BA Drama

DRA1015: Theatre Histories

Theatre is a global phenomenon that has existed for millennia. It has deep, interconnected roots and long-standing, ever-evolving traditions. This module will introduce you to a diverse range of theatre from around the world and from different historical periods. You will explore theatre's contextual specificity, cultural importance, social and political power, and its value as an object of study. You will learn how to think like an historian and how to practice theatre history by searching for evidence, examining sources, evaluating historical accounts, and conducting your own analysis of the theatrical past.

The module aims to:

• introduce you to a broad range of theatre from around the world and from different periods of history
• teach you about historiographical methods
• equip you with key academic skills that you will use throughout your degree

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DRA1016: Performance Analysis

This module will introduce you to the analysis of live and recorded performance, an essential skill in theatre studies. Each week we will be investigating a key analytical question that can be asked of theatre and performance (eg. 'how does theatre create meaning?', 'how does an audience experience a performance?', 'for whose benefit is theatre made?'). And we will introduce the theoretical approaches and methods that allow you to develop answers to these questions, from semiotics to feminism, postcolonialism to queer theory, covering some of the key debates in theatre studies.

By the end of this module, you will be able to critically analyse a variety of theatrical and performance practices, and their relationship to different cultural, economic, social and political contexts, using a range of analytical tools.

This module aims to:

• Introduce you to key methods of theatre studies
• Explore ways of analysing performance
• Examine the nature and place of performance within culture
• Introduce you to key theoretical and analytical approaches to theatre studies

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DRA1017: Staging the Text

In this module you will learn key skills involved in staging a dramatic text, including, for example, textual analysis and dramaturgy, theatrical adaptation, directorial conception, principles of light and sound design, and ensemble approaches to performance making. You will learn to develop confidence in your own individual creative conceptualization process as well as how to adapt that concept to the collaborative ensemble's process. You will work in medium sized ensembles on staging a particular play-text, working together as actors, directors, designers, etc. You will be supported throughout your creative process by one or more members of the teaching staff to make work that is relevant for a contemporary audience.

The module will familiarise you with a range of strategies to address the transformation from page to stage, both conceptually and practically, and in a range of roles as directors, actors, designers, and dramaturges. It will develop your confidence in ensemble processes while offering you the opportunity to expand your own creative capacity in new areas of performance making. In doing so, it will provide you with the creative tools to conceptualise your own vision for a specific aspect of the production while learning how to adapt that vision in relation to the demands of the production.

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DRA1018: The Creative Actor

This module is centred on the importance of play(fulness) and collaborative practice for creators of performance. The word 'play', in the context of drama, often refers to a script or a production, but play has broader significations. We will examine play in an expansive sense in this module, investigating topics such as games, sensory exercises, improvisation, theatre games, sound and/or movement compositions, visual scripts, image-based pieces, and interactive and 'invisible' performances. You will learn how to facilitate complex working dynamics and create structured play for performance. This module will enable you to harness your creativity and that of others to devise theatre using different sources of inspiration and to become an imaginative and critically reflective theatre artist.

This option module will:

• Introduce you to the importance of play(fulness) and collaborative processes in the development of plays (or structured play) for performance, exploring trial and error methodologies to better innovate the possibilities of performance
• Explore the uses, ideas, theoretical material, and training strategies that relate to these activities
• Consider how to hold audience and/or participants through practice, exploring dynamic and healthy facilitation methods that will support your explorations beyond acting.

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CDF2002: Writing for Stage, Screen and Across Media

How does writing move across media? How do the stories we tell change as we tell them differently? This module will ask how new approaches to performance writing are emerging. It will ask how we might use words effectively in conjunction with other aspects of performance, and in creative response to new genres.

The module is designed to develop your individual writing for performance, and understanding of the demands of various media including, but not limited to, stage, screen and audio.

Through the term, we will develop your material across a range of media, experiencing its transformation and reinvention with each new genre. We will consider the different opportunities each genre offers the writer, and how you might push those approaches in your own unique ways. The module will introduce you to some of the underpinning principles of different kinds of writing, and different professional development processes.

You will develop your dramaturgical skills in feeding back on each others’ writing, as well as responding to work by professional writers across genres. You will write a review of a professional work of your choice, to be submitted in week seven and a longer script in a performance genre of your choosing, at the end of the term.

