomatopoeic and sound effects
  • Vocal deformations: falsetto, guttural, altered
  • Verbal automatism - Assonances - Dragging of assonances
  • Break and transformation of feeling in speech
  • The voice and theatrical styles

1st/2nd Year

Verse Acting I and II

  • Tone - Rhythm - Volume
  • Metric laws
  • Rhythmic development
  • Harmony
  • Imagination - Visualization - Interpretation
  • The sound of evocative word

2nd year

Acting in English

  • Drama
  • Intonation and expressive reading
  • Acting for set and stage
  • Elements of English language

Music and Singing Disciplines 1st/2nd/3rd Year

  • Sight-reading and score reading
  • Homogeneous sound and breathing
  • Intonation and intervals
  • Rhythmic and melodic exercises
  • Jazz improvisations and vocalese
  • Acting on musical score
  • Musical - Recital
  • Choral singing - Repertoire pieces
  • Individual and group exercises
  • Consonance and dissonance

Physical Training: Expressive Movement 1st/2nd/3rd Year

  • Relaxation techniques
  • Elements of yoga
  • Bioenergetics
  • Analysis and decomposition of movement
  • The grammar of gesture
  • Rhythm - Balance - Impulse
  • Body expression
  • Feldenkrais Method

Elements of Modern and Contemporary Dance 1st/2nd Year

  • Supports - Pushes - Transmissions
  • Starting points and falls
  • Movement scores
  • Floorwork
  • Spatial orientation and possible combinations
  • Body and space relationship
  • Energy - Time - Space
  • Collective kinetic proposal

Elements of Choreography
3rd Year

  • Kinesphere
  • Architecture of movement
  • Body - Space - Quality - Form
  • Composition systems
  • Macro improvisation systems
  • "Emotions" of feelings
  • Theater and visual arts

Mime and Pantomime
1st Year

  • Manipulation and fixed point
  • Imaginary objects - Daily actions
  • Abstract mimetic gesture: Decroux
  • Segmentation and construction of mimetic phrases: Marceau
  • Actions (pulling, pushing, etc.): Lecoq
  • White pantomime - accelerated - comic strip - cinematic
  • Great Lecoq movements (the raft, the discus thrower, etc.)

Acrobatics 2nd Year

  • Elements of Thai Chi Chuan, Karate
  • Somersaults, wheels, handstands, flips, and acrobatic figures
  • Accidents and Acrobatic Fights
  • Lifts - portair - human pyramids
  • The gesture from everyday to acrobatic
  • Elements and techniques of nouveau cirque

Makeup and Costume 1st Year

  • Theatrical and cinematic makeup
  • Theatrical and cinematic costume design
  • Fabrics and materials

Open Air Theater 3rd Year

  • Figure Theater
  • Writing and screenplay
  • Design and construction
  • Architecture of scenic space
  • Manipulation and acting with objects
  • Moving scenographies
  • Macro and micromanipulation

Textual Analysis and Dramaturgy 2nd Year

  • Text analysis
  • Narratology
  • Composition techniques
  • Development of plot and characters
  • Scene montage
  • Dramaturgical construction
  • Theatrical genres and acting methods

History of Theater and Performance 1st/2nd/3rd Year

  • Theater as a ritual
  • The Greek tragedy
  • Medieval theater
  • Eastern theater
  • Commedia dell'arte theater
  • Elizabethan theater
  • Modern theater
  • The 20th century and the Avant-gardes
  • Great authors in theater history
  • History of Directing
  • History of theatrical theories
  • History of Mime
  • History of Dance
  • History of Cinema

Industry Organization 2nd/3rd Year

  • Copyright and image rights
  • Show project management
  • Marketing, communication, fundraising
  • Live show, cinema, and event production system

Theater Psychology and Pedagogy 3rd Year

  • Training
  • The theatrical lesson
  • Educational path
  • Pedagogical criticism
  • Group dynamics

Writing and Screenwriting 1st/2nd/3rd Year

  • Original writings: plot development
  • Structure and style
  • Writing for Figure Theater
  • Writing the Canovaccio
  • Character profile and history
  • Cinematic writing
  • Themes, time jumps
  • Free adaptation: summarizing a work

Directing - Stage Direction 1st/2nd/3rd Year

  • Directing techniques, styles, and languages
  • The role of the director
  • Structure of a show
  • Choice of scenic languages
  • Linear, analog, surreal directing
  • Casting and actor direction
  • Scenic architecture
  • Music, costume, and scenography

Regulations MIUR-AFAM Theater Academies

The course is characterized by various educational activities: workshops, lessons, seminars, exercises; by individual study or group activities and by performative activities, rehearsals and shows.

Every student must consider themselves, over the course of their studies, available for all activities, both ordinary and extraordinary, whether educational or performative and experimental.

The institutional courses hours range from 5 to 8 hours of lessons every day from Monday to Friday. Each individual course follows its own specific schedule with periods of mornings and/or afternoons depending on the individual and/or group workload. Schedules can be intensified (evening hours and weekends) during the preparation phases of exams and performative and production activities. Each quarter of study concludes with the writing and staging of shows or interpretative demonstrations that involve intensive work rhythms even during evening hours and weekends.

Attendance at educational and performative activities is mandatory. Continuous and unjustified absences lead to exclusion from the courses.

Absence during rehearsal periods for shows or at the shows themselves is grounds for definite exclusion from the Academy.

The percentage of attendance required to fulfill the obligation cannot be less than 80% of the total educational activities, excluding individual and/or group study (Theater Academies - AFAM Acting Schools).

The theoretical subjects and the acting techniques employed by the International Theater Academy - Rome School of Acting are aligned with the programs of the top Theater Academies in Italy, Dramatic Arts Academies, Film Academies, and European Theater Acting Academies, and adhere to the directives outlined by DPR 212/05 (THEATER ACADEMIES - AFAM THEATER SCHOOLS) for the achievement of a 1st level Diploma in Acting. Moreover, the curriculum is consistent with other artistic educational institutions (THEATER SCHOOL / THEATER ACADEMIES / ACTING SCHOOLS / ACTING ACADEMIES / THEATER COURSES), recognized by the EU according to the Programs for European Actor Training (THEATER SCHOOLS / THEATER ACADEMIES / ACTING SCHOOLS / ACTING ACADEMIES / ACTING COURSES).