What you will study
You'll explore the history, theory, criticism and practice of theatre-making and writing for performance.
All theatre productions are 'authored' in one way or another, and the course allows you to consider this authorship in its widest sense: you can study playwriting alongside directing, for instance, or alongside acting and devising.
As well as acquiring practical knowledge through masterclasses from literary managers and playwrights, you'll also join our literary community, Writers' Centre Kingston, which hosts an annual programme of events from talks to workshops and festivals.
Each level is made up of four modules each worth 30 credit points. Typically, a student must complete 120 credits at each level.
Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.
Year 1
The main themes of the course: the history, theory, criticism and practice of theatre-making and writing for performance, are introduced in the first year, enabling you to identify and understand the focus that will characterise your learning throughout. You'll be encouraged to make links between these strands from an early stage in one of the core modules, Culture and Performance.
Core modules
Introduction to Creative Writing I: The Writer's Toolkit
30 credits
This module centres upon practical work designed to develop the skills appropriate to the undergraduate study of creative writing. These skills will be focused in the following areas: the analysis and use of published writing; language and style; seminar/workshop practice; and habits of writing, self-reflection and revision. The module will investigate how writers think about their craft and the techniques they use to write most effectively in their various mediums. Weekly lectures will be given by practicing writers who will introduce students to their own published work as well as that of a wide range of other authors. Students will read, analyse and discuss poems, short stories, plays and essays, and will develop a greater awareness of language and style in writing through a variety of exercises. These workshop exercises will allow students to establish guidelines for constructive participation and encourage co-operation and self-reflection.
Writing that Works
30 credits
This module is designed to familiarise students across the humanities with a range of rhetorical strategies, aesthetic techniques, redrafting and editing skills, while also providing the opportunity to practise writing and editing in a number of critical, literary, creative and professional forms. In "Writing that Works" students are introduced to key techniques for writing effectively and they develop their ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in writing by studying exemplary texts in each form. The first strand of the module focuses on writing, techniques. Students create a piece of original writing and this work is then developed in weekly workshop sessions that align with interactive lectures focused on different aspects of writing. The impact that language choices make on the effectiveness of writing will lead on to the discussion of audience, social context, identity and voice. In the second strand, the focus turns to writing in professional contexts. The interactive workshops focus on writing in a number of professional contexts and students practise using a range of techniques and strategies to produce professional documents. The framework of the module, and the core content we aim to transfer to students, is a firm grasp of rhetorical strategies and how to employ them to the best advantage depending on the form in which they are writing, the intended audience for their work and the ideas they hope to share.
The Actor and the Text
30 credits
This module complements and extends knowledge and understanding of key concepts of performance developed in Making Theatre Happen by focusing on the relationship between the actor and the written playtext.
There are two interweaving strands and each is designed to serve as a foundation for your ongoing studies. You will explore fundamental components of drama such as plot, action, character and dialogue and examine ways in which each is presented in a series of written playtexts. These plays are studied in detail and each is identified as a pretext for performance. You are introduced to ways of interrogating the texts and develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the relationship between what is written on the page and what is presented on the stage. The same playtexts are also used to explore a range of differing performance methodologies that can be utilised to identify the performance potentials of a text in a workshop environment. You are led through cycles of Preparation, Exploration and Realisation – understanding what these terms mean and the actions they consist of will be an important aspect of the module. You will not only learn appropriate ways in which to create intelligent and imaginative performance informed by a written text but also develop a range of acting skills necessary to perform them effectively.
Throughout the module you are also introduced to the basic principles of theatre lighting and sound and will be encouraged to explore the impact of these technical elements when used in a performance context.
Culture and Performance
30 credits
The module introduces you to a range of contemporary cultural and critical perspectives on drama, and investigates the relationship between culture and performance. The major emphasis of the module is upon developing a refined understanding of how drama, theatre and performance operate in different contexts. The main features of the module are the investigation of ways in which drama expresses cultural and critical perspectives in practice, and the exploration of theories such as post-colonialism, feminism, and materialism as creative and analytical tools. The module is taught through seminar discussions and related practical workshops, supported by extra-curricular events such as theatre visits. The module is assessed formatively through the presentation of a performance essay and a supporting rationale.
