3. Methodology

The first part of our work was to understand the career paths that creative graduates take, the challenges that they face in building sustainable careers and LAMDA’s current approach to preparing students for employment. We also carried out desk research to understand the wider context and identify any examples of best practice from elsewhere in the sector.

We began with a kick-off call with the Steering Group, when the approach was reviewed, documents for consideration agreed and a project timeline approved. We then carried out a series of calls with a selection of staff and alumni from LAMDA to understand the context, and drivers for change.

In order to benchmark with other institutions with similar challenges, we carried out desk research with a group of competitors and held phone interviews with representatives from University of the Arts London, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. We also approached Guildhall School of Music and Drama and their partner Cause41 to learn more about their Entrepreneurs Programme, but received no response from either.

After sharing an interim report with LAMDA on the findings to date, we then held interviews with LAMDA alumni, including those with previous involvement with the Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprises. Finally, we carried out two focus groups with a total of 11 current LAMDA students.

Notes: • We are mindful that much of the content in this report is largely directed at those taking acting courses at

LAMDA. It was not our intention to ignore the other subjects but there was a clear bias towards those on acting courses amongst the alumni and students who contributed to the research. That said, whilst the numbers were small, there did seem to be a trend where graduates from the Directing course were more likely to be involved in creating their own work, which would be worth further exploration. Either way, we hope that our findings will be equally relevant to all courses at the School with appropriate adaptations. • We included international students and alumni in our research and their observations have been incorporated into our report as appropriate. Unfortunately, there weren’t sufficient numbers in our research sample to draw any major conclusions or to develop bespoke recommendations for this group.

Image credit: LAMDA

• The murder of George Floyd took place on 25th May, just as this project reached its half-way point. The subsequent Black Lives Matter campaign placed a spotlight on the lived experiences of black students at drama schools and the racial inequality that is endemic in the sector2 .

We have therefore been mindful of this context whilst carrying out our research and, whilst not the intended focus of our work, committed to including any specific feedback about racial inequality at either the School or in the industry in our report. In practice, none was received. • Finally, where appropriate, we have included sections from our earlier Interim Report, often amended or updated, as we believe it provides helpful and relevant context.

The full list of those people we interviewed can be found in Appendix A and the list of documents provided for review is included in Appendix B. Shortened and anonymised career journeys of six alumni are included in Appendix C and a summary of the benchmarking research is in Appendix D. A complete list of our recommendations and suggestions is included in Appendix E.

1 www.cause4.co.uk 2 www.thestage.co.uk/news/drama-school-racism-students-call-out-top-schools-and-reveal-stories-of-abuse 8