Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique (CNSAD), Paris (France)

The Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique is a higher education and professional acting school under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture.

The Conservatoire’s main mission is to deliver a highly specialized education in the field of dramatic arts, including practical and theoretical knowledge necessary for a professional acting career. The Conservatoire, created more than two centuries ago, is deeply established in the French cultural and theatrical life. It proposes a program opened to a various field of artistic and esthetical approaches. This program is in constant evolution notably thanks to the frequent renewal and the personalities of the professors, all professional working artists recognized in their domain, and to the collaborations established with other art schools be they French or foreign.

Higher education for actors
The Conservatoire proposes to about 30 students by promotion a cycle of superior education during three years, leading to a National superior diploma for professional actors. Each year, the curriculum is designed to promote the possibility for students to develop their particular practical, technical and theoretical knowledge and to affirm their individual artistic personality.
• 1st year: weekly courses (acting, singing, dancing, fencing, mask, clown, acting in English, history of theatre, diction…);
• 2nd year: weekly courses completed by master classes of one to four weeks directed by invited artists;
• 3rd year: no more weekly courses, exclusively workshops directed by professional stage directors leading to public presentations. Those workshops are created in complete professional conditions.

The Conservatoire is historically an acting school. However, a large number of French directors have studied at the Conservatoire. Realizing this fact, for the very first time in 2015-2016, the Conservatoire is offering to six acting students the possibility to complete their training with courses dedicated to stage directing.