Culture and Performance provides an essential platform for your understanding of drama as a discipline, and helps to deepen your understanding of what theatre is, how and why it is made, and how it makes meaning. The module provides an essential introduction to later drama modules that explore cultural and critical perspectives in more detail.
Year 2
In Year 2, you'll develop an understanding of the relationships between various practices of writing and authorship, and the theatre in its myriad contexts.
You'll be encouraged to read widely, through exposure to a wide range of writers and their works.
Core modules
The Play Today
30 credits
This module is a core requirement for full field drama students. It focuses on new writing and its pre-eminent place in contemporary British theatre culture. Building on skills and knowledge gained in The Actor and the Text and Staging Histories, the module is designed to allow students both to study key plays in depth and also to develop an understanding of the historical conditions that led to the primacy of the 'new play' in British theatre of the post war period. Taking the establishment of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court in the mid-fifties as a starting point, students will study key plays and playwrights in the process acquiring an accurate overview of the styles of writing that have been most acclaimed, influential and/or controversial in recent decades. Particular attention will be paid to British playwriting in the 1990s and the origins, impact and aesthetics of the In-Yer-Face school. Students will also consider the impact of cultural and institutional policies, such as the establishment of the Arts Council and the young writer's programmes at various subsidised theatres - the Royal Court, Soho Theatre - in shaping contemporary drama, its forms and principal preoccupations.
Write Action: Introduction to Dramatic Writing
30 credits
The module introduces you to the craft of writing dramatic scripts for stage, screen and radio. Through a series of practical exercises, writing tasks and feedback you will become familiar with key principles of dramatic writing that apply across the three forms. A refined sense of how 'conflict' and 'action' build suspense, tension, humour or pathos; of how to create characters that draw the audience's empathy; of the importance of 'subtext' and of how to harness the scenographic dimension through stage directions and settings, all contribute to the craft of a successful dramatic writer. In addition, sessions on radio and screen writing will not only introduce students to the specific conventions of these forms but also, in drawing attention to the spoken word and aural dimension (in radio) and visual story-telling (in screen), you will be sensitised to the power of the scenography as a component of dramatic craft.
Optional modules
The Craft of Poetry and Prose
30 credits
In this module, students will have the opportunity to progress their creative writing skills by exploring the relationship between theory and practice. Students will be presented with a range of theoretical and contextual approaches to the production of imaginative work, and will be invited to respond to these provocations through their creative projects. Students will attend interactive lectures whose themes may include psycho-geography, adaptation, narrative techniques for literary authors, history and narrative, identity and aesthetics.
Students will learn more advanced practical techniques for crafting expressive, imaginative work, which will allow them to make more sophisticated use of aspects such as voice, point of view, structure, character, imagery, and tone. The module will entail the reading and discussion of texts by a variety of contemporary authors, whose work reflects the diverse range of styles and approaches at work today. Students can choose to experiment with writing the novel, short story, script for radio, stage or screen, or poetry.
Students will be asked to participate in improving each other's work by offering thoughtful, constructive feedback. Along with developing their own personal sense of voice and style, students will practise applying skills learned on the module to real-world situations faced by professional authors, such as writing a piece for a commission or for a target audience.
It is our intention that the varied writing skills and writing responses generated in this module will add to the employability of its students within creative fields.
Independent Creative Writing
30 credits
This is a dissertation-style module, taught through a combination of small-group sessions and individual tutorials, in which students will have the opportunity to work on a sustained creative writing project of their choosing. They will produce a substantial piece of writing in a chosen form, having undertaken contextual reading in that form and engaged in other research as appropriate, such as location scouting, conducting interviews, or visiting archives and specialist collections. Through group workshops and presentations, as well as one-on-one tutorials, students will receive constructive feedback and guidance on how to plan, structure, write, revise, and edit their projects, and gain advice in developing the skills and habits necessary to working independently. In addition, students will learn how to plan strategies for the possible dissemination and promotion of their projects in the world outside the university, as professional authors would, such as through various methods of publication or performance. By learning to work independently and by planning the dissemination and promotion of their projects, students will acquire the entrepreneurial skills and abilities necessary for success in self-employment and in other professions.
