Summer Short Courses FAQs

All of our Summer Short Courses are available on a first-come, first-served basis. No auditions, no need for a lengthy application process and no need to submit a CV/resume. You can simply book through the website. 

Many of our courses are perfect for complete beginners.

Please check the individual course pages to find out if you need any previous experience to take part. 

Not at all! Our Summer Short Courses are open to everyone over the age of 18, with no upper age limit. 

We believe that a varied and diverse class of students makes for a much more interesting learning experience, so we encourage people of all ages to apply.

Most courses have a maximum of 16 - 20 students per class. This information can be found on individual course pages.

All of our Summer Short Courses take place at our purpose-built, main campus at Swiss Cottage.

It’s in Zone 2, right next to Swiss Cottage tube station on the Jubilee Line.

All of our courses are interactive and participatory and we hope you’ll arrive ready to get stuck in. In common with our degree and graduate courses, the Summer Short Courses are all about learning by experience – you’ll be up on your feet in a rehearsal room rather than sitting still looking at a PowerPoint presentation in a classroom.

Expect lots of practical exercises, working in groups, pairs and sometimes solo to practise and implement the new skills you’ll be learning in a welcoming, respectful environment.

Please be aware that, by its nature, acting and voice training may be physical and mentally demanding, but also highly rewarding!

Depending on the course, you may be given some work to do outside of the class.

This can vary from learning lines to reading a script to making some notes about characterisation.

It shouldn’t take up too much of your time, and will greatly enhance your learning experience.

Absolutely! We often have students attend more than one summer short course, especially if they’re travelling from overseas.

Very important! Our courses give you the chance to experience conservatoire-style training and as such we take attendance and punctuality very seriously. All of our courses are collaborative in nature and if you’re missing from class it impacts on your classmates too.

All of our courses are run by professional actors, acting coaches and directors and as such it may not be possible to confirm the name of your tutor until just before the course begins.

Rest assured that we only work with the best of the best – all of our tutors have a background in working as professional actors and directors as well as being fantastic, highly experienced, much sought after teachers! 

We are unable to give out the direct contact details for your tutor, but we’re happy to pass on an email on your behalf if you contact the Short Courses team.

As these are short, non-accredited courses, we don’t offer a certificate as standard.

Once the course has finished, we can supply a digital Certificate of Attendance on request, provided that you have attended at least 85% of the course.

Please email the Short Courses team if this is of interest to you. 

Spotlight, the industry directory, does not currently accept part-time, non-accredited courses as a way to get a pin.

If you already have a pin, you’ll be able to list that you took one of our courses under the Education section of your Spotlight page.

Unfortunately not. We need to receive payment in full to confirm your place on the course.

We can offer you a full refund if you decide to withdraw from a Short Course up to 14 days before the course start date. After this point all fees paid are fully non-refundable.

To request a refund, please email short.courses@cssd.ac.uk stating which course and date you have booked on to. Your refund will be processed within 10 working days.

We are unable to defer places to future courses. 

International students who have Student Route visas are allowed to undertake study in addition to their main course of study, such as evening classes, or short courses studied full-time during vacation periods.

As our Evening Courses are part-time and non-accredited, students applying to study on an evening or short course alone are not eligible for a Student Route visa. 

EU students should be aware that due to the UK leaving the EU, many (those without settled or pre-settled status) will now require a visa in order to study in the UK.

For applicants from outside of the UK/EU, if you are aged 18 to 30 and from Australia, Canada, Monaco, New Zealand, San Marino, Iceland, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea or Taiwan you may be eligible to apply for the Youth Mobility Scheme visa which allows you to work and study. 

Before applying, please ensure you have checked whether you’re eligible for a visa that will cover the full duration of the course. More information can be found here.

As a small, specialist institution we don’t have our own student accommodation for any course (including our BA and MA courses).

However, there’s plenty of accommodation available locally to suit all tastes and budgets, from 5-star hotels to boutique youth hostels and lots of AirBnb properties.

Please email us at short.courses@cssd.ac.uk and one of the team will get back to you.