Theatre Arts BA Honours

Course content

What will you study on the BA Theatre Arts?

Our programme is distinguished by the exit award options. You can leave with any of the following awards by choosing your specialism in your third year:

• BA Hons Theatre Arts
• BA Hons Theatre Arts (Performance)
• BA Hons Theatre Arts (Theatre Directing)
• BA Hons Theatre Arts (Design & Technical Theatre)
• BA Hons Theatre Arts (Solo Performance)

From your first year, you’ll be working as part of a student company to train, explore and make work together, developing your creative and critical skills through workshops, seminars and lectures. During the second term, your company focuses on the realisation of a fully-staged tutor-led performance. Recent course content has included the work of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Sarah Kane, Howard Barker, Debbie Tucker Green, Anton Chekov, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, Complicite, Kneehigh and Frantic Assembly. You will also work intensively with a visiting professional company on a devised project.

You’ll explore collaborative theatre making to challenge and interrogate established theatrical forms. As part of a new student company you will create your own interpretation of a text informed by a range of international 20th Century practitioners. Recent course content has included Antonin Artaud, Augusto Boal, Samuel Beckett, Athol Fugard, Robert Lepage, Caryl Churchill, Pina Bausch, Jacques Lecoq, Es Devlin, Robert Wilson, Katie Mitchell and Anne Bogart. You will also have the opportunity to choose modules that develop your specific interests in acting/performance, design, technical theatre and directing.

You will pitch and produce an original piece of theatre, experimenting with contemporary forms to explore what theatre is and can be. Recent work has featured interactive and immersive theatre, multi-media projects and site-specific performance. Alongside your optional modules, this module consolidates your skills as an independent learner and theatre-maker, while focusing on your personal development and planning your graduate career pathway. Recent course content focuses on contemporary performance practices and has included Cirque du Soleil, Forced Entertainment, Blast Theory, Punchdrunk, Clean Break, Wooster Group, Marina Abramovic, Bobby Baker, Station House Opera, Eugenio Barba, Shunt, dreamthinkspeak.

Modules

The module aims to introduce a range of key theatrical and broader artistic movements, skills/principles in performance, design and directing and the interrogation of and engagement with relevant methodology and texts. The module aims to establish processes and skills essential to collaborative theatre practice and knowledge of critical tools for analysing a range of key processes and practices to develop understanding of the relationships between Actor, Director and Audience in the theatre environment, an ability to reflect on practice, learning and personal development and a shared understanding of key concepts, contexts and developments in theatre-making.

This module aims to introduce a range of performance, direction and devising skills together with an exploration of ideas surrounding the distinct functions of story and narrative within theatrical performance. It aims to examine a variety of devised performance practices in a series of practical workshops. The module also aims to introduce a critical framework and language for examining and understanding both your own and others devised performance practice. It aims to develop your understanding of the relationship between Actor, Director and Audience and to enhance your ability to reflect on and articulate your practice via a shared understanding of key concepts, contexts and developments in a devised theatre environment.

The module aims to provide you with experience of engaging in collaborative theatre-making, developing and applying the processes encountered in Year 1 with increased emphasis on your autonomy and responsibility for the work created. The module aims to develop your knowledge of key theatrical and broader artistic movements through the examination of significant practitioners, styles and texts. It aims to enhance your skills as researchers, writers, and theatre-makers, and enable you to continue your reflection on your own practice, learning, and personal development.

This module aims to develop an awareness of the cultural and social intervention of theatre in society and provide you with an understanding of the ethical issues involved in working in community contexts. It aims to develop your ability to create collaborative theatre work with community settings in mind. This module also builds and develops skills in the construction/articulation and application of puppets and examines the uses and impact of puppetry in applied theatre. Your reflective and evaluative skills in considering the ethical implications and impact of such practice will be enhanced.

This module aims to produce confident, effective actors and directors of text based theatre via practical skills studies in structure, score, tempo, tension, style and play. It aims to engage you in a detailed practical examination of texts, introducing key practical and theoretical performance principles and thereby deepening your understanding of the relationships that exist between Actor, Director, Audience and Text. The module aims to develop a shared practical language of understanding for key performance concepts and principles and to enhance your ability to reflect on your practice, learning and personal development.

This module aims to develop your ability to observe, analyse, evaluate and critically assess your own and other's work. It aims to strengthen your ability to confidently generate, develop and communicate ideas and information effectively, and become highly proficient in practically executing these concepts. The module also aims to produce a deeper understanding of the collaborative nature of theatre and enhance your practice as designers, directors and theatre-makers through the interrogation of interpretative strategies employed by key practitioners and consolidate methodologies of individual and group working and provide a platform for the acquisition and analysis of theatre related skills and practices.