Shakespeare: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
30 credits
This module provides an opportunity for students to enlarge on studies in Level 4 by considering the production history of Shakespeare's plays. Three or four of the plays are studied in depth, and others used for reference. The plays are studied in a practical way, to explore their form and elicit their changing meanings in different theatrical and cultural contexts and at key historical moments. The module explores changing approaches to production since the first performances in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre and evaluates the impact which players and directors and their methods have had on the reception of Shakespeare at different particular moments. The module seeks to pinpoint how the social/ cultural/ political concerns of any given time have been dramatised in productions of Shakespeare's plays. Changing themes are explored to see how they might have been dramatised at different times, as a means of defining what has been meant and what is meant by ‘Shakespeare'. Research tasks include the treatment of the plays in different playing contexts: on the stage, on the screen and in the workshop/ classroom.
An Actor Prepares
30 credits
This module builds on the knowledge, understanding and performance skills students have gained in Level 4 modules, particularly DA4003, The Actor and the Text and DA4001 Staging Histories. It provides an opportunity to explore in detail the key facets of Modernism, as it manifested in theatre and especially in relation on how it impacted on the role of the actor. The first part of the module explores the themes and principles of Naturalism in theory and practice. Students study its historical context and conventions alongside the work of key dramatists and directors who helped to shape it. Scenes from key plays are explored in detail and appropriate processes used to realise them in performance. The second part of the module explores the gravitation away from Naturalism towards the ‘Anti-Realist' modes of the early twentieth century Avant-Garde, including on Symbolism, Surrealism, Expressionism and Epic theatre. The conventions, themes and principles of these movements are explored in terms of their social, cultural and political concerns. Selected texts from key dramatists will be fully interrogated within the workshop/classroom and their influence on the work of the actor today will be examined.
The Theatre Director: crafting productions for the stage
30 credits
This module enables Level 5 Drama students to explore in detail a range of theatre rehearsal and production processes. Students will develop knowledge and understanding of the role and function of the theatre director in relation to the other key members of the creative team: actors, designers and technicians, and apply the skills and competencies they develop to the independent creation and production of theatre performance. The module's initial focus is directorial preparation. Students will use Katie Mitchell's The Director's Craft as a template to explore, amongst other things, production-focused play analysis; interpretation and Dramaturgy; workshopping the text and ways in which to rehearse a scene. This section of the module will culminate in the preparation and presentation of a rehearsal demonstration. They will then be encouraged to think about the production more broadly and produce a director's book demonstrating that they are able to consider carefully the perspectives and approaches of theatre designers and technicians whilst discovering effective ways to collaborate with the production team.
Popular Performance I: Mask and Clown
30 credits
This module runs throughout the academic year and introduces students to a range of European popular performance traditions. Commedia dell' arte, pantomime and clown are typical examples of these traditions although the module could equally focus on a number of other forms. The origins and histories of these modes of performance are examined and used as a foundation for the exploration of theory associated with academics and practitioners such as Jacques Lecoq, John Rudlin, Dario Fo and John Wright. Both the historical context and the theoretical framework provide a reliable basis for the practical exploration of essential techniques and conventions of performance associated with each of the forms studied. The mutable and capricious Clown, an enduring feature of popular performance, is a recurrent figure within the module and serves as a playful means of approaching concepts such as presence, play, and the role of the spectator in the creation of meaning as well as common themes such as marginality, transgression order and chaos.
Year 3
In Year 3, core modules bring the course themes together by requiring you to demonstrate how historical, contextual and theoretical research underpins and feeds into dramatic writing for the stage.
You'll also work on a substantial project and demonstrate how you can work independently. The range of optional modules also allows you to focus on and develop other areas of interest.
Core modules
Creative Writing Dissertation Project
30 credits
Creative Writing Dissertation Project is a year-long 30-credit module which showcases and synthesises students' practical skills, knowledge gained, and creative talent nurtured and developed throughout their creative writing degree. It documents them in a unique portfolio that can be presented to a range of audiences, potential sponsors and employers. The specific nature and dissemination of the project is influenced by the type of joint-honours degree you are taking and this is reflected in the proposal initiated and developed by you yourselves in discussion with your supervisor. The project also builds on accumulated experience in research and creative writing in an inter- and transdisciplinary context, as it encourages you to make use of lateral thinking in order to draw on knowledge from across your course in conceptualising and producing their creative dissertation. It fuses creativity, initiative and imagination cultivated in a practice-based writing course with skills gained in joint disciplines in a way which resonates with the demands of contemporary creative economies and job markets.
