AADA is the home of young and emerging theatre artists who are passionate about acting, creating and producing their own work.
Building on a 25-year reputation as an independent theatre school in Sydney, AADA is now a department of the Australian Institute of Music (AIM). AIM is a Higher Education Provider with over 40 years experience in music education.
The Bachelor of Performance degree is AADA’s new undergraduate theatre course providing unique professional training in contemporary theatre performance. It nurtures the talent, technique and temperament of the actor, the creator, and the producer, making it unique amongst acting schools and drama schools in Australia.
A vital alternative to mainstream acting courses, each student in the program is given maximum opportunity to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes in the full suite of theatre arts. These range from acting to design, from dramaturgy to marketing.
At AADA we seek to nurture students’ individual creativity and artistic excellence; to instill professionalism and determination; to facilitate creative exploration and innovation; and to engage with current artistic debate. We encourage students to challenge the imagination in ways that are unique to live performance; to create works in contemporary and traditional theatre spaces; and to engage with the full breadth and diversity of human experience and expression.
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"The Bachelor of Performance is a bold new voice in Australian theatre training.
We hope you’ll help us spread the word" - Andrew Davidson, Head of AADA |
The Pilgrim Theatre
The Pilgrim Theatre at 262 Pitt St is where most of our great AADA productions take place. The Pilgrim Theatre is based in the historic Pilgrim House in the centre of Sydney, and is committed to producing theatre of the highest artistic quality and integrity, producing and presenting plays which bridge the gap between fringe and mainstream theatre.
 VIEW the AADA Performance Gallery
Development of AADA Courses
Over the past decade, public universities across Australia (with few exceptions) have turned their backs on the performing arts and converted the humanities into “general studies”. The demise of both Theatre Nepean at the University of Western Sydney and the Music Theatre degree at the Victorian College of the Arts provided a call to action for the the private sector in performing arts education.
In 2007, Andrew Davidson was appointed Head of AADA, and proposed the following: “That contemporary theatre training be allowed to thrive in a secure educational environment of nurture and respect, genuinely connected to the practices and practitioners of Australia’s independent theatre scene. That emerging generations of theatre artists be offered a space in which to gain skill, to explore, to create, to debate, and to innovate.”
The Australian Academy of Dramatic Art (AADA) now provides that space. In 2007-08, with the support of members of the theatre and education communities across Australia, AADA developed and submitted the Bachelor of Performance degree for accreditation to the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET). In 2009, AADA welcomed its first intake of Bachelor of Performance candidates.
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