Drama, Theatre and Acting

In this module you’ll examine and perform important pieces in modern British theatre. In practical, hands-on workshops, you’ll explore the important and evolving socio-political issues reflected in each piece - like:

• race
• sexuality
• gender
• nationality
• social class.

You’ll emerge with a firsthand understanding of how performance pieces reflect the changing social and cultural values of their era.

Build your creative skills in a workshop environment - where you’ll create new performance pieces each week. This module will help you master the process of creating performances. You’ll develop your physical performance skills. And you’ll build your confidence in improvisation.

This module aims to help you apply the skills from the introductory Technical Theatre module in Level 4, to provide technical support from performance creation to final staging of the performance of other students’ work in Modern British Theatre in Performance.

This module will aim to introduce you to tragedy and comedy through a range of dramatic writings from the Renaissance period. In particular, you will analyse through performance the generic boundaries and rules of tragedy and comedy, exploring the ways in which Renaissance theatre appropriated and redefined genre. The practical element of the module will develop awareness of genre in performance, the limitations and opportunities afforded by different performance spaces, and methods of engaging with spectators.

You will learn how to read plays and analyse scenes from a director’s creative viewpoint by exploring the approaches of a selection of directors from the early twentieth century to present day, engaging with a range of plays from classical texts to new writing. You will have opportunities to try out a range of strategies and exercises that professional theatre directors use throughout the rehearsal process. You will also build an awareness of how visual and aural elements of theatre design (set, lighting, sound, costume, props, use of space) contribute to an audience’s experience of a theatre production. By looking at Modernist, Postmodern, and Postdramatic theories of theatre and performance, you will see how new dramatic forms impact on approaches to directing, acting, and staging and consider the ways in which earlier plays can take on new life through the application of innovative directorial approaches. 

You will be encouraged to write within a style that suits your expressive talent and will be taught using a range of material in prose and poetry. You and your fellow student writers will help one another to find out what’s important to you as writers, and how best to articulate it. Through a combination of group discussion, critical analysis, in-class writing exercises and small-group activities you will work on each of these elements;

• technique 
• process 
• reflection.

This module provides an opportunity for you to pursue your own interests, by either further exploring a topic already covered within the course, or to explore an area of academic study not currently covered by the curriculum.

This is your opportunity to work or study in another country, so you can experience a different culture from the UK. You’ll be able to apply and test your knowledge and skills in new contexts that will significantly develop your employability profile.

Choosing this module will allow you to exhibit the development of self-management and working or studying in unfamiliar contexts, alongside practising cross-cultural communication and interpersonal skills.

You will receive support and guidance to help you find a place in an available higher education partner institution, or to find a work placement for your year abroad. This year abroad module lasts for one academic year and is taken after the conclusion of your second year of study, once you’ve completed all your level 5 studies. Your year abroad is not credit-bearing.

The opportunity can be approached in 2 different ways. Please see your options below: 

You can attend a non-UK higher education institution for a full academic year. You’ll be able to choose modules in your own subject or in a subject you consider would benefit your overall course of study. You may choose to deepen your knowledge of your degree subject or enhance it by developing complementary skills.

By studying in an international university you’ll progress your interpersonal skills through cross-cultural communication with fellow students and tutors, building lasting relationships. Also you’ll further develop your study skills as you focus on your selected areas of interest to you - while developing and progressing an international study experience that will add significance to your CV.

Undertake a work placement or work-related project based on your interests and existing skills. You will create an initial learning contract that shows clearly how your proposed placement or project will link with your academic and/or professional aims.

This pathway helps you to have full control over what your work-related learning looks like. You will advance your skills in a practical setting, gain first-hand experience in a work environment, and begin to create your professional network. Also, taking initiative of your learning in such a way will mean that you will stand out when you apply for jobs after graduation.

This module will allow you to undertake a lengthy piece of self-guided research, giving you the opportunity to receive individual tuition in areas related to the research interest of the programme’s academic staff. You will be encouraged to make connections between praxis, materials and ideas encountered on earlier modules enabling you to develop an informed, critical, and historical overview of the subjects of drama, theatre, acting and performance.

You will be introduced to areas of the lecturing teams’ research specialisms, so that you can engage at a sophisticated level with research and/or practice. You'll evaluate it in relation to a body of primary texts, the contexts of original production and subsequent re-production/performance. You'll take control of your own learning - tailored to the specialised options.

Options include, but are not limited to:

Staging Riots, Resistance, and Power: explore how power, revolution and repression are written, refuted and revised through drama. Delve into the interplay between theatre, history, memory, and imagination. You’ll create an original piece of theatre based on research.

Performing Identities: representation and the politics of identity: You’ll explore the performance of identities and the performance of identity politics on the contemporary stage. You’ll explore three key aspects: feminist theatres, LGBTQ performance and black British and American work.

This module will introduce you to areas of the lecturing teams’ research specialisms, so that you can engage with research and/or practice. You will evaluate it in relation to a body of primary texts, the contexts of original production and subsequent re-production/performance. You'll take control of your own learning - tailored to the specialised options.

Options include, but are not limited to:

Spectacular Origins: Theatre, Madness and the Mind: you’ll explore aspects of theatre, madness and the mind. You’ll engage with ideas from medicine and you’ll investigate, through practice, the historical and theoretical links between madness, the mind, science and performance.

Experiments in Space: Geography and Environments: you’ll examine the potentials of site-specific and site-sensitive performances. You’ll also consider how staging texts in non-conventional sites and found places can open up new nuances and you’ll look at places and how they can be a creative stimulus for new work.

This module will advance your skills in writing a longer piece of writing and also builds your understanding of how a book works as a whole. Specifically, the module aims to enable you to: 

• focus your creative writing practice towards work of publishable standard
• engage with the challenges of writing book-length texts with regard to structure, balance and pace
• create, analyse and edit your work critically and insightfully, with an awareness of its potential market and genre
• review, reflect on and develop your individual writing practices and habits
• expand your reading, with a focus on considering and discussing whole published works
• create for your final submission a piece or collection of writing which achieves a professional standard in form, content and presentation.