Conference of Drama Schools
organization
The Conference of Drama Schools (CDS) was the organisation which represented the top 21 accredited UK drama schools in the United Kingdom from 1969 until 2012.
History
Originally founded in 1969 as an educational charitable organization it changed to company status on the 29 June 2000, originally the 22 member schools offered courses in acting, musical theatre, directing, and technical theatre. On 31 July 2012, it merged with the National Council for Drama Training to form Drama UK.
Members
Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA)
The Arts Educational Schools (ArtsEd)
Birmingham School of Acting
Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (BOVTS)
Cygnet Training Theatre
Drama Centre London
Drama Studio London (DSL)
East 15 Acting School (E15)
Guildford School of Acting (GSA)
Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD)
Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA)
The Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre (The Manchester School of Theatre // ManMet)
Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts
The Oxford School of Drama
Queen Margaret University School of Drama and Creative Industries
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA)
Rose Bruford College (RBC)
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD)
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly RSAMD)
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (RWCMD)
References
Sources
Richardson, Jean (1998). Careers in the Theatre. Kogan Page Publishers.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Conference of Drama Schools” is organization. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Conference, Drama and Schools, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “organization” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5159906. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 2012, 2000 and 1998.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Conference of Drama Schools”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Conference of Drama Schools primary sources, Conference of Drama Schools archive and Conference research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Conference of Drama Schools”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Conference of Drama Schools” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.