This module aims to enable you to acquire a critical understanding of a range of forms and styles of screen drama, critically interrogate a range of different screen practices in relation to audiences and contexts of reception and provide you with experience of working collaboratively on a video drama project developing knowledge of working practices.

This module aims to provide you with experience of exploring a number of forms of solo performance through workshops, seminars and independent study. You will be introduced to a range of solo performance forms and contexts (autobiographical performance, storytelling, body art) to enable you to develop skills in critical analyses and apply them to the work of a range of practitioners. The practical work of the module will focus on your skills as solo performers, creative writers and researchers. Throughout the module, you will be encouraged to continue the development of your reflection on your own practice, learning, and personal development

The module aims to allow you to critically interrogate a range of key theatrical and broader artistic movements, allowing you to initiate, realise, and contextualise self-directed collaborative theatre projects. You will evaluate and apply processes of critical enquiry in written and practical projects and your skills as independent researchers, writers, theatre-makers, and critical thinkers will be consolidated. You will reflect critically on your own practice, learning, personal development and potential career pathways.

This module aims to address the specific challenges for performers of texts by Shakespeare, and enhance your skills as researchers, writers, and theatre-makers by equipping you with tools for approaching the realisation of plays in verse and other forms of heightened text. The module also provides you with knowledge of the conventions of Ancient and Early Modern European plays, and the implications of those conventions for 21st Century performance.

This module aims to extend your skills in contemporary design practice. You will further develop your evaluative, critical and communication skills as well as your knowledge of current design approaches and methodologies. You will also further your understanding of the role of the Scenographer in today's society.

The module aims to extend and develop your skills in theatre directing, furthering your understanding of contemporary directing styles and approaches. It aims to promote relevant evaluative, critical and analytical tools in relation to directing practices and aesthetics, and to explore methodologies and skills required for collaboration with actors, in contemporary theatre-making.

This module aims to extend and develop practical performance skills via an exploration of the creative and expressive possibilities of the actor's voice and body. It aims to further develop knowledge of key performance styles, approaches, methodologies, evaluative and critical skills thereby deepening your understanding of a contemporary physical approach to theatre and performance.

This module aims to allow those with suitable aptitude and experience to undertake a supervised placement in a theatre, theatre-related environment, or an educational establishment. This provides you with professional working experience, in which to refine and diversify skills and working methodologies, and develop attitudes and confidence in your abilities to work, and find work in a professional context. You are encouraged to establish professional links with the industry and enhance onward employability potentials through a deeper practical and theoretical understanding of the chosen main focus area.

This module aims to allow you to propose an inquiry into and/or through a form of practice and the academic and/or professional contexts that inform it. As well as deepening and developing research and practice already encountered through the specialisms of the degree, you can examine areas of personal interest that are not substantially explored on the programme. Supported by a tutor, either as an individual or small group-maximum of three students, you will be encouraged to examine how the creative practice in Theatre Arts articulate and embody your chosen inquiry and situates itself in the wider context of professional arts practice. The module also equips you with the preliminary skills and outlook appropriate to PaR postgraduate study within the performing arts.

This module aims to allow you to propose a extensive inquiry into and/or through a form of practice,and the academic and/or professional contexts that inform it. As well as deepening and developing research and practice already encountered through the specialisms of the degree, you can examine areas of personal interest that are not substantially explored on the programme. Supported by a tutor, either as an individual or small group-maximum of three students , you are encouraged to examine how the creative practice in Theatre Arts articulate and embody your chosen inquiry and situates itself in wider context of professional arts practice. You will be expected to engage with current discourse on your field of inquiry through attendance at talks, exhibition, performances, conferences, lectures etc.

This module allows you to develop a comprehensive conceptual understanding of the comic view, in the particular context of the performance of stand-up comedy. Seminars and workshops create opportunities for you to apply this conceptual understanding in a range of activities including writing critical, analytical and for performance and performance. Throughout the module, you continue the development of your reflection on your own practice, learning, and personal development.

The module aims to provide you with the opportunity to propose and undertake a fully realised group collaborative theatre arts project, which must culminate in a public performance. It aims to develop your knowledge of production, fundraising, artistic policies and audiences, encouraging externally-facing work and contact with the public and institutions outside the university. It aims to enable you to advance your own practice, learning and personal development.

You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Optional modules are usually available at levels 5 and 6, although optional modules are not offered on every course. Where optional modules are available, you will be asked to make your choice during the previous academic year. If we have insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, or there are staffing changes which affect the teaching, it may not be offered. If an optional module will not run, we will advise you after the module selection period when numbers are confirmed, or at the earliest time that the programme team make the decision not to run the module, and help you choose an alternative module.