What you will study
The Drama and English course is an ideal choice if you're interested in the theatre but want to study other literary forms.
You'll learn about the theatre as a cultural institution, through the study of drama, literature, dramatic theory and performance practice.
You'll explore the history, theory, criticism and practice of theatre-making and literature. For instance, you can study playwriting alongside textual analysis of plays, or Shakespeare alongside world literatures.
Modules
Each level is made up of four modules each worth 30 credit points. Typically, a student must complete 120 credits at each level.
Year 1
The main themes of the course: the history and practice of theatre-making and writing in the global city, are introduced in Year 1, enabling you to identify and understand the focus that will characterise your learning throughout the degree.
Core modules
Staging Histories
30 credits
This module is a core requirement for all Drama students at Level 4 and runs throughout the academic year. It operates and is assessed in conjunction with DA4002 Making Theatre Happen and is supported by a small group tutorial system. The module introduces students to significant approaches and research methods associated with the study of theatre history. The course will draw on students' previous and current studies of performance texts and styles to investigate how we make theatre history, what evidence we draw upon, and what implications these histories have for our current performance making.
In the first part of the module students will increase their knowledge and understanding by investigating key periods in Western theatre history including the English renaissance, the popular Victorian stage, modernism and the post-war theatre of the absurd. In a series of tutor led seminar/workshops, the students will consider the historical contexts that gave rise to changing conceptions of dramatic character, dialogue and action. Particular attention will be given to the material conditions in which theatre artists worked and the relationship between the theatre and the culture at large in any given period.
In the latter part of the module students will apply their knowledge and research skills in a student-led, staff-supervised project utilising skills acquired in DA4002 Making Theatre Happen.
Performance Vocabularies and Methods
30 credits
This module is a core requirement for all drama students at Level 4 and runs throughout the academic year. It operates and is assessed in conjunction with DA4001 Staging Histories. The module introduces students to significant skills, vocabularies and methods associated with creating performance and explores ways in which these may be applied within a range of dramatic and theatrical contexts. The main features of this module are the study and practice of key elements of performance such as the use of space, time, force (or energy); body and voice; play; interpersonal interaction onstage and off; performance structure and dynamics; and the creation of dramatic meaning and theatrical effect. In the first part of the module students participate in a variety of tutor-led exercises designed to increase their understanding and skills in these areas. These are drawn from methodologies and techniques developed by 20th and 21st century practitioner-theorists such as Anne Bogart; Rudolph Laban, Jacques Lecoq and Augusto Boal. They are also introduced to the basic principles of theatre lighting and sound. In the second part of the module they apply what they have learned in a student-led, staff-supervised project based around material studied in DA4001 Staging Histories.
Reading London: Drama, Poetry and Prose
30 credits
This module introduces you to the literature of London, from the rise of Renaissance theatre culture to its fictional futures, and from explorations of its urban heart to its sprawling suburbs. You will investigate how numerous writers have depicted everyday life in the metropolis, as well as social upheaval, crime and injustice. You will consider the emergence of distinct literary cultures in the capital, the ways London's position at the centre of a global empire has shaped its literature, and how writers have in turn represented the experiences of particular groups, for example, social elites, immigrants, women, and children.
The module will also introduce you to some of the most fundamental categories of literature. The module will be organised into three strands: one on drama, one on poetry, and one on prose (fiction and non-fiction). In each strand you will identify the distinctive characteristics of particular forms and genres of literature, and of modes of writing that developed at particular historical moments. Through close study of a range of literary texts we will consider, for instance, what distinguishes tragedy, comedy and realism in drama, how poets have engaged with the sonnet form or the epic, what defines the memoir, and how to explain the differences in narrative style between realist and modernist fiction.
Our weekly interactive lectures will be complemented by study trips to locations across London, which may include a visit to the Globe Theatre, the London Museum or a walking lecture following the route taken by Mrs Dalloway in Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name.
Race, Nation, Identity: Literatures of the World
30 credits
Why are our reading practices so dominated by British writers? What happens if you turn the world map upside down? This module introduces literatures written in places other than Great Britain and considers the links between literature and the formation of cultural, national and racial identities. The module will also think about how literature can act as a mode of resistance to imperialist ideologies. In doing so, it will broaden an understanding of what constitutes ‘English' literature.
Year 2
As you progress, you'll come to a fuller understanding of the relationships between various practices of writing and authorship, and the London theatre scene in its myriad contexts. In Year 2 the two core modules approach contemporary writing and the stage from historical, critical and practical perspectives, but with a distinctly and London-based focus.
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.
Transforming Realities: Innovation and Social Change in Twentieth Century and Contemporary Literature
30 credits
This module is an optional period module at Level 5. It will begin by exploring literature published from the 1930s through to the present day, and will examine the strategies writers have used in response to a changing Britain and wider world. We will consider how twentieth and twenty-first-century texts adapt realist, modernist and postmodern techniques to engage with issues such as the rise of mass culture, the threat of totalitarianism, the establishment of the Welfare State, post-war immigration, and sexual liberation. To enhance your perspective on these issues, you will be introduced to non-fiction material by other contemporary writers, such as J.B. Priestley, Erich Fromm, Iris Murdoch, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Hoggart, and George Lamming, as well as more recent critical and theoretical material. The module also examines the development and continuing popularity of realist drama in the twentieth century. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which realist drama is used as a tool of social and political examination in the various contexts of pre-Revolutionary Russia, Dublin in the aftermath of the First World War, and the establishment of the welfare state in Britain after 1945. Secondly, we will examine the developments in non-realist forms of drama and the experiments which gave rise to what is, somewhat controversially, called the 'Theatre of the Absurd'. The module culminates with the study of a selection of texts chosen to illustrate the great variety of genres and styles in contemporary British literature and to exemplify literature written by different nationalities and social groups. Underpinned by relevant theoretical perspectives, questions will be raised about the relation between literature and contemporary events, with relation to issues pertinent to literature, such as social mobility, hybridity, democracy and technology. In recent years, authors studied have included Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Harold Pinter, Alan Hollinghurst, and Zadie Smith.
