Dr Benjamin Archer
BA (Hons), PGCLTHE, MA, MPhil, FHEA

For six years Benjamin was head of acting at The Performing Arts Depot, a specialist performing arts college in Bedfordshire.

He spent two academic years as an associate lecturer in acting and performance at Buckinghamshire New University, teaching on their BA Acting and BA Performing Arts programmes.

Benjamin also spent three years lecturing at The University of East London on their postgraduate programmes: MA Acting, MA Theatre Directing and MA Acting for Stage and Screen.

Benjamin's research focuses on creating accessibility in actor training. Through his PhD research he developed a pedagogy for performing Shakespeare, drawing on Stanislavski’s ‘system’, Elizabethan acting practices, and First Folio Technique.

Current approaches tend to position the text and its analysis in verbal reasoning as the initial point of departure for the actor, leading to character much later in the process. This often privileges actors and actors in training from academic backgrounds and disadvantages those from more performative backgrounds. Benjamin’s research focus on a character driven approach will leads to an understanding of the text and the requirements of the verse drama and heightened rhetoric prose through practice rather than verbal reasoning.