In its format, the portfolio of work included in the Creative Writing Dissertation Project reflects stages of project development and execution encountered in a range of creative and research industries (proposal/bid, creative practice, dissemination and evaluation). Specific phases are designed to strengthen initiative and enterprise, in a process which benefits from employability-related skills gained in Level 4 and Level 5 modules such as, but not limited to, Writing that Works and Independent Creative Writing.
Throughout the project, you will gain knowledge of the most effective ways of presenting creative work to a wider audience including employers, sponsors, and commissioning bodies. Against the increasing dominance of self-publication, you will learn how to operate successfully in the literary market without traditional networks of support. The work on the portfolio emphasises transferable skills and employability, as well as entrepreneurship and self-reliance, whether you are preparing to enter the job market, work freelance or progress to postgraduate study.
Beyond Text: Advanced Dramatic Writing
30 credits
This module is an optional module for all Drama and Creative Writing students at Level 6 and runs throughout the academic year. Responding to the changing status of live performance in the twenty-first century, the module explores alternatives to the mainstream 'dramatic' tradition of playwriting. It takes into consideration how cultural shifts such as the advent of new technologies and a global community are or might be reflected in contemporary writing for the stage and in media-based performance (for example audio drama and experimental film). You will encounter a selection of play-texts and performances from the historical and contemporary avant-garde which act as prompts to your creative explorations of playwriting and performance writing methods and techniques. You are encouraged to be experimental and innovative in your own writing, and to question the role of both the theatre and the playwright. This is a practical and creative module that may involve performance-based exercises (for example improvisation and task-based performance) as well as writing ones.
The module develops understandings and themes encountered in DA5005 The Play Today and is particularly suited to those who achieved a pass or above in DA5001 Write Action. The module is ideal preparation for those who are considering masters level study in playwriting, as well as those looking to pursue performance-making after graduation.
Optional modules
Drama Production Projects
30 credits
This module is a core requirement for single honours students. It enables students to develop ideas and research and carry them through to realisation. The assessment for this module is a capstone project which allows students to draw together their learning from across the degree and apply it in a 'real-world' context through the creation, rehearsal and performance of a theatre production.
This module is largely undertaken through independent group-based rehearsal, although there is also a series of presentations and workshops addressing specific areas such as groupwork strategies, problem-solving, rehearsal planning and scheduling, managing budgets and publicity and marketing. Students form groups, select roles and choose scripts, themes and modes of performance based on a 'pitch' they make and the feedback received at the end of Teaching Block One. The size of groups may vary but groups should not be made up of fewer than five students or more than 12. Each group will have a designated supervisor and a budget allocated on the basis of group size. The rehearsal process will be constructed around a series of formatively and summatively assessed stages such as work in progress performances, group and individual reflective exercises, submission of design and technical plans and presentation of publicity materials. Performances will be scheduled across a number of weeks in consultation with the Drama Technical Production Manager.
Experiments with Form
30 credits
This is a year-long optional module in the Creative Writing field. It provides an opportunity for students to challenge their work in each form (Prose, Poetry, Drama) by reading experimental writing within and across genres and traditional form boundaries, and to produce a portfolio of work that engages with experiments of their own. It will follow a lecture/seminar format, with some small-group workshops and tutorials, as well as an online forum for peer review. It may be of interest to students wishing to engage in experimental writing in a sympathetic environment.
The main features of the module are the study of experimental literary texts of the 20th and 21st centuries -- such as experimental novels that play with form and genre, visual, concrete, digital or alternative poetry, and innovative drama – and the creative writing practice either in imitation of such experiments, or in the experimental creation of new and hybrid forms and genres. This dual focus on experimentation – a conceptual exploration and the practical testing of literary boundaries -- enables students to produce work that challenges, experiments with, or reflects upon preconceptions of form, genre or language.