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DRA2044: Acting Shakespeare

Using Acting Shakespeare as our inspiration, the module introduces best performance practice and actor training from English-speaking traditions, to practically explore the nuts and bolts, techniques and tactics of performing Shakespeare. The module also around the world to be inspired by performances of Shakespeare in other languages, genres and cultures. Prior knowledge of or experience with Shakespeare is NOT a requirement. You work together as a large group, in small groups and in pairs in a supportive learning environment. Along with your practice journey of process into performance, a written portfolio (critical and reflective) will draw together research, embodied practice and acting process.

The aim of the module is to help you find and/or develop your acting skills and grow your understanding of Shakespeare and twenty-first century global performance through the inter-related process of:

• Actor training - developing proficiency in performing text, psychophysical awareness and expression
• Collaboration - developing capability in imaginative and culturally sensitive creation while developing group time management and problem-solving skills.
• Creativity - using a variety of stimuli as starting points for imaginative exploration, selection, adaptation and refinement of textual sources
• Critical context - Extending your understanding of the theories and practices of performances. Critical study and appreciation of global Shakespeare, with reference to your own work and exemplars of professional theatre

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DRA2107: Popular Performance Practices

In this module, you will be introduced to the practice and theories of popular entertainment forms and their relationship to contemporary understandings of intangible cultural heritage. You will learn the history and context from which these forms emerged in the 18th & 19th centuries, and how to apply them to performance. Using theories such as carnivalesque, ethnography and commodification of space and point of view, you will also learn how these forms have become embedded in contemporary practices of live and mediated entertainment - e.g., festival culture, street theatre, commemorative events, television and augmented/virtual reality. Learning and teaching methods include workshops, rehearsals, seminars, and practical presentations.

The aim of this module is to provide you with an understanding of several tools and methods for approaching popular performance. It will provide you with a grounding in the history, practice and theory underpinning outdoor, vernacular, popular performance forms. The module will investigate how a contemporary understanding of how intangible cultural heritage is not a fixed point but a living form is applied in the revitalisation of popular performance practices today.

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DRA2112: Applied Drama: Touring, Directing and Facilitating

In this module, you will learn how to create and tour small-scale theatre performance, as well as develop skills in theatre-making, acting, directing, workshop delivery and facilitation. You will act, devise, and tour a theatre performance into a real-world setting such as a school, library, community centre, or small-scale theatre site. You will explore how you employ theatre craft to create work for a specific audience. In doing so, you will have opportunities to learn skills of direction and facilitation, and where appropriate, gain skills in leading workshops or designing programmes of participation. You will be introduced to the above in studio sessions taught by the module tutor and via active experiential learning opportunities. You will also research and present on an example of Applied Theatre practice within the work of a contemporary theatre company.

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DRA2119: Approaches to Acting and Contemporary Performance Making

What techniques and skills do performers need? What forms do contemporary theatre and performance take? This module will introduce you to a range of emerging theatre and performance practices and provide you with actor and performance training to support both interpreting scripts and making original performance from other sources.

The module is designed to broaden your knowledge of contemporary theatre and performance practice – its forms, themes, questions – and to equip you to make innovative and thoughtful new performance.

You will develop performance material in response to a range of stimuli from contemporary theatre and performance, noticing the affordances of different forms and the ways in which they differently foreground core theatrical materials such as space, voice, text, time, character, image and story. We will consider the different opportunities each form offers the performer, and how you might explore and inhabit those opportunities in your own unique ways. In parallel, the module will invite you to undertake performer training, including actor training for text interpretation and ensemble co-creation techniques, and to practice putting these techniques to work. In tandem, there will be opportunities to engage with cutting-edge theatre technology in lighting, sound and design.

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DRA2115: Audiences, Participation, Immersion

This module explores the different ways that live performances have set out to capture audiences’ attention, through immersive and participatory events within or beyond theatrical spaces, or by casting audiences as participants and performers themselves in cultural or everyday spaces. You will explore the diverse ways in which audiences have been involved as participants, non-specialist makers and collaborators in different kinds of live performance events from history and the present day. You will develop a rich understanding of the different theoretical approaches to audiences, as well as evaluating and making creative responses to innovative performance practices, companies and events.

You will read about different practices and analyse the theoretical frameworks, ideologies, and philosophies that underpin these practices. You will have the opportunity to undertake small-group creative experiment, analysis and presentation on these differing performance modes, and to pursue independent research into an area of your interest. You will gather these different ways of working throughout the term into an analytical and creative portfolio.

