Study at the internationally renowned Flinders Drama Centre. Take your place on stage, on screen or behind the scenes.

Those who create the performances that entertain, enlighten and amaze us are a different breed. The actors, the directors, the makers of stage, film, television and the innovative social media performances that hold us glued to our screens are highly creative, incredibly skilled and dedicated to their crafts.

Flinders Performance degrees span acting, directing and theatre making, and have been designed in consultation with industry. Our teachers are highly skilled creative practitioners who work closely with partners that include State Theatre Company South Australia, the Adelaide Festival Centre, Heesom Casting, Channel 44 and others.

Study Performance at Flinders and you'll have the opportunity to hone your skills in real-world productions across live and digital platforms.

Ranked No.1 in SA
in Creative Arts for learner engagement, skills development, student support and teaching quality.

(The Good Universities Guide 2023 (undergraduate), public SA-founded universities only)

No.1 in SA
in Creative Arts for graduate satisfaction.

(QILT Course Experience Questionnaire 2020 & 2021 (undergraduate) public SA-founded universities only)

Ranked No.5 in Australia
in Creative Arts for skills development and teaching quality.

(The Good Universities Guide 2023 (undergraduate))

Study Options

Bachelor of Performance (Acting)

Hone your acting skills for a career in theatre, film, television, digital media, and beyond.

Study towards one of the world’s oldest and most influential careers. The Bachelor of Performance (Acting) is a rigorous programme designed for those passionate about honing their performance skills and working with like-minded colleagues and teachers. Combining practical, professional actor training with intellectually stimulating study in dramatic history, theory and criticism, Flinders’ acting degree will prepare you for an amazing career.

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Bachelor of Performance (Directing)

Australia’s only undergraduate directing course will help you take the next step in your performance career.

Leadership roles in in theatre, film, television, digital media and emerging technologies demand a mixture of creativity, project management, empathy and discipline. Flinders’ Bachelor of Performance (Directing) will give you the practical skills and knowledge to help guide, inspire and lead others to bring their visions and yours to life.

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Bachelor of Performance (Theatre-Making)

Learn to lead behind the scenes through the design, development, and delivery of live and digital performance projects.

Create original stories for stage and screen through hands-on experience across the production pipeline in the Bachelor of Performance (Theatre-Making). From performance experience and writing to design development and production management, this is an interdisciplinary program that will help you develop the skills and knowledge required to turn dreams into reality.

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Career Outcomes

Potential occupations include:

actor
director
playwright
screenwriter
performance artist
performing and community arts manager
performing arts and events coordinator
producer
dramaturg
stage manager
drama teacher
arts administrator

Potential employers include:

professional theatre companies such as State Theatre Company South Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare Company, Malthouse Theatre or Belvoir
commercial film studios and production houses
television production companies and networks
international festivals such as Oz Asia
Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Cabaret Festival
streaming services
venues such as the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust, Sydney Opera House
arts organisations, statutory authorities, government and council arts departments

Apply now

Please apply via SATAC then you will be able to book your audition.

Application deadline via SATAC:
Monday 27 November 2023

Audition dates:
Monday 4 – Thursday 7 December 2023

Call-back dates:
Friday 8 December and Saturday 9 December 2023.

Make your dreams a reality.

It might be the warm glow of spotlights on your face, the instant feedback you feel from hundreds watching you on the stage, or the thought of thousands seeing your work through the lens. It could be the joy you experience as actors create magic from your direction, or the knowledge that your words, ideas, or ability to pull everything together have helped create a performance that will linger in the audience’s memory.

Whatever your dreams, a Performance degree from Flinders could make them come true.

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Bring performances to life with Australia’s first.

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Flinders was the first university in Australia to offer actor training. Now with over 50 years’ experience teaching acting, directing and the skills required to bring to life live and digital performance projects, Flinders is an established leader and innovator in performance education.

Whether you’re interested in acting, directing or the creativity and planning that goes on behind the scenes, you’ll study with like-minded students and teachers in a supportive, collaborative environment.

Discover where your skills can take you.

A Performance degree at Flinders is the first step towards a career that could take you anywhere. Your knowledge and skills will not only give you an edge in the performance sphere, they are highly transferable.

Develop acting skills that will help you make your mark on stage or screen, and build 21st century skills in empathy and creativity that will help you thrive in any workplace. Your directing studies will give you the leadership skills to guide actors to produce their best performances or help you manage teams in multiple workplace situations. And the creative skill set you will build in theatre making could help you bring to life incredible performances or guide projects across a wide range of industries.

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Meet the creatives

Introducing the Flinders Drama Centre team — our line-up of highly experienced professional practitioners and expert scholars.

The Drama Centre team will prepare you for your performance career with a unique research-led professional training informed by their own celebrated industry careers. The team unites expertise in embodied professional practice with conceptual, analytical and critical thinking skills.

