The School opened in October 1946, eight months after the founding of its parent
Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company, in a room above a fruit merchant's warehouse in the Rackhay near the stage door of the Theatre Royal, with support from
Sir Laurence Olivier. (The yard of the derelict St Nicholas School, next to the warehouse, was still used by the Company for rehearsals of crowd scenes and stage fights as late as the early 1960s, such as for John Hale's productions of
Romeo and Juliet starring the Canadian actor
Paul Massie and
Annette Crosbie, a former student of the School, and
Rostand's
Cyrano de Bergerac with
Peter Wyngarde. Students from the Theatre School frequently played in these crowd scenes and fights.) The School continued in these premises for eight years because of the Old Vic's lack of funds in the post-war decade until 1954 when the Company produced a small-scale end-of season topical musical for the entertainment of regular patrons and to allow the actors to 'let their hair down' after a season of mainly serious productions. This musical,
Salad Days by
Julian Slade and
Dorothy Reynolds, proved very popular with Bristol audiences and was subsequently transferred to London's
West End where it was an instant hit and played for more than four years, making it the longest running production in West End history at the time. £7,000 from the
Salad Days profits – a large sum in those days— was given to the School towards the purchase and conversion of two large adjoining Victorian villas at 1 and 2 Downside Road in Clifton. In 1995, the enduring benefit to students of that donation was formally recognised when a new custom-built dance and movement studio in the School's back garden was named the
Slade/Reynolds Studio. Many members of the theatrical profession have taught at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. This included
Rudi Shelly,who joined the teaching staff only two weeks after the School opened in 1946 and was still working into his nineties. Alumni from around the world gathered in Bristol for his funeral at which the eulogy was delivered by alumna
Stephanie Cole. Apart from students of the School, over the years many established actors from around the world sought out Rudi Shelly's master classes when visiting or working in England. At the time of the School's move to its current premises in Downside Road, Clifton, in 1956, the Principal was Duncan (Bill) Ross,who had succeeded the first Principal, Edward Stanley in 1954. After guiding the School through seven difficult years that are nonetheless still regarded by his former students as a golden age, Ross left in late 1961 to take up a teaching post in the USA. Soon after the departure of this much-loved principal, other key staff members resigned, including
Daphne Heard and Maggie Collins, and Paula Gwyn-Davies, the School Secretary. After a short interregnum under the actor
Richard Ainley, in 1963 the post of Principal was taken by Nat Brenner, a distinguished actor and theatre technician and, at that time, general manager of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. Brenner's stewardship was regarded by students of the time as another golden age. He remained in the post until 1980, when he was succeeded by Christopher Denys, who retired in the summer of 2007 to be replaced by Paul Rummer On the 6th January 2025, the school announced it would no longer be accepting applications for undergraduate degree programmes, and not admitting any new undergraduate students from September 2025. The school will "continue delivering our distinct suite of intensive postgraduate courses and exciting, accessible short courses", blaming the change on financial issues caused by increasing costs and decreasing income as faced by other institutions. ==Courses==