About
Red Players Academy
The Academy
At RPA, our principal aim is to help enable young people to express themselves artistically and socially through our highly dynamic and innovative approach to workshops and performances. Uniquely, in addition to more conventional actor-training techniques, RPA has a specialist focus on creative movement and contemporary performance; it is our core belief that authentic, truthful expression is what often lies at the heart of great performance – we therefore seek to push boundaries, to challenge the young performers we work with to question themselves and the world around them, to first find a voice and to then embody it and use it.
Informed by a wealth of specialist knowledge on acting and performance practice, the latest academic research, as well as first-hand experience in industry, our committed ethos to performer training is eclectic and somewhat unconventional but produces demonstrably rich results. We firmly believe that via this exclusive and unrivalled approach – i.e. placing emphasis on the four core tenets that inform and underpin our method: expression (through authentic feeling and emotion); embodiment (through movement and physicality); play (through energy and chaos); and discipline (through focus and control) – we provide our students with an elite programme that offers a solid foundation from which to think, feel and behave more interestingly, passionately, creatively, artistically and successfully.
Our approach is therefore warm yet professionally rigorous, demanding and disciplined but highly rewarding – by focusing on both the individual and the collective, we facilitate a creative learning experience like no other: this is the RPA way!
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Courses
Our holiday programmes are designed to offer an insight into RPA’s approach to professional performer training and theatre making. What makes RPA different is a combination of both our unique and innovative approach to performer training (the process) and the methodology behind our own creative practice (the product). Our
programmes therefore introduce participants to a wide variety of practical and theoretical material via an equally wide range of teaching methods. Combining drama, acting, and movement exercises, our workshops are highly energised, personal, and inclusive, designed to produce an ensemble of performers who each have an understanding and shared ownership of the Academy, their collective ideas and creative practice. From our week-long intensives during the holidays, to our 4-6 week short courses running throughout the year, our workshop programmes provide the opportunity to train with us by working towards a creative project in a professional environment.
Lee Battle - RPA Founder & Director
Biography: Academy principal Lee Battle began his career as a child actor, playing the role of Simon Green in Coronation Street. Further television work followed, with roles in Casualty (BBC), Doctors (BBC), The Royal (ITV), Wire in the Blood (Coastal), the BAFTA winning BBC drama The Street, and ITV's Vincent alongside Ray Winstone. Film roles include starring alongside Stephen Graham in the adaptation of the novel Awaydays (Red Union Films), and acting alongside Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (Universal Pictures). He has performed extensively on stage at venues including The Lowry, Dancehouse, and Harrogate Theatre.
Lee holds a lectureship at the University of Salford, where he teaches and supervises on the Performance department's suite of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, which include 'BA Media & Performance', 'BA Theatre & Performance Practice', 'BA Technical Theatre', 'MA Screen Acting', and 'MA Contemporary Performance Practice'. As an academic, his scholarly practice and research activities are situated within the broad areas of children and childhood in European contemporary performance in theatre and film, creative movement and non-verbal performance practices, and post-Stanislavskian acting methodologies.
Lee has a first class degree in English & Drama, and a Masters degree in Creative Writing for Performance in association with the Royal Exchange and Bolton Octagon Theatres. Lee is also a fully qualified teacher with a PGCE in Academic Practice, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
As the founder and Artistic Director of Red Players Arts & Media, an independent theatre and film production company based in Manchester, Lee has written, directed and produced a number of theatre and film productions, including theatre-in-education outputs, and award-winning short films screened at national and international festivals. He later founded the performing arts school Red Players Academy, where he continues to deliver short courses and masterclasses, and then Red Players Management, through which he works as a casting agent to young performers.
Lee is now most active as a lecturer, acting coach, and workshop facilitator, and also offers freelance consultancy in the areas of theatre and media for schools and education providers, the creative industries, and community and commercial sectors. He is based between the UK and abroad, working internationally as an arts consultant and educator.
To enquire about working with Lee on a workshop or project, please contact directly: lee@redplayers.co.uk
