Core modules
The first year of your Theatre and Performance Studies degree consists of four core modules: two that are practice-learning and two that are theory-centred. These modules will develop your understanding of the important relationship between theory and practice and will introduce key concepts for a diverse range of performance-making possibilities.
In your second year there’s one core module, and in your final-year you must choose from one of two optional core modules. You can select to do a traditional research project, which ends with the submission of a ten-thousand word written dissertation. Or, you can do a practice-based research project, which will culminate in the public presentation of a piece of practical work.
Beyond these core modules, you’re empowered to tailor your degree to suit you, by selecting whichever optional modules you’d like to take. This means that everyone’s experience of the course is unique. If you thrive in the studio, then you can select more practice-based modules, or if you have a future career path in mind, you can specialise by selecting the modules which best-fit your plans.
You’re also able to select optional modules outside of our department, meaning that you don’t have to give up on other areas of interest. In addition, we offer several joint-honours courses with Theatre Studies taught alongside English Literature or a modern language, and you can study Theatre and Performance alongside Global Sustainable Development.
Year One
Theatre and Performance in Context
This module considers what theatre and performance can tell us about our histories, cultures, societies and identities. You’ll watch, read and study a range of theatre and performance from across historical, cultural and geographical borders, in order to see how it not only reflects society, but also seeks to change and shape it. The module is split into four blocks, considering theatre and gender, race, sexuality and class. This module will help you to hone your academic writing, research and presentation skills, which will serve you throughout your degree.
From Text to Performance
Through practical exploration of a number of selected plays and texts, in this module you’ll investigate the process of taking material from page to stage or performance, and the relationship between theory and practice. You’ll have the opportunity to experiment practically with realising multiple texts in performance, considering aspects such as staging, genre, narrative structure, performance strategies, dramaturgical thinking and directorial conceptualization, as well as the changing role and function of the audience.
Performance Analysis
As part of this module you’ll be exposed to theatre and performance in a wide variety of forms. You’ll learn about theories and approaches to performance analysis and will develop your own methods to produce critical responses to artistic work. You’ll complete the module with an understanding of all of the tools that you might need to ‘read’, respond and write about theatre and performance.
Contemporary Performance Practices
In a series of tutor-led workshops, you’ll be introduced to an array of contemporary performance practices, such as site-specific performance, devising, clowning, performance art, physical theatre, improvisation, and various forms of multimedia performance. You’ll explore these through the study of a range of leading practitioners and theatre companies, which may include Spymonkey, Jacques Lecoq, Pina Bausch, Frantic Assembly, Mark Ravenhill, Akram Khan and Gob Squad. The module will conclude with presentations of your own devised work influenced by the various approaches investigated during the module.
Year Two
Inter-Performance
Part practical and part theoretical, this module works to explore the intersections between Theatre and Performance Studies and other disciplines. You’ll ask how we do interdisciplinary research and how findings can be shared with audiences through practice. Lecturers draw on their own current research projects as material to teach the module, so its content changes each year. We begin by considering these intersections through lecture-seminars, via discussion and some practice. We then shift into innovative practice-based work that culminates in a practical realisation of a specific issue or enquiry in which performance intersects with another discipline.
Year Three
In your final-year you must choose from one of two optional core modules:
Research Project
On this module you’ll carry out independent research into an area of theatre and performance studies that you love and will write an extended dissertation on your findings. Throughout the research and writing process you’ll be supported by structured class activities and regular one-to-one supervision meetings with a member of the academic team. To aid the development of your work, you’ll present your research at a conference alongside your peers during the course of the year.
or
Practice-based Research Project
On this module you’ll develop a practical project that is shaped by your questions about the world. This project may take a range of forms, including (but not limited to) live theatre, participatory workshops, an installation, a video, a written play, a space or a costume design, and you can choose to work solo or in small groups. You’ll be supported through in-class workshops, supervision meetings, and work-in- progress showings. Your final work will be showcased as part of our annual Verge Festival at Warwick Arts Centre.
Optional modules
Optional modules can vary from year to year. Example optional modules may include:
- Acting in Character
- Adapting Shakespeare
- Contemporary European Theatre
- Mad, Bad Sad: Madness and Cultural Representation
- Performing Gender and Sexuality
- Theatre and National Identities
- Theatre and the Creative Industries
- Theatre in the African Context
- Theatre in the Community
- You, the Performer
- Wired: Video-Making
- Writing for Theatre and Performance