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DRA2116: Activism and Performance

This module examines the relationships between art, activism, and performance. You will explore how activism is performed and how performance can be used as a powerful tool for protest and community organisation. Activism has a rich cultural history, and continually evolves in response to social, economic, and technological change. A resurgence of people-led movements across the globe in recent years has compelled theorists to investigate the performative dynamics of social struggle. By responding to current events, contemporary scholarship, and historical intersections of art and activism, the module invites you to become part of this investigation, analysing ‘acts’ of activism as highly organised events with their own theatrical agendas and parameters.

Note on learning methods: Critical readings are complemented each week with audio-visual material to enrich your learning. The module centres student voice and develops your confidence to speak about issues you care about in a trusting environment, which we establish together, collectively.

The module aims to:

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DRA2117: Musicals: Critical Perspectives in Contemporary Contexts

In Anaïs Mitchell’s stage musical Hadestown, Orpheus endeavours to compose ‘a song to fix what’s wrong, take what’s broken, make it whole.’ This module explores how musicals – on stage and screen – attempt to reveal, reshape, or repair aspects of social reality and lived experience. Through close analysis of songs alongside cultural contextual study, you will learn to examine and articulate how this interdisciplinary art form combines music, lyrics, storytelling, choreography, performance, and scenic design to generate meaning and emotional impact for audiences. You will draw on critical perspectives that are attuned to global challenges. These approaches will enable you to consider how musicals can engage with social, political, and cultural issues, and how they can imagine new possibilities for contemporary society.

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DRA2118: Creative Producing: People, Culture and Collaboration

This module introduces producing as a relational, values-led practice that centres the work of creative labour and collaboration, asking what it means to produce work with people rather than simply for them. It explores how producers work with artists, organisations, communities, and audiences across diverse cultural and commercial contexts, examining issues of care, leadership, access, inclusion and sustainability. Alongside this, you will develop an understanding of the core roles and responsibilities of a producer and build a practical toolkit of producing tools for real-world practice such as project development, budgeting, fundraising, scheduling, stakeholder communication and risk management.

Through case studies, discussion, practical tasks, and reflection, you will engage with producing scenarios across theatre, live performance, festivals, participatory practice and the wider creative industries. By the end of the module, you will have developed an understanding of producing as an ethical and collaborative practice, supported by a working toolkit for navigating contemporary creative landscapes.

Module aims:

By the end of the module, you will:

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DRA2120: Voices Across Stage and Screen

Which vocal techniques are used across live and on-screen performance?

What is their significance for character development, dramaturgy and audience engagement?

What do voices reveal about individual and collective identity?

How can we examine vocal practice through urgent contemporary perspectives and debates?

In this seminar module, you will explore voice in theatrical performance, film and television—as well as in hybrid practices such as intermedial performance, sound art or musical theatre adaptations between stage and screen. From speaking and singing to voice-over, playback and soundtrack, you will investigate the multiple ways in which voices appear across media and platforms.

You will consider how technical aspects of voicing affect and are affected by the sociocultural and historical contexts of voice, sound and music. You will interrogate how voice participates in shaping our sense of self and our understanding of others, and how voices intersect with socio-political discourses on gender, race, ethnicity and disability.

The module aims to:

· introduce you to key definitions and conceptualisations of voice;

· help you explore the role of voice in a wide array of contemporary stage and screen media;

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DRA2121: ​​Performance in the Age of Screens: Intermedial Theatre​

From film projections on stage to the use of performance- (motion-) capture technologies; from experimentations with sound to the influence of video games on immersive theatre; from NT Live streaming to Zoom shows – this module explores the close and dynamic relationship between live performance and other media.

We will examine how theatre and performance engage with film, sound, digital technologies, video games, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI). You will investigate how different media combine with live performance, and how these combinations reshape ideas of presence, spectatorship and storytelling.

Through the study of a wide range of historical and contemporary examples, you will be introduced to key theoretical frameworks including media theory, intermediality, interactivity, immersion and liveness. You will also consider the changing role of the performer in our digital culture and ask critical questions about the future of live theatre in the age of AI.

Alongside seminars focused on analysis and theory, you will have the opportunity to engage in a couple of practical workshops, which will provide hands-on opportunities to experiment with intermedial approaches to performance-making to help us deepen our critical discussions.

The module aims to:

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HAS3999: Study Abroad

The Study Abroad programme enables you to undertake a year-long study placement at a partner university outside of the UK, as part of your degree programme.