Dr Christopher Hurrell

Christopher is the Drama Centre Manager. He is a stage director and dramaturg who has worked nationally and internationally in the areas of new writing, Shakespeare and musical theatre. He has developed and directed numerous new Australian plays with writers such as Debra Oswald, Stephen Sewell, Caleb Lewis and Justin Fleming. Christopher has directed many of Australia’s finest actors of stage and screen, including Rebel Wilson, AFI Award winners Nicholas Eadie and Victoria Longley and has directed and trained acting students at institutions such as NIDA, the Rose Bruford College, Anglia Ruskin University and La Salle College of the Arts.

Dr Sarah Peters

A playwright, theatre practitioner, and Senior Lecturer in Drama, Sarah's verbatim plays engage with communities to tell the shared stories of experience such as women living with Alopecia in bald heads and blue stars (2014), young people navigating mental health and wellbeing in twelve2twentyfive (2015), growing up in rural communities in Eternity (2017), and pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago looking for belonging in Blister (2019). Sarah's most recent publications include 'Verbatim Theatre and Dramaturgy of Belonging' (2019) and 'A Reflective Practitioner Case Study Researching Verbatim Theatre' (2020). Sarah's practice includes facilitating playwriting and collaborative theatre making projects, most recently with D'faces of Youth Arts and ExpressWay Arts (Carclew) in South Australia.

Professor Chris Hay

Chris is Professor of Drama, a position he took up in 2022 after previous appointments at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), the University of New England (UNE), and the University of Queensland (UQ). He is an Australian theatre and cultural historian, whose work examines funded cultural output for what it can tell us about national anxieties and preoccupations. His new book, Contemporary Australian Playwriting: Re-visioning the Nation on the Mainstage co-written with Stephen Carleton, was published by Routledge in 2022.

Dr Renato Musolino

Renato Musolino is one of South Australia’s most respected, experienced, and acclaimed actors and actor trainers. He has worked nationally and internationally with leading companies including State Theatre Company South Australia, Sydney Theatre Company and Belvoir Theatre. He specialises in Laban Movement Analysis, movement for actors, psycho-physical acting, devising, improvisation, directing as well as text/scene work and has made significant contributions to the development of the Bachelor of Creative Arts (Drama) curriculum, along with the Drama Well-being and Welfare protocols.

Dr Tiffany Lyndall-Knight

Tiffany is an actor, director, and teaching artist. She has performed with theatre companies across Australia and Canada, including State Theatre Company South Australia, Queensland Theatre and eight seasons with Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. On screen she has been featured in many projects, including Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Wanted, and A Sunburnt Christmas, which she also dramaturged. Tiffany has worked as a teaching artist with the University of Adelaide, Flinders Drama Centre, Adelaide College of the Arts, and the University of British Columbia. She also works as a dialect and voice coach with private clients and companies including State Theatre Company South Australia, STAN, and Netflix.

Dr Peter Beaglehole

Peter Beaglehole writes plays and performance work.

In 2022 he received the Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award for his performance text Calendar Days, which went onto development as part of Vitalstatistix's Adhocracy. With RUMPUS he has presented a work in progress reading as part of their Baby Plays’ program, and Strata in their 2020/2021 curated season. Strata was shortlisted in the Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award in 2018 and received the 2016 State Theatre Company of South Australia’s Young Playwrights’ Award. His work has also been staged and presented online in ATYP’s Intersection 2017, published by Currency press, the 2013 Come Out Festival (Now DreamBIG Children’s Festival), and in Critical Stages’ 2021 Come to Where I Am.

He also researches Australian theatre history through the field of Memory Studies, and completed a PhD focusing on six plays by Dorothy Hewett.

Hear from alumni and industry

“Flinders Drama Centre dramatically influenced the course of my life and career. When I started my studies at Drama Centre as an acting student, I was a 19-year-old teenager who had no idea that becoming a theatre director was an option for me. My teachers identified this as a potential avenue for me, and gave me the courage and confidence to pursue directing as a career. Flinders Drama Centre set me up for employment in the industry by teaching me the craft of theatre direction, providing industry placement opportunities, giving me a voice as an emerging artist and teaching me to be bold in my artistic choices.

Nescha Jelk

Co-founder and member of RUMPUS and one half of theatre company Tiny Bricks. Nescha also is a director for the State Theatre Company of South Australia, having worked on many productions.

Benedict Andrews

“The Drama Centre is a unique and vital institution in the Australian tertiary landscape. Its combination of bespoke practical training with the academic foundation of an arts' degree sets it apart from other drama schools. It is a testament to the vitality of teaching at Flinders that so many graduates have gone on to form highly successful independent companies including The Red Shed, Troupe, Brink Productions, The Border Project, Sandpit, and Rumpus. These companies have transformed South Australian theatre by producing innovative, highly contemporary work. Without them, the ecology of Australian theatre would be poorer. My own career as a theatre director and filmmaker is unthinkable without the dynamic, enlightened training I received at the Drama Centre in the 90s. It remains a time of deep inspiration, joyous discovery, friendship, and experimentation. The Drama Centre was a hothouse where my understanding of theatre was nurtured and cultivated. The four years of the BA, with an Honours year, offered a rigorous, exploratory approach that would have been lacking in any less substantial course.”

