Best Acting Program in the Best Theatre Town

Put bluntly, the IES direct enrollment program to the Gaiety School of Acting is the single best theatre program for an acting student who is also looking for foreign culture immersion. Gaiety puts you directly into their class of first years, creating an ensemble-focused curriculum that allows you to make lifelong friends with native Irish students. This gave me the opportunity to see Dublin through their eyes and experiences, giving me a whole new appreciation and love for my temporary home.

Dublin is the best city for theatre-lovers I've ever visited. You can see shows at the historic Abbey Theatre, learn about the rich tradition of Irish theatre while at Gaiety, and see and read the work of some of the best playwrights like Sean O'Casey, Marina Carr, and Conor McPherson. The best part is that you can see the vast majority of the best theatre in town for about 15 euro a seat (a far cry from the billion dollars you need to pay to see Hamilton this summer).
At Gaiety, you will take about thirteen classes, with some being just an hour and half a week while the more crucial ones are about 11 hours a week. These are everything from traditional conservatory classes like Acting, Voice, and Movement, to special skill classes like Singing, Mime, and Stage Combat. However, the greatest class Gaiety offers is Manifesto. In this class, every student gets to create short pieces of theatre, through which actors find their purpose in the field, what story the want to tell, and how they like to tell it. For example, through my four pieces I created, I found out that I enjoy doing stylized, minimalist pieces with a lot of audience interaction.

My experience in Dublin was so wonderful that I'm already looking forward to going back. And when I do, I will have great friends in my classmates, tutors, and even IES employees who I can't wait to see again. There's no other program like Gaiety out there. If you're gonna go abroad, go here.