This module serves as the administrative mechanism for recording the Study Abroad assessment results of students within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS). Students participating in the Study Abroad programme and based in a HASS department (except for the Law School, the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Modern Languages, and the School of Education) will be registered on this module during their Study Abroad placement year.

The Study Abroad programme widens the range of modules available to you during Stage 3 of your degree programme; enables you to broaden your academic horizons by studying in a different learning culture and (where relevant and appropriate) in languages other than English; and aims to promote resilience, independence, cultural awareness, and communication skills.

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HAS3998: Employment Experience

This module allows you to undertake and to learn from an extended work placement during the third year of a four year “with Employment Experience” programme. You will use one or more work placements to gain skills that equip you to work in the employment market and to improve your knowledge of the work environment. You are encouraged to think about the intercultural competence and the employability skills that you acquire during your year.

To progress to this module, you will have secured a suitable placement for a minimum of 26 weeks.

Having developed the skills necessary to find relevant roles and apply for roles in the graduate labour market, this is an invaluable opportunity to develop work-related skills and experience that will further enhance your success in the graduate labour market and support your future career choices.

During your placement year you will be supported by the Module Convenor and Placement Team.

The module assessment structure provides opportunity and support for you to evaluate your skills and achievements using personal development techniques.  You will also write an Employer Report to showpiece the culmination of your academic and business skills.

This module aims to:

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CDF3000: Dissertation

This module gives you the opportunity to undertake an

in-depth research project, either in the form of a traditional written

dissertation or by bridging academic scholarship and practical application. You

will develop critical thinking and independent research skills, and will have

the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world contexts should

you wish. You can choose between an 8,000-word scholarly dissertation or a

career-oriented portfolio, allowing you to tailor the project to your interests

and future goals. The module offers preparatory workshops, group supervision,

individual supervision and, where appropriate, reflective practice activities,

helping you explore topics of professional or academic interest. The module is

designed to enable you to enhance both your intellectual rigour and career

readiness and can be tailored to your individual skill sets and strengths.

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DRA3061: Practical Essay

This module allows you to develop and deliver a performance project with a small group of peers. You will spend your time practically exploring self-designed questions, building on material you might have encountered on any part of your degree. You will work in small groups with shared interests and be supervised by a staff member. Each group will identify core underlying questions and create a piece of practice for a suitable performance context. These performances may take place on or off campus and may be live and/or digitally mediated. This module offers you a chance to demonstrate your aptitude as critically reflexive, creatively adept theatre practitioners.

This module aims to allow you to:

• Draw together the experience of theatre-making gained through your degree.
• Work in a group (usually of 5-7) in the complex logistics of mounting a culminating presentation, that is likely to take the form of a performance.
• Guide an individual and collaborative process of creative work, and to contribute to the creative work of your peers.

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DRA3106: Acting for Screen

In this module, you will consider various tools and methods for approaching acting on screen. Through the practical trial and error of working with cameras - as actors, operators and editors - you will explore how to best bring a performance to life on screen. You will consider, in seminar discussion as well as in the studio, a range of actor training techniques from the stage and how and when they are transferable to the screen. While there will be scope for experimental forays, the fundamental aim of the module will be to focus on preparation, on-camera audition, and naturalistic, character-based scenes for a performance reel.

Through the interrelated processes of actor training, practical experimentation, personal creativity, individual research, and seminar discussion the module offers you the opportunity to:

• develop and harness your range of expressivity and creative instincts as a performer for screen
• experiment with a variety of actor training approaches and camera/editing techniques to discover your own unique creative possibilities on screen
• interrogate pedagogic and on-set dynamics and consider how they inform your practice and collaborative relationships
• understand the relationship between individual exploration, personal creativity and collaborative group work
• establish techniques and strategies for prioritising respect and wellbeing in rigorous environments of creation; enabling effective processes that help you make your best work
• critically assess various screen performances to understand their cultural and historical significance as well as the techniques employed
• consider how cultures of power in the screen industry affect creativity and production
• consider other means and uses of screen performance (intermedial performance) and how the learning on the module might be applied in other contexts and for future employability

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DRA3108: Applied Drama: Community, Participation and Co-Creation Projects

In this module you will develop an understanding of a range of applied theatre approaches. You will develop your awareness of the appropriate application of drama tools and skills in different settings and explore the role of the facilitator, director, actor, producer, and theatre-maker. You will undertake a group project, which may involve you creating & touring your own performance, or facilitating a creative process for others to participate and perform in. Previous projects have toured co-creation performances, worked with young offenders, young people excluded from school, adults with learning disabilities and others.

