What you will study
You will explore the ways in which theatre and performance can both shape and be shaped by surrounding artistic, political and historical contexts.
As you progress, you will work on projects that draw together different strands of your learning. Across the three years of the course, you will have increasing independence in the design and delivery of these projects and you'll specialise in one or more of the following areas: playwriting, directing, devising, performing (in a variety of modes).
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.
Foundation year
Core modules
Becoming an Independent Learner
credits
This module aims to prepare you for undergraduate study and to give you the skills and knowledge related to the study of humanities, arts and social science subjects. The main areas covered will include research skills (like using a library and electronic resources), planning, note taking, building a bibliography, and avoiding plagiarism. You will also develop your communication skills, especially focusing on essay and report writing, delivering presentations and being an active participant in debates and discussions. The module will encourage you to develop the independent learning, critical analysis, and reflective skills crucial to succeeding in a degree.
Radical Imaginations
30 credits
Introducing ways in which written texts are reimagined, adapted and transformed by creative artists, including writers, theatre makers, choreographers and film directors, this module explores in both theory and practice the relationship between page and stage, word and image, and in doing so enables you to explore creative imagination at its most radical and relevant.
How and why do television dramas such as Sherlock and Elementary create dramatic interventions into established narratives? How has innovative, controversial and experimental work, made by contemporary playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, debbie tucker green and Sarah Kane, drawn on classic texts to challenge and alter our perceptions of the world? What does The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter's creative appropriation of various fairy tales, reveal about this genre and by extension what does Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves tell us both about Carter's stories and the tales that informed them?
Questions such as these, addressed in a series of interrelated case studies, will enable you to examine the practices and negotiations involved in work of transition and appropriation. You will develop skills in textual analysis required for writing effective argumentative essays that engage with diverse literary and cultural materials. In addition the module will harness and develop your creative skills: through a series of workshops you work on short creative writing and group performance projects that respond to the texts and contexts introduced on the module.
Being Human: History and the History of Ideas
30 credits
Throughout time, people have drawn on history and on ideas to explore, question and record the experience of being human.
This module provides an introduction to the study of that experience, in all its variety. It considers how people, events and ideas, past and present, shape our thinking about society, politics, race, gender, art, culture - and life. It enables students to learn how knowledge and awareness of the past is formed and shaped; how it changes and yet in some ways also remains the same. Students debate and reflect critically on the nature of historical knowledge and how 'history' may differ from 'the past', and they consider the ways in which contemporary cultures and societies are shaped by histories of ideas.
The module draws on a rich store of experience, knowledge and expertise relating to history, philosophy and the history of ideas. It asks students to consider how history relates to memory and how history is used and mis-used. History is personal and communal. It is national, international and global. How are all those histories linked? How did people in the past experience things in terms of equality and inequality, in terms of gender, sexuality and race? Why and how was that experience documented, if at all? What can we learn from it?
Artists, writers, historians, philosophers, musicians, filmmakers and journalists: all have responded to those and other questions. For this module we introduce students to a range of texts and other representations, using history and the history of ideas to explore and debate what it means to be human.
Communication in Context and Practice
30 credits
This module introduces you to media communication and will explore a range of texts on a variety of subjects and forms, for varying audiences and purposes across a range of popular media genres and specific texts. You will look at texts from a variety of genres and forms. You will learn ways of classifying these texts and how to describe significant features using concepts from media analysis. You will demonstrate your new knowledge in an assessed presentation.
You will also explore the importance of the audience, aka the reader or listener, for effective media communication in different contexts. Through considering and critically analysing the structure, style content of articles published on websites, in newspapers and magazines you will begin to develop an understanding of how journalism is directed at specific readerships.
You will also learn the practical conventions, contexts and functions of written journalism. You will study how to: originate ideas, undertake journalistic research, interview, organise your material, write well, develop your presentation skills and adhere to house style.
Year 1
Year 1 introduces approaches and ideas that are central to the study of drama and theatre and culminates in a performance project. You will develop your skills as a performer and enhance your knowledge of a variety of methods of theatre-making. You will study key approaches to interpreting performance by examining play texts and productions, and you will acquire understanding of basic principles in theatre design and explore significant phases in theatre history.
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.
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
Year 2 develops your understanding and practical knowledge of theatre arts. Core modules offer practical experience of devised performance and the impact of naturalism on the work of the actor. You will study modernist directors and playwrights such as Stanislavski, Ibsen and Brecht, and you will consider the impact of these practitioners on contemporary performance practices. Optional modules allow you to focus on clowning, scriptwriting, directing, Shakespeare, and contemporary British drama.
Core modules
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.
Devising: Body and Technology
30 credits
This module builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills students gain in the Level 4, enabling them to develop and adapt these within the context of devising theatre. It begins with an exploration of dramaturgical principles in relation to devised performance with a focus on how companies and practitioners select and respond to stimulus material of different kinds and how they shape that material into performance. Students study and critique devised productions and engage in creative exercises which enable them to experiment with a range of methods and techniques of devising. They then explore ways in which these approaches can be utilised and adapted within community and applied contexts. They are introduced to principles of theatre as social intervention, studying examples of applied theatre practice and participating in workshops focused around the employment of devising techniques in community contexts with a particular emphasis on collaborative methodology.
Optional 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.
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.
Optional Year
You have the option to take an additional year to study abroad.
Year 3
Year 3 allows for both greater independence and specialisation and culminates in a major production project in which you will be able to showcase the skills acquired on the course. Alongside the production module you will undertake a focused study of avant-garde and experimental performance practices. You will also be able to choose modules that cater to your own interests. Optional modules include cabaret and stand-up comedy, applied theatre, tragedy, advanced playwriting, and performance and identity politics.
Core 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.
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.
Optional modules
Dissertation
30 credits
This module provides an opportunity for students to work independently under supervision on a piece of written work substantial enough to constitute a capstone project. It offers an additional and optional opportunity for students to present the results of their research in a conference setting. Students will be able to exercise and deploy knowledge and skills acquired in earlier levels of their programmes in PASS by focussing in depth on a specific and discrete topic in dance, drama, film and television, media or music. Using both primary and secondary sources, students will be required to define and subsequently undertake a research project with the aim of producing a dissertation on an agreed topic. Students will be permitted to undertake research in inter-disciplinary areas such as dance on screen, music theatre or cyber theatre.
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: 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.
Special Study: Applied Theatre
30 credits
Applied Theatre is a placement-learning module, which investigates the process of making drama and theatre in communities and non-traditional performance spaces, both practically and critically.
The main emphasis of the module is on developing the practical skills and contextual understanding needed to facilitate theatre processes and/or performances in partnership with a local community group or organisation. The main feature of the module in Semester One is a structured experimentation with a range of applied theatre techniques, which are read against important critical questions. This part of the module is taught through seminars and practical workshops, exploring case studies, key concepts and techniques, critical questions, ethics, aesthetics, and project design. In Semester Two, the main feature of the module is the delivery of a practical drama, theatre or performance project, of a significant scale, and taking place in partnership with a chosen constituency within the local community. This part of the module is made up of independent, student-led research and practice. The student project is supervised practically through placement visits by Drama staff, ongoing creative laboratories, as well as by the submission of research, project design and planning materials. The module is assessed formatively through presentations in class of practice and research, and summatively through the delivery of the placement project, reflective writing, and, where necessary, an end of project viva.
