This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module is intended to provide an opportunity for students to engage with a theoretical and practical study of theatre criticism at a professional level. Combining a contextual study of contemporary theatre/ performance and arts journalism in the UK and other cultural contexts with a process of honing the technical skills involved in theatre reviewing for different types of media, the module is concerned with processes of analysis, feedback and reflection as well as notions of style and presentation.
Framed by some preparatory study, the central part of the module is focussed around visits to live performances. These may include visits to theatres in Canterbury and London as well as trips to major national and international festivals (Edinburgh, NSDF, Avignon etc.). (Different seminar leaders will select different programmes of theatre visits for their groups, according to their particular specialist interests).
These trips will be framed as reviewing assignments which would mirror professional working conditions in that students might be expected to submit or publish their reviews to tight deadlines.
There will be a strong emphasis on developing skills of articulating experience and analysis of live performance. In addition to being aimed at developing the students’ writing skills (through a portfolio and a feature article), the module will also place some emphasis on oral presentation and public speaking about performance. The assessment scheme has been designed to develop these skills.
The module will be taught through workshops, seminars and theatre visits.
100% Coursework: Portfolio of no more than 5000 Words (60%); Research Feature and Pitch (40%)
Billington, Michael, One Night Stands: A Critic’s View of British Theatre 1971-1991, Nick Hern Books 1993
Butt, Gavin, ed., After Criticism: New Responses to Art and Performance, Blackwell 2005
Delgado, Maria, and Caridad Svich, eds, Theatre in Crisis? Performance Manifestos for a New Century, Manchester UP 2002
Delgado, Maria, and Dan Rebellato, eds, Contemporary European Theatre Directors, Routledge, 2010
Kelleher, Joe, and Nicholas Ridout, eds, Contemporary Theatres in Europe: A Critical Companion, Routledge, 2006
Harvie, Jen, Staging the UK, Manchester UP 2005
Shellard, Dominic, British Theatre Since the War, Yale UP 2000
Pavis, Patrice, Analysing Performance, University of Michigan Press 2003
Warle, Irving, Theatre Criticism, Routledge 1992
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On completion of the module, the students will have demonstrated:
- a systematic understanding of theories of theatre spectatorship, aesthetic and political aspects of the contemporary UK/European theatre context(s) and the role of new media technologies in theatre criticism, as well as an ability to communicate this understanding to others through theatre reviews and research features written to professional standards
- originality in critiquing and analysing performance events and applying different modalities of theatre criticism and journalism in different media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, internet)
- a conceptual understanding that enables the students to evaluate critically relationships between contemporary theatre practice, cultural politics and arts journalism
- a comprehensive understanding of different forms of performance and criticism, and of their theoretical foundations
- ability to problematise and reflect on the current state of theatre criticism, its professional practices and on personal experience of inherent practices orally and in writing
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