All students on this module will be required to complete a DBS enhanced disclosure.

The module aims to provide you with the following:

• The opportunity for you to apply your drama skills within non-traditional theatre contexts
• The ability to create appropriate applications of drama in those contexts
• Explore questions and issues raised by the expectations and demands of the role of the applied drama worker

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DRA3112: Physical Performance: Actor, Director, Maker

This practice-led module invites you to explore the expansive possibilities of physical performance through the roles of performer, director, mover, improviser, composer, designer, and maker. Within a supportive studio environment, you will discover the core principles of physical performance, applying these to a variety of forms, styles, and contexts that reflect your interests. Through workshops, independent trial-and-error experimentation, and collective reflexive practice, you will refine your instincts to create, embody, and interpret—empowering both yourself and others to discover range and ease in expressive practice. Working independently and in small groups, you will have the option to explore physical action and character, physical theatre/dance theatre, ensemble performance, musicality and space dynamics, visual storytelling, intermedial composition, movement within design, and ‘Total Theatre.’

As third years, this module also provides you with the opportunity to engage with professional practitioners and creatives who will share approaches to healthy and considered risk-taking. By engaging with contemporary paradigms of what moves, you’ll develop greater creative freedom and readiness. You will design a series of micro-performances informed by your research, curiosity and ambitions, with assessments offering opportunities to curate future-facing material, articulate and document new work and skill.

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DRA3111: Creative Industries Management: Representation and Cultural Value

How are the creative industries shaped by education, representation, disruption and power? This module explores these questions through a series of cultural texts that reveal the tensions behind creative work, including gatekeeping, hierarchy, visibility, creativity under pressure, and the struggle for legitimacy. Viewing may include selected material from The History Boys (Bennett), The White Tiger (Adiga) and Succession (Armstrong) (alongside other examples that explore networks, authorship and value). Through this module, you will develop an understanding of how cultural value is constructed and contested, and what this means for creative labour today.

This module explores how the creative industries are portrayed across different cultural forms, and how these representations shape wider understandings of creativity, management and cultural value. It introduces a set of critical, values‑led frameworks, to support nuanced analysis of creative work and creative ecosystems.

The module also enables you to apply these conceptual frameworks to real‑world creative organisations and contexts, drawing on case studies from screen, stage, literature and contemporary cultural practice to develop a portfolio assignment.

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DRA3113: ​​The Actor’s Body​: Theories and Practices of Performer Training

How do we train to perform?

What are we training and why?

How do we understand concentration, breath, imagination, emotion, gesture and space through different global training practices?

How can we apply these principles to contemporary performance problems?

How is training used beyond performance towards health and well-being?

Taking as a premise that all training and performance is intercultural, we explore key principles of the body-in-training in a range of practices from across the world including yoga, martial arts, theatres of quietude, butoh, dance and physical theatre.

In this module you will explore practices and theories of actor training and how these approaches are rooted in specific performance traditions, with a particular focus on the body of the performer.

We will do this by:

• Engaging in core exercises and applying them to performance tasks
• Designing and practicing accessible, inclusive group training
• Reflecting critically through practice-based research, lectures, and seminar discussions

By the end of the module, you will be able to:

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DRA3114: ​​Theatre Now! – Key Issues, Current Practices​

What is the state of theatre today? What key issues, trends, and debates are animating contemporary practices? How is theatre evolving in response?

This module explores how theatre is changing in relation to social, cultural, economic, technological, and ecological developments, while continuing to draw on the ancient power of human performance and storytelling in shared space and time.

Through engagement with a diverse range of materials — including performance documentation, recent scholarship, critical commentary, practitioner reflections, and other forms of public discourse — you will develop a broader and deeper understanding of contemporary theatre, considering how specific productions and practices illuminate artistic innovations and new ways of working.

This module will enable you to contribute to ongoing conversations about contemporary theatre and to envision its future.

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DRA3115: Women and Theatre, 1662-1928

What happens when we put women’s theatre work at the centre of our study of theatre history?

In this module, you will explore this question through an independent research project focussing on women’s theatre practices. You will use primary source materials from a variety of archives, including the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum and the University of Exeter Special Collections.

Your research will be supported by a programme of reading, seminar discussion, and small group tutorials.

As well as a deeper understanding of the way that history has been written, you will learn essential skills for developing an independent project and communicating your findings in effective ways. You will be encouraged to draw on and develop your interdisciplinary understanding of theatre in society.

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