Special Study: Narrative Techniques in Popular Fiction
30 credits
This challenging and interesting special study module aims to provide you with the opportunity to engage with different examples of popular fiction such as crime fiction, romance, the thriller, and science fiction. It will enable you to identify the standard practices of popular genres and understand why they succeed or fail in particular texts. It will encourage you in the critical study of narrative techniques to best learn how to apply them in a work of popular fiction. You will experiment in writing crime, SF, thriller and romance stories before choosing one or two of these genres to take through to your final submission. All this will be put into the context of more general and transferable lessons to be learnt in the art of compelling storytelling.
For each genre studied you will read two core novels, plus a more general theoretical text on narrative construction. The module is lead by a writer of four published crime/thrillers.
Special study: Staging the Nation Identity Politics in Contemporary Drama
30 credits
Building on knowledge and skills acquired in Level 5, this module is designed to provide students with in depth knowledge and understanding of key trends in British theatre and performance in the twenty-first century. In particular the module allows students to develop critical awareness of how current discourses in identity politics - class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and nation - have been figured in and through performance in contemporary Britain. The module considers how, theatre companies, dramatists and theatre makers have responded, and continue to respond, to the social, political and economic pressures that problematise the very idea of Britain and Britishness in the twenty first century.
Popular Performance II: Cabaret and Variety
30 credits
The cultural impact of music hall, variety theatre and differing incarnations of cabaret has been felt at various times since the latter half of the nineteenth century and the legacies of these traditions continue to inform a wide range of current performance practice. This year-long module, which is optional for all Drama students at Level 6 provides, an opportunity to study a range of popular performance forms from historical, theoretical and practical perspectives. It therefore enables students to investigate issues such as the impact of Modernism and the emerging avant garde on the cabaret culture that spread throughout Europe, but significantly not as far as the UK, during the late nineteenth century; the importance of the halls in the development of popular culture; the birth of alternative cabaret and subsequently alternative comedy as a reaction to the Thatcherite politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s; and the current popularity of neo-burlesque. It also supports the exploration of essential practicalities such as the development and expression of a performer's personality; establishing rapport with the audience; ways in which material might be generated; and the necessity of presence and spontaneity.
Special Study: Scriptwriting
30 credits
This is a year-long optional module in the Creative Writing field. It allows an advanced, detailed, and extensive study of forms of dramatic writing (stage, screen, and radio) giving students a sophisticated understanding of its developments, codes and contexts, and allowing them to engage with this genre from the perspectives of both theory and their own writing practice. Starting with the study the work of contemporary playwrights such as Martin Crimp, Lucy Kirkwood, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Caryl Churchill, we will examine how such writers who were produced by the main new writing houses (Royal Court Theatre, Soho Theatre and the Royal National Theatre) have responded to significant social events and phenomena through the genre of drama. Our approach will be both theoretical and practical and we will use the techniques acquired from this study and apply them to an exploration of other dramatic forms such as film, television and radio. Conceptual analysis is reinforced by practical work designed to enable students not only to understand the conventions of their chosen genre but also to apply them creatively to their own writing. The module may suit students wishing to devote extensive consideration to developing their expertise in writing for the stage, radio, film and television, and produce a sustained body of work within its conventions. This special study will be taught in small groups by members of staff who have extensive experience of writing drama across a range of forms.
Special Study: Tragedy, Catastrophe, Trauma
30 credits
Tragedy, Catastrophe, Trauma is a special-study option module in the third year Drama field, and may be taken by both single honours and joint honours students. The module examines how ideas about tragedy have changed, and how these changes have produced different forms of tragedy at different times. The major emphasis of the module is on approaches such as Howard Barker's Theatre of Catastrophe, where the idea of tragedy is re-worked in relation to the practitioner's understanding of contemporary social, political and cultural contexts. The main feature of the module is critically-informed experimentation with staging a tragic drama for today. The module is taught through practical workshops exploring key texts in the development of tragedy. These texts are introduced and contextualised through a series of seminars and research tasks. The module is assessed formatively through presentations in class, and summatively through an academic essay, and the performance of an extract from a Barker play. Core materials are provided through Study Space and the LRC. This module provides students with an independent and in-depth practical and critical engagement with the origins, development and significance of different forms of tragic theatre.