Optional modules
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.
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.
Sex and the City: From Victorian Metropolis to Modernist Wasteland
30 credits
This module is an optional period module at Level 5. We will study key texts from the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries that register the ways in which Britain is transformed by the Industrial Revolution, and which give expression to fears about technology, social mobility and urban culture. We will consider literature of the period that questions and resists established theories of gendered identity, and which challenges the literary representation of sexuality, defying censorship in the process. We will be introduced to writers who engage with contemporary debates about science, religion, the empire, and racial and national identity. And we will encounter a range of consciously modern texts which dislocate and make new the reader's experience by technical innovation and experiment. In recent years, writers studied have included Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf.
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.
Deadly Desires/Dangerous Discourse: Gothic Literature and Theory
30 credits
What does literature do? How does it shape individual and cultural identities? In what ways does it produce effects, construct otherness and celebrate difference? Studying a range of influential approaches to literature, this module will examine key ideas concerning the creation and interpretation of texts, from the role of language, history and cultural difference to the effects of sexuality, the unconscious, empire and technology. By applying these insights to one important genre of fiction – to works like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Beetle, Rebecca and World War Z – the module will extend practical analytical skills while introducing exciting new ways of thinking about texts.
Year 3
In your final year, you'll choose from a range of option modules, allowing you to follow your own fields of interest in both Drama and English. You'll also have opportunities to contribute to public performances, either in an acting capacity or "behind the scenes," via our links with The Rose Theatre in Kingston.
Core modules
After Modernism: Avant Garde Performance from the 1940s to the Present Day
30 credits
This module is an option for all level 6 Drama students. It builds on students' prior learning in the core Level 5 module DA5004, Modernism and the Stage. In reflecting on the breakdown of boundaries between different theatre and performance forms in the late 20th century, it also draws together learning from a wide range of other modules. Its focus is on avant garde conceptions of performance and how these have altered and developed from the mid twentieth century to the present day. A key concept is that of the movement from 'acting' to 'performance'. The module begins with key influences from late Modernism, such as Brecht's Alienation Effect and the Theatre of the Absurd, then moves on to explore the variety of ways in which late 20th and early 21st century avant garde practice has responded to and challenged thinking about theatre and performance. Postmodern cultural theory and Hans Thies Lehman's notion of the 'postdramatic', provide the context for studies of a range of performance practices which might include the experimental approaches to textual interpretation of companies such as the Wooster Group, site-specific and autobiographical performance, and live art. The module mixes practice with theory, allowing students to apply the principles underpinning work by significant innovators to their own creative practice.
Radical Writers
30 credits
Salman Rushdie, Mary Wollstonecraft, Geoffrey Chaucer, Audre Lorde, Charlotte Bronte, Chinua Achebe, Mary Shelley, John Milton, Lawrence Sterne, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison...the list is endless. At every point in literary history there are writers who break the mould and challenge the status quo. Whether it is through writing epics that endure through centuries, addressing the injustices of the time or challenging the very notion of what a novel, poem or a play can do, writers can be radical in a number of exciting ways. This module looks at works by radical writers in depth, studying one famous text in detail by a range of writers from different time periods and taught by lecturers who are experts in these writers. We will look at the context of each text as well as the way the text is written, determining why these radical writers have been so successful and looking at the effects their texts have had on the world around them. We will look at the idea of the literary 'canon', made up of writers who have been radical in some way, and consider the way that this idea can be challenged, reinvigorated or refreshed.
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.
Dissertation
30 credits
The dissertation is a core module for all full-field literature students. Under guidance from an allocated specialist member of staff, and supported by interactive workshops, you will produce a sustained piece of research, either in the form of a traditional 10,000 word dissertation or in the form of creative project and accompanying 3,000-word rationale. The module culminates in a student conference. You will work with your peers to organise this, and your contribution to it will also be assessed. An initial dissertation proposal must be submitted in September before the module begins. At the end of the module you will have produced a critically engaged and fully developed piece of independent research.
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.
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.
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.
Black and Asian Writing
30 credits
This module examines the rich and dynamic presence of black and Asian writing in English from the mid-17th century to the present. It will explore the ways in which black and Asian writers have produced formally innovative and conceptually challenging responses to questions of race, class, gender and identity, while simultaneously making significant creative contributions to the fields of drama, prose, poetry, and life-writing. In the first half of the module, students will study a range of early texts from the mid-17th century to the 19th century from writers such as Equiano and Mary Seacole, alongside contemporary works that have reflected on black culture during this period, while the second half of the module turns to 20th century and contemporary texts by writers such as Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy, and Salman Rushdie contextualised by appropriate critical and cultural theories from thinkers such as Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall.
Making Shakespeare: Text, Performance and Adaptation
30 credits
This optional Level 6 module allows you to pursue Shakespeare studies at an advanced level and is founded upon a detailed and extensive study of the writer and his works. Consideration will be given to a range of critical approaches to Shakespeare as well as the long history and dynamic status of Shakespeare in performance and adaptation, for example in relation to questions of gender, identity and globalisation. You will be encouraged to reflect upon the role of Shakespeare in culture now as well as relevant contemporary contexts such as the nature of early modern theatregoing alongside crucial political and religious conditions. Teaching on the module will be closely aligned with the rich resources available at the Rose Theatre and in particular will afford you the opportunity to participate in the stimulating series of talks and events organised as part of the Kingston Shakespeare Seminar (KiSS).
