With its strong employability focus, the course prepares you for many careers in theatre and the arts. You will be partly taught at the Old Fire Station, a professional theatre in the centre of Oxford. This enables you to develop hands-on, practice-based skills in all aspects of theatre production both on and off the stage.
Drama, Theatre and Acting
Dr Carina Bartleet
Programme Lead in Drama, Theatre and Acting; MA Creative Writing; Communication, Media and Culture
Carina Bartleet works on modern and contemporary theatre and drama in the UK and the rest of Europe. She has particular research interests in the following areas:
- women writing for the theatre
- theatre, science and medicine
- gender and performance
- drama, theatre and intertextuality.
Carina has worked with students on a wide range of productions ranging from Kane’s 4: 48 Psychosis to Ibsen and adaptations of Pinter, Ionesco and Angela Carter as well as on devised pieces. Before coming to Oxford Brookes, Carina worked at the University of Reading where she taught a wide range of theatre and drama courses from renaissance drama to contemporary British theatre. She is excited by the prospect of working on a range of Brookes’ drama and performance modules that mix theory, text and practical elements of theatre.
Areas of expertise
- Theatre and science
- Gender and performance (feminist and LGBTQ theatre)
- Contemporary theatre writing
Dr Laura Higgins
Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Drama
Laura did a BEd Hons in Drama at Saint Luke’s College (University of Exeter) and an MA in Theatre: Text and Production at the University of East Anglia. She completed her PhD at Royal Holloway University of London.
Before joining the Drama team at Oxford Brookes in 2013, Laura worked for seven years as an Associate Lecturer and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. She has also taught courses in Shakespeare: Text and Performance in the Drama Department of Kingston University and at Arcadia University, London.
Dr Eleanor Lowe
Programme Lead for English Literature, Theatre and Creative Writing
I studied at the University of Durham before taking an MA in Shakespeare Studies and PhD at The Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham) in Stratford-upon-Avon. Prior to working at Oxford Brookes I was post-doctoral research fellow for the Richard Brome Online project based in the Department of Drama, Theatre and Dance at Royal Holloway, University of London.
My research interests are divided between two main strands: editing and material culture. I worked on the Royal Shakespeare Company Complete Works of William Shakespeare (2008) and have published editions of George Chapman's An Humorous Day's Mirth (online with Digital Renaissance Editions, 2013), Richard Brome's A Mad Couple Well Matched and The Love-Sick Court (online, as part of Richard Brome Online, 2013), John Ford's The Fair Maid of the Inn (with Martin Wiggins; OUP, 2017), as well as 'Accounts and Inventories of the Revels Office, 1541-1546' (The Malone Society, 2016).
My interest in material culture largely focuses on clothing, linen and cleanliness. I have written on this topic with reference to humours comedy (especially An Humorous Day's Mirth), and in relation to plays by Shakespeare, Jonson and Middleton. I have also written about bookbinding and marriage in Brome's The Love-Sick Court and discussed Viscount Montague's 'Household Book', in particular the role of the steward in household management and its relevance to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. I am currently working on a monograph on Cleanliness and Early Modern Drama as well as writing about Fletcher and genre.
Ms Abi Lawrence
Drama Technician, Associate Lecturer
I am the Drama Technician, supporting student productions. I have previously worked in the UK theatre industry as a lighting and sound operator, lighting designer, and as a stage manager. In addition, I work as an Associate Lecturer teaching lighting, sound, and stage management.