Theatre Making - MA

Teaching

Teaching and assessment

Assessment consists of 100% coursework, including essays, performances, funding budgets, reviews, written reflections on own practice, analysis of professional practice, presentations, reports, placements, practice-as-research portfolios.

Programme aims

• Offer an excellent learning experience through advanced engagement with a range of contemporary forms, styles and practices of theatre making and their histories in Britain and Europe more widely, such as for instance performing, directing, devising, ensemble work, performance art, puppetry or applied theatre.
• Provide the opportunity for students to try out different roles and gain multiple competencies in theatre making, reflecting a fluid understanding of task division within professional practice.
• Develop students’ comprehensive understanding and critical awareness of theoretical developments in the field of theatre and performance studies through research-led teaching and engagement with creative activities within the Department and School of Arts.
• Develop students’ analytical, critical, conceptual, methodological and practical skills, and prepare them for further postgraduate research beyond Masters level.
• Foster the abilities of students as critical and creative thinkers, and as independent and self-motivated learners and makers, and equip them for employment and/or independent artistic careers.
• Offer master classes led by nationally and internationally celebrated companies, venues, directors and artists, therefore enhancing the students’ networking opportunities.
• Offer a mixed mode programme of studio-based and classroom-based teaching, which embraces the legacy and ethos of Practice as Research.
• Foster students’ engagement with theatre making practices beyond the UK, by building on the Department’s close international ties, reflecting Kent’s position as the UK’s European University.
• Attract intellectually able and talented students from different backgrounds in the UK, Europe and overseas by offering a variety of delivery modes, including FT and PT.

Learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding

• The histories, genealogies and current configurations of theatre and performance forms, practices and traditions, including but not limited to performing, directing, devising, performance art, and applied theatre.
• Wide aesthetic, political, social, and intellectual contexts of drama, theatre and performance in Britain and Europe, and their funding landscapes.
• Critical, artistic and conceptual paradigms of performance in order to comprehend, assess and intelligently engage with the work of significant practitioners and theorists in the field.
• The wider interdependence of creative practice, critical theory, production processes and cultural policies in Britain and Europe.
• The inherent interdisciplinary and trans-national location and context of theatre art and performance practice, and its relation to the public and audiences.
• Innovative, challenging and informed methods and practices of making performance; the processes of rehearsal, writing, scoring, devising, scenography, choreography, staging, promotion and training techniques.

Intellectual skills

• The ability to understand and assess the range of approaches to professional theatre making, beyond narrow subdivisions and categories.
• The ability to critically reflect on and evaluate various traditions, theories, contexts, ideas and ideologies that shape theatre making practices, both past and present, both in relation to professional productions and the students’ own work.
• The ability to creatively and imaginatively engage with texts for theatre and other theatre making sources, such as objects, costumes, images, music, ideas.
• The ability to understand the interplay between theory, academic research and artistic practices, and their mutual enrichment, and engage in practice as research.
• The ability to work collaboratively on performance projects within given parameters and the ability to negotiate the various creative, artistic and administrative aspects of theatre making.
• The ability to communicate ideas, information, critique and analysis in a professional or scholarly register, as required by a variety of audiences, both in a written or oral format.

Subject-specific skills

• The advanced ability to practice and combine a variety of theatre making techniques such as directing, performing devising, performance art, applied theatre or puppetry– to further theatre and performance aesthetics.
• The ability to carry out sophisticated conceptual research required prior to the creation of theatre making productions.
• The ability to effectively organise collaborative work and/or lead rehearsals, and to work as creative producers of own companies, generating marketing material, funding bids and professional CVs.
• The ability to develop, individually or in collaboration with an ensemble, productions that creatively engage with, and critically respond to, pre-existing material, such as texts, images, narratives, ideas, sounds, places, contexts, music and objects.
• The ability to undertake nuanced academic research, including the ability to productively deploy practice-as-research methodologies, bibliographical and archival documentation techniques, advanced textual and performance analysis.
• The ability to support creative work with rigorous academic research, appropriate documentation, and efficient conceptual and methodological considerations.

Transferable skills

• The confidence to work in collaboration with others efficiently in teams, the ability to negotiate group dynamics and handling and solving interpersonal issues, as well as the ability to exercise leadership and project management skills.
• The ability to articulate, critique and disseminate advanced and sophisticated ideas effectively, in a way that advances knowledge, both verbally and in writing, demonstrating competence in engaging a range of different audiences.
• The ability to take personal responsibility to define, manage and complete a project over a sustained period of time in a disciplined way and within specified allocations of time, space and/or budget.
• The ability to work and learn independently and autonomously, prioritise, manage one’s time and meet deadlines.
• The ability to reflect on one’s learning in order to be able to continuously expand one’s skills and knowledge base independently.
• An awareness of health and safety issues and risk assessment.

Careers

Graduates of Kent's comprehensive theatre studies curriculum are suited to work as freelance artists, directors, teachers, and theatre makers, as theatre managers and managers for educational projects, and in other theatre-related roles. Kent Drama & Theatre graduates have also formed their own companies (Little Bulb, The Noise Next Door, The Three Half Pints, White Slate, Accidental Collective), joined existing companies, and developed careers as innovative and influential theatre practitioners.

Study support

Global Skills Award

All students registered for a taught Master's programme are eligible to apply for a place on our Global Skills Award Programme. The programme is designed to broaden your understanding of global issues and current affairs as well as to develop personal skills which will enhance your employability.