History

He was also engaged with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Webber Douglas Academy , directing plays in repertory and introducing a BBC television series, Making a Play.

On its part the Education Department provided the first complement of Maltese full-time tutors of drama, namely Mario Azzopardi, Carmel Aquilina and Alfred Mallia, all experienced theatre directors, who had to organise, with the British counterparts, a programme of Theatre-in-Education for schools in Malta and the sister island, Gozo.

In the evening, the three tutors joined other pioneering staff to train students in reportory theatre, according to MTADA’s terms of reference.

The Maltese staff’s remuneration, as well materials and supplies required for the running of the new drama institution was the responsibility of the Manoel Theatre.

It should be said that from the beginning, all acting training courses at MTADA/Malta Drama Centre have always been running on a part-time basis.

The original intake of students was limited, but by the end of the Seventies, the number of students was approaching 100, divided into Junior classes for 14-18 year olds and Senior classes for 18-plus students. Both levels followed theatre-training schedules planned on alternate days of the week for groups in Voice Technique, Movement, Improvisation, Interpretation and rehearsals leading to full-scale productions at the old University Theatre in Valletta and the Manoel Theatre itself. In the first year, the Maltese staff had increased from three to fourteen, seven working with Junior students and seven with Seniors.

The mission statement set out by the British administration was to develop basic attitudes to acting and production that are professionally aware and so heighten the standard of work which may be done anywhere in the field and which includes direct links with Theatre in Education (TIE). In this respect it should be observed that by the mid-Eighties, the TIE section had developed as an autonomous set-up under the auspicies of the Department of Education, involving 18 teachers who work in schools, across the curriculum. The section, known as Drama Unit, still has its premises at The Malta Drama Centre and uses the main studio theatre for TIE productions in the mornings.

The original emphasis of MTADA was on training in repertory theatre and production related to classical and modern European and American playwrights. The list included, among others, Euripides, Aeschilus, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Webster, Racine, Moliere, Goldoni, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekov, Gorki, Shaw, Lorca, Anouilh, Webster, Pinter, Williams and Miller.

The Malta Drama Centre was established in March, 1977 on the basis of a Technical Cooperation Agreement with Britain. Its original name was Manoel Theatre Academy of Dramatic Art (MTADA) and it was conceived as a tripartite project between the British Council, the Department of Education in Malta and the Manoel Theatre, which enjoys status as Malta ’s national theatre venue.

The British side provided the expertise of Adrian Rendle as the first director of the newly set up institution, as well as a deputy director Peter Cox, a tutor and examiner trained at Loughborough and a number of visiting British tutors. The late Mr Rendle was a professional theatre director, writer and lecturer, as well as an adjudicator both in England and abroad. He was one of the artistic directors of Stage Sixty at Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

By the beginning of the year 2000, the Drama Centre passed under a new director, Josette Ciappara, the only female that was entrusted with this position throughout the thirty-year–old story of the Centre

The courses now included a programme for young people aged 11-14 and a scheme for Technical Production, including training in stage lighting, sound, mask making, puppet construction, props, stage makeup and set design. Overall, the courses amounted to five, but ad hoc specialised programmes were introduced to cover Voice & Physical Theatre, the Alexander Technique and intensive Stage Make Up course. The specialised programmes for the year 2001-2002 included also drama workshops with Edward Bond, a leading British playwright who worked with senior students and tutors for a week.

Commitments overseas continued in Sicily and Budapest .

In 2000-2001, the complement of regular tutors was increased to 20, catering for 293 students (81 males, 212 females).

The Present Situation

At the start of 2004, the Drama Centre (now branded Malta Drama Centre) was assigned with a broader spectrum of objectives under the directorship of Mario Azzopardi, one of the three original local team-mates who had worked with the British counterparts from 1977 onwards.

Now operating within the Further Studies and Lifelong Learning section of the Education Division (Ministry of Education, Youth and Employment), the Malta Drama Centre (MDC) has set out new objectives. The mission statement of MDC from 2004 was defined in detail in Eduforum (October 2004), mouthpiece of the Ministry of Education. Among the key objectives :

the transformation of personal experiences into a creative product based on thought, critical judgement and theatrical action;
the development of communicative skills across a diversity of dramatic methods;
the communication of ideas and feelings through language, liberal expression and physical movement, within real and imagined contexts;
the participation of the Community in theatrical projects to enhance social development and to challenge prejudice and social exclusion;
the training of student-actors to acquire a serious technical variety in dramatic art, related to mainstream and experimental techniques.

