Hope Mill producers launch musical theatre academy

Producers at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre are launching a new part-time musical theatre academy for performers in the North West.

It will focus on training people in musical theatre and is the brainchild of Katy Lipson, from Aria Entertainment, and Joseph Houston and William Whelton, founders of Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester. All three currently programme work for the venue.

The Hope Aria Academy will offer training from April 2019, with courses taking place in Manchester on Monday to Wednesday evenings. There will be regular guest teachers in acting, singing and dancing. Agents and casting directors will be invited to an end-of-term production.

The academy is aimed at people who have trained professionally and are “looking for a fresh approach to training within a smaller, more focused atmosphere”. It will also suit individuals not yet ready to take up a full-time drama training.

The course will run over 12 weeks, costing £150 a week. The organisers said a scholarship would be launched once the academy is launched and that a full-time course would be rolled out in 2019.

“Having been performers and creatives in our own right, we’ve always been totally immersed in our own training and the training and development of other performers. There is nothing more crucial than being trained by people actively working in the industry – people who see the changes occurring within the industry,” Lipson, Whelton and Houston said in a joint statement.

“It is an absolute honour to invest in yet another creative business in Manchester and hope that our Academy becomes part of the iconic training grounds for performers in the UK,” they added.