10 February 2021
Italia Conti preparing to take up residency at Woking’s Victoria Place
One of the world’s oldest and most respected performing arts institutions, Italia Conti, is preparing to take up permanent residency at Woking’s Victoria Place.
Incorporating its sites at Barbican, Clapham and Guildford in one new home measuring 47,000 sq ft over two floors in a new state-of-the-art building, Woking will play a key part in its future growth and expansion.
Inspiring careers and nurturing individuality, Italia Conti has an outstanding global reputation for providing quality training in acting, musical theatre and dance and offers a range of courses to around 500 students.
Famed for producing top talent in the performing arts arena, it features diverse luminaries as Sir Noel Coward, Martine McCutcheon, Bonnie Langford, Pixie Lott, Patsy Kensit, Derek Hough, Kelly Brook, Daniel Mays and Zaraah Abrahams among many others, as well as more recent alumni, Olivier award-winning Sam Tutty (title role in Evan Hansen), Layton Williams (Everyone's Talking about Jamie), Kedar Williams Stirling (Netflix - Sex Education), Daniel Francis Swaley (BBC Small Axe) and Tonye-Scott Obene (Best recent graduate at the Black British Theatre Awards).
“The main characteristic of Italia Conti is the collaborative and interdisciplinary approach we bring to everything we do,” Italia Conti Principal and CEO Samantha Newton said. “This approach, along with the vibrant atmosphere of the college, underpins the success of our students and makes for a superb training environment.”
“The role of the college is to help talented students harness their dedication to become communicative triple threat artists, with the pure passion and understanding to reach within themselves to affect and move audiences.”
Vice Principal and COO Hayley Newton-Jarvis added
“To push our student courses and to continue to provide excellent training, we need to provide excellent facilities. We wanted to be part of something big, but also something new as we felt this was a new era for Italia Conti. So, we went with a town that was already renovating and became part of a multimillion-pound transformation in Woking.”
As part of its suite of courses, it offers a BA (Hons) in Musical Theatre, BA Hons in Acting, a Cert HE in Acting (all validated by University of East London), a three-year Diploma in Professional Dance and Diploma in Professional Musical Theatre (validated by Trinity College, London), a Diploma in Dance Education (validated by the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing ISTD), a Diploma BA top-up course (subject to validation) and a Cert HE (subject to validation).
In addition, Italia Conti runs a summer course for children aged between 5 and 18 years old. Through its network of Associate Schools, Italia Conti offers training for children aged between 3 – 18 years old covering dance, music theatre and acting, including Acro, aerial, ballet, contemporary, Hip-Hop/Street, Jazz/Modern and Tap as well as singing.
Credit: WeAreWoking