Benedict Andrews

Award-winning theatre and film director, Benedict is the former Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company, Director at London’s Young Vic, playwright and Drama Centre Alumni

Matt Crook

“At Drama Centre I was encouraged to think critically, to question and interrogate the world around me. It fostered my natural curiosity, empathy and optimism but also forged my determination, tenacity and resilience (necessities in any line of work, particularly this one). More than anything, it gave me a voice. It empowered us as storytellers and it taught us the importance of cultural democracy. I’ve been lucky to work as an actor around the world, exporting South Australian work in places and on projects I’d never dreamed of for the better part of a decade. On each project, in some capacity, I’ve drawn on the experiences, skills and techniques I learned at Drama Centre.”

Matt Crook

Matt is an award-winning actor, theatre maker and graduate of Flinders Drama Centre, working extensively in South Australia and overseas. Film credits include Top End Wedding (2019), Awoken (2020) and One Eyed Girl (2015). Matt has frequently performed for State Theatre Company of South Australia and Windmill Theatre Co.

Ken Yamamura

“Flinders Drama Centre led me to the life I have today. Its intensive acting training gave me everything I needed to get started in the industry. The unique and amazing experience I had there with the world-class teachers and my fellow classmates is irreplaceable, and is the very foundation of my acting career. It allowed me to have the skills and confidence to be able to work anywhere in the world.”

Ken Yamamura

Ken is a Flinders Drama Centre Alumni based in Tokyo. Ken has starred in films such as The Wolverine, Black Mirror: Playtest, 2014’s Godzilla, Earthquake Bird, and People Just Do Nothing: The Movie.

Rosemary Myers

“Many of our collaborators trained at Flinders and include Amber McMahon, Sam Haren, Alirio Zavarce, Jude Henshall, Ellen Steele, Antoine Jelk, Jim Smith, Elizabeth Hay and Katherine Fyffe all of whom have played a significant part in shaping Windmill’s work.

Flinders Drama Centre is South Australia’s leading centre for actor training. The course balances in-depth craft-based skills with direct work on performance projects. The artists trained at Flinders are deeply engaged in ideas and interdisciplinary thinking.

Developing the thinking around the role of the arts and culture to the broader world ensures the artists are rigorous, flexible and engaged.”

Rosemary Myers
Artistic Director, Windmill Theatre Co

A multi Helpmann Award-nominated director, her productions regularly visit leading stages and festivals around Australia and the world, including the Sydney Opera House and New York City’s New Victory Theatre. Her directing credits for Windmill include the multi-award winning Pinocchio and The Wizard of Oz.

Chris Drummond

“The wealth of talent that has emerged from the Flinders University training course over the years is rightly celebrated the world over. Producing both actors and directors – Flinders Drama Centre graduates consistently enter the industry as thrilling emerging artists ready to apply their skills, training and deep knowledge of the theatrical and cinematic arts to an ever diversifying array of new worlds and cultural movements. Grounded as they are in contemporary performance practice, graduates are consistently at the vanguard of new and innovative art and performance-making.”

Chris Drummond
Artistic Director, Brink Productions

Chris was Associate Director of State Theatre Company SA (2001-2004) and became Artistic Director of Brink Productions in 2005. His productions have been presented by most major theatre companies in Australia and have received numerous awards including Victoria Green Room and Sydney Theatre Awards. In 2010 the ABC’s Limelight magazine nominated Chris as one of the top 50 players in the arts in Australia.

Mitchell Butel

“I can say without qualification that the graduates I have worked with from the Flinders University Drama Centre are among the best in the country and best in the world. I have been impressed by the rigour and quality of the Drama Centre graduates’ artistic practice, the depth of their theatrical knowledge, their appreciation of the wider concerns of the sector and industry, their commitment to the advancement of theatre-making excellence and advocacy for the centrality of the performing arts in the Australian cultural ecology.”

Mitchell Butel
Artistic Director, State Theatre Company of South Australia

With an extensive career in theatre, film and television, Mitchell is one of Australia’s most prolific, versatile and awarded acting talents. Mitchell received Helpmann Awards for Best Actor in a Musical for The Venetian Twins, Avenue Q and The Mikado and Green Room Awards for Hair and Piaf.

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Get inspired

Drama lecturer Chris Hay spoke to the Fearless Research team about the Creative Arts / Drama offering at Flinders, why Adelaide is a good place for creatives, and how the sector’s risen to challenges posed by Covid.

Read the Fearless story