06 Jun Two Essex schoolboys win places at prestigious London stage school
Two schoolboys from Essex have a lot to celebrate after securing places at a full-time drama school in London.
Josh Warden, 15 from Wickford and attends attending Beauchamps High School, and Josh Hassall, 16, from Chelmsford, who attends Great Baddow High School, will both be taking up places at PQA Studios London in September after wowing judges at his audition earlier this year.
Actor Pauline Quirke, who is best known for her role as Sharon in the hit BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather, is the brains behind PQA Studios London, a new full-time drama school.
The new academy is for young performers aged 16 and over and will offer Diploma level and Foundation training in performing arts. The academy is based in the original Poor School building in Pentonville Road, Kings Cross, which closed last year after three decades, just a stone’s throw from where Pauline herself went to school, and discovered acting, at the age of nine.
Pauline’s team has completely renovated the building, which now has a fully equipped in-house theatre and several large, high spec studio spaces, and it reopens as PQA Studios London in September 2018.
Both Josh Warden and Josh Hassall, who auditioned in front of a panel of industry judges to secure his place, will be studying on the two-year Diploma in Performing Arts course, at the end of which, he will be awarded an OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma in Performing Arts (a Level 3 qualification); the equivalent to three A Levels, for entry into professional vocational diplomas/HE institutions.
The next audition day for entry in September 2018 is June 14. Applicants must have five GCSEs (grade A* – C) and the audition takes a full day. Partial and fully-funded scholarships are available.
Information about additional audition days will be added to the website, pqastudios.com
