Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick takes pride in its national and international reputation for research and teaching excellence. As a student, you will be taught by world-leading scholars, industry professionals and artists who are as passionate about the power of theatre and performance as you are.
You will explore how drama, theatre and performance are used to share stories, to laugh, to feel, to understand more deeply, and to change things.
You will have the ability to curate your own distinctive degree, on a course that’s designed to empower you. The foundational first-year consists of four core modules which balance theory and practice. The second and third years are defined by optionality with the opportunity to select from a wide range of modules designed by our diverse team of specialist staff.
You will join a School that fosters a strong sense of community and will work with your peers to continually design, make, discuss and debate theatre and performance. Staff will see, understand and develop you as an individual, helping you to create a pathway through the course to achieve your ambitions.
Beyond the course, you will be encouraged to see work and get involved at Warwick Arts Centre, one of the largest multi-artform venues in the UK, and join one of the many award-winning performance-based student societies.
We believe that it is the unique combination of our course, with the practical experience in the creation and production of work within student societies, and the professional environment that Warwick Arts Centre has to offer, which makes our graduates so successful.
As part of your degree you have the option to apply to do an intercalated year studying with one of our partner institutions overseas.
In 2021/22 these partners included University of Toronto in Canada; Monash University in Australia; and a number of Universities in Europe, including in Helsinki, Lisbon, Ljubljana, and Dublin. The locations that you can travel to are confirmed in November of the preceding academic year to when you would be travelling and these locations can change each year.
There will also be opportunities for you to apply to have short periods of study, work, research and/or volunteering overseas during vacation periods in order to gain international experience without adding a year to your studies.
Our BA Theatre & Performance course is designed to inspire your theatrical creativity and provide you with outlets to express it.
You will begin by studying theatre from a range of cultures and historical periods, then focus more intensively on theatre of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the work of international and British playwrights and performance makers such as Samuel Beckett, Sarah Kane, Complicité, Caryl Churchill and Katie Mitchell.
The course investigates a range of contemporary global practices from verbatim to immersive, from site-specific work to examples of digital technologies in live performance. You will see performances ranging from west end theatre to the latest practitioners of 'intermedial' theatre and performance art. Throughout your degree, you will explore how directors, designers, writers and other theatre artists respond to and shape our rapidly changing world. You will learn practical skills from the first year, with opportunities to create performances in the final two years. You will also have the option of following a critical-only route.
You will explore histories and techniques of devising, producing, designing and directing, and learn how theatre works as an expression of real-world issues. Students studying BA Theatre & Performance at the University of Reading enjoy the best of both worlds, developing critical and creative skills in a dynamic environment.
Musical theatre is one of the most popular forms of entertainment. For over a century, it’s helped us to understand how the world works, generating stories of hope and optimism while considering the challenging issues at the heart of being human.
Develop vital stagecraft skills in movement, voice, acting, and devising on our Musical Theatre degree course and explore contemporary approaches to music and theatre. You’ll immerse yourself in all forms of practice, create new musicals. stage a full production in your first and final year, and produce a professional showreel for use in the industry.
You'll also examine musical theatre's significance in popular culture and society, exploring themes such as the representation of race, gender and politics on the local and global stage, and gain vital transferable skills for all kinds of career opportunities after you graduate.
Along the way, you’ll use specialist facilities, collaborate with students on other creative courses, work with professional composers, writers, and directors, and perform in many fantastic locations – in Portsmouth and beyond.
Course highlights:
- Enhance your creative collaboration by working alongside peers and new writers to create shows
- Boost your professional profile by developing a showreel to perform in front of agents, producers, and casting directors as part of your final-year career preparations
- Develop career-enhancing skills in mixed- and multi-media arts, including live and virtual practices
- Gain valuable industry experience by taking an optional placement
- Take advantage of pioneering research by studying at the home of Studies in Musical Theatre – the UK’s only international academic journal dedicated to musical theatre
- Get current professional insight by attending guest lectures from leading actors, producers, and authors – past guests include actor Sheila Hancock, Randy Adams (Tony award-winning producer of Memphis the Musical), Lyn Darnley (former Head of Voice and Text, Royal Shakespeare Company), and Ken Cerniglia (Hadestown dramaturg and Disney Theatricals’ literary director)
We want to ensure you become who you want to be musically and can make your living working with music, whether as a song writer or producer or a combination of these.
Your musicianship skills in popular, contemporary and commercial music are developed in your first and second years. These complement and enhance the development of your skills in song writing and production, which are your major focus throughout the three years. The course also equips you with the essential business skills to succeed.
You get your music in front of an audience through frequent gig nights, regular festivals and industry showcases. Aside from the business, you also learn how to match your music with an audience. You can collaborate with students from other music programmes and courses within the wider LIPA student body, for example: recorded and live sound, lighting design and management students.
We want to ensure you become who you want to be musically and can make your living working with music, whether performing, creating or producing or a combination of these.
The course helps you develop your skills in popular, contemporary and commercial music and equips you with the essential business skills to succeed. You’ll develop a broad range of skills across performance, composition, song writing and production.
You get your music in front of an audience through frequent gig nights, regular festivals and industry showcases. Aside from the business, you also learn how to match your music with an audience. You can collaborate with students from other courses, for example: recorded and live sound, lighting design and management students.
We want to develop your skills, knowledge and confidence for a sustained career as a performing arts designer.
The breadth of our curriculum enables you to become a creative, ambitious, multi-skilled designer. Through working on a variety of practical projects, you feel equally at home designing the set and costume for a theatre production, working on a site-specific performance event or creating the environment or lighting for a music gig or dance performance.
The course is highly practical emphasising realised performance work each year. Our designers collaborate with all performance disciplines and a range of external companies, so you gain a huge amount and variety of experience.
