East 15 Acting School

East 15 Acting School

Hatfields House, Loughton Campus
Type	Public
Established	1961 2000 – merged with University of Essex
Director	Prof. Leon Rubin
Location	Loughton, Essex, UK
Website	www.east15.ac.uk

East 15 Acting School (East 15) is a leading British drama school in Loughton, Essex. The main Loughton campus occupies an 18th-century house, Hatfields, and has its own theatre, the Corbett, which is adjacent. The Corbett Theatre is an adaptation of a 15th-century barn. The re-building and equipping of the theatre was largely funded by the actor, and alumnus of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, Harry H. Corbett. Part of the school is located at Southend on Sea, and is centred on the Clifftown Theatre and Studios.

The school is accredited by Drama UK and its degrees are awarded by the University of Essex, with which it merged on 1 September 2000.

East 15 Acting School was founded in 1961 by Margaret Walker. It grew from the work of Joan Littlewood's famed Theatre Workshop, and the school's name acknowledges its debt - Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop was based at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, whose postal district is E15.

Much of the Littlewood approach was based upon the theories of Konstantin Stanislavski, and the company shared the socially committed spirit of the Unity Theatre movement, which brought many new voices into British theatre for the first time. Theatre Workshop broke new ground, re-interpreting the classics for a modern age, commissioning new plays from socially committed writers, and creating an ensemble capable of inventing new work, such as the now legendary "Oh, What a Lovely War!". Littlewood created an ensemble, who combined inspired, improvisational brilliance with method, technique, research, text analysis, and the expression of real emotions. Over the years, new training methods were evolved to strip actors of affectations, attitudes and ego trips. The quest was always to search for truth: of oneself, the character, the text.