The mission statement has been activated concretely in terms of diversity. Besides the introduction of many new courses (from children’s theatre to personality development, drama therapy and musical repertory theatre), The Malta Drama Centre is now engaged in social action programmes. The Community Theatre Group is involved with drama projects for young (drug) offenders, mainstream youths, physically abused women, the elderly and refugees. The Group is also involved in a five-country European Union programme under the Grundtvig Action Scheme, dealing with social issue theatre.

In fact, outreach programming currently forms a vital part of the Drama Centre’s new mission statement in connection with inclusiveness. “The aim is to abandon the idea of hierarchies, of cultural distinctions in view of opportunities, of the chosen few and those left on the margin”. (see The Drama Centre in Kultura 21, magazine of the Malta Council for Culture & the Arts, Oct-Dec 2004, n.5, p.27). In respect of Community Theatre, the Drama Centre perceives it as “an important devise for communities and groups to share narratives, participate in social dialogue, and to break down the exclusion of groups on the margin” (ibidem).

The range of basic and innovative programmes at the Malta Drama Centre take into account the need for students to be exposed to and directly involved in foreign-oriented projects. For one thing, the centre has concentrated on increasing the input of foreign tutor-directors. Between 2005-06 for instance, the MDC has engaged tutors from Britain , Ireland , Austria , Italy , Germany , Slovakia , Russia and Mexico . A section of adult students have also participated in practical Forum Theatre sessions, held in Malta and in Latvia, involving participants from Finland, Latvia, Austria and Greece.

A State institution providing comprehensive drama training, including outreach theatre.

Malta Drama Centre

THE SITUATION AT THE START OF 2010

At the start of 2010, the Malta Drama Centre, now under the auspices of the Lifelong Learning Department of the Division of Education (Ministry of Education, Culture & Sports) is slowly transforming into a public institution for the performing arts. With a population of 430 students, the Centre has extended its courses to include Modern/Jazz Dance and Spanish Dance and virtually all students now sit for overseas examinations with very impressive results. The Centre has entered negotioations with the Malta Qualifications Council to establish European equivalency for the qualifications obtained by students qualifying from foreign institutions through the Malta Drama Centre. The first draft Protocol between the Drama centre and the MCQ has been formulated and presented to the Centre in October, 2009.

Mainstream Drama students enter the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) while Classical Ballet students enter the London Academy of Dance (RAD)exams. Modern Dance/Jazz students have the opportunity to qualify in examinations offered by the Teachers' Association of Dance (UK) and the Spanish Dance group is offered entrance to Alianza Flamenca examinations.

Moreover, advanced Drama students now sit for the Certificate in Performing Arts (PA Cert.) and the Diploma in Performaing Arts (Dip. PA) offered by LAMDA.

The Malta Drama Centre has resumed collaboration with the Manoel Theatre. In 2009 it presented a joint production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis while early in 2010 it will present Arthur Miller's A View from the bridge in a tripartite project involving the Manoel Theatre and the American Center. Meanwhile, the Drama Centre's commitment to social drama has intensified and several groups of students have travelled with interactive projects to Greece, Austria, Germany, France and Italy, under the Grundtvig (EU) scheme. Morerover, the Modern Dance/Jazz section is involved frequently in public performances in association with Local Councils and other public or non-governmental bodies.

The repertory-structured programme left little room for provocative, socially motivated experimentation, but two projects deserve mention. One was a programme of “theatre for the environment”, based on the story of a poisoned river in Japan (Minimata), presented in association with the Malta Peace Laboratory (run by Franciscan monks) and the other, The Disappeared, based on the political turmoil in Argentina, a programme presented in high schools.

By the late 1980s it became clear that the Manoel Theatre could no longer sustain the operations of the Dramatic Academy that was started through British involvement. The MTADA was thrown into crisis, its work was suspended for a period of time and its programme taken up exclusively by the Department of Education within the Ministry of Education.

The scheme was frustrated and seriously compromised, and classes were held with difficulty at a public school, in the evenings. The sad situation prevailed until 1994, when the Ministry of Education built a new building, comprising of proper training studios and a production studio to house the Drama Centre (named after Miklang Borg, a Maltese theatre impresario who, between 1884-1934, directed a highly successful company which presented vaudevilles and musical parodies in the vernacular).

The new set-up allowed the Drama Centre to increase the number of its courses and to start taking part in theatre encounters overseas. This period also saw the introduction, under the directorship of Alfred Mallia, of the Ballet courses for children who wished to obtain certification from the Royal Academy of Dance in Britain .