This 2-year, part-time MA is a creative and challenging exploration into the power of socially engaged arts. We aim to develop the next generation of cultural leaders and interdisciplinary theatre practitioners. Graduates will lead the way in providing meaningful, inclusive arts experiences that address social, political and educational issues in a broad range of settings.
The course offers a holistic programme that invites creative reflection on the power of storytelling for social transformation. Students address complex issues in critical and creative ways, considering the role of arts in education, migration and exile, health and building communities. You’ll engage with course learning through practical exploration, collaboration, group discussion, independent study and reflective practice.
Delivered part-time, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds, including professionals working in youth, community and/or education settings as well as performers looking to develop and diversify their practice.
VISITING AND GUEST PRACTITIONERS
In addition to the core Mountview team, students work with visiting lecturers and practitioners from a range world-class organisations. These include Turtle Key Arts, Punchdrunk Enrichment, Complicité, Clod Ensemble, Unicorn Theatre, Clean Break, Theatre Peckham, Candoco Dance Company, Brixton House, Wales Millenium Centre, Tate Modern, Glasshouse Theatre and Access All Areas.
Topics covered by visiting lecturers are varied and include:
Students are supported to discover placements for their independent research projects based on their specific interests and emerging ideas and practice. Recent partnerships include Newham Children In Care Council, Little Fish Theatre Company and Tropical Pressure Festival, among others.
COURSE CONTENT AND DELIVERY
There is one day of in-person teaching each week, with one additional Friday and Saturday each term.
Throughout the course students develop skills in critical thinking, facilitating, devising, leading, producing, discussing and teaching creatively and imaginatively. Study involves workshops, lectures and seminars as well as independent collaborative and solo practice/research. Students are assigned weekly reading materials to digest course themes and engage in learning through independent study.
Reciprocal and collaborative learning is embedded into course practice. Students are provided with opportunities to design and lead practical workshops for one another, to bring topics for facilitated discussion with their Course Leader and to choose areas of focus for specific assessments, based on their interests and experiences.
Practical areas of study include collaborative and ensemble techniques, forum theatre, arts for wellbeing, devised theatre, inclusive and trauma informed practices, arts and money, decolonial feminist approaches, facilitating in multilingual and multifaith spaces, and ethics in artistic practice.
Students gain practical experience running workshops in schools, both in Peckham and further afield – previous locations include Spain and Nigeria.
Students engage in a wide range of texts such as Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks and Theatre for Living: The Art and Science of Community-Based Dialogue by David Diamond.
Assessments are varied and include essays, talks, education packs, presentations, and workshop samples.
Mountview is currently the only UK drama school to offer Directing, Dramatic Writing and Producing as three distinct, specialised pathways within a single, unified Creative Practice MA framework. The course is designed for multi-hyphenate practitioners who are excited by collaboration and meeting the demands of the twenty-first century creative industries.
By bringing directors, writers and producers into one ecosystem, the course mirrors the professional world by fostering creative partnerships through shared engagement with modes of collaboration, creative enterprise, dramatic structures and critical contexts.
Students on the Dramatic Writing pathway develop an in-depth knowledge of dramatic structures and the core competencies for writing across different forms and styles. The course develops an understanding and critical awareness of current practice through engagement with industry practitioners and academics. You will be mentored by award-winning playwright Roy Williams OBE (Death of England National Theatre, Sucker Punch Royal Court), who oversees aspects of the course as Distinguished Visiting Artist.
The course concludes with the opportunity to put your learning into practice through the staging of a public facing, fully-realised festival of new work. VIEW Festival allows students to develop their pathway specific skills while also collaborating closely with the Producing, Directing and Performance students.
Our MA Creative Practice graduates leave with an established network of industry contacts and prepared for high-impact careers as Playwrights, Screenwriters, Dramaturgs, Directors, Creative Leaders, Theatre Makers, Artistic Directors, Commercial and Independent Producers and Venue Leaders.
STAFF AND PRACTITIONERS
The Creative Practice teaching team is led by Hamish Pirie and Dawn Ingleson as Joint Course Leaders, alongside Roy Williams as Distinguished Visiting Artist. Dawn worked extensively at the National Theatre as a creative producer and has also taught at LSBU, while Hamish’s directing credits include work at the Royal Court, Donmar Warehouse, Paines Plough and Traverse Theatre. Roy is a multi-award winning writer whose credits include Death of England: The Plays (National Theatre), The Lonely Londoners (Kiln and Jermyn Street Theatre) and Sucker Punch (Royal Court, Olivier Award nomination).
In addition to working alongside the core teaching team, MA Creative Practice students also benefit from industry masterclasses specific to their pathway, led by the world’s most prestigious creative powerhouses. Recent MA Creative Practice sessions have featured:
This new Master’s degree is designed to provide practical experience in directing and creating work for the theatre. Collaboration is at the heart of the programme to effectively replicate industry.
You will have the opportunity to work with students from other courses including acting, film, television and theatre production, set design, visual effects and costume – to deliver projects from start to finish.
Under guidance from experienced writers, directors and actors, you will explore and manage the entire directing process. From planning and prep work, through the rehearsal process to the final performance.
Working within the School’s Acting department you will have access to dedicated rehearsal rooms, our theatre and, where required, film & television studios.
The focus of this Master’s degree is the development of your directorial skill-set and style – whether that be in creating new work or in exciting and innovative interpretations of existing plays.
You will work on a wide range of approaches to directing, ranging from how to work with text to creating work through multi-media in performance. There are opportunities to look at ways of creating your own work with an ensemble and gain knowledge of funding applications so you are ready to set up your own company after graduation.
By the end of this intensive year-long programme, you have completed at least three contrasting and challenging projects. There will be opportunities to shadow directors and work as an assistant director on a range of projects to help inform your own practice.
This course, which is the first of its kind in the UK, provides individually tailored tuition that elevates your skills in readiness for a professional role as an opera director.
Mentored by tutors who are professionals drawn from across industry, you’ll examine the key elements that will contribute to your artistic and creative development – including acting methodologies, rehearsal techniques, principal singing languages and movement.
You’ll also explore different operatic forms, styles and conventions. Investigating artistic relationships – such as the design process and the conductor’s role – forms part of your tuition too.
Practical directing experience in a collaborative setting is fundamental to your training. You’ll work across various creative disciplines involved in producing opera, immersing yourself in the many performances and projects that take place here at the College – with opportunities to direct in-house opera scenes as well.
You’ll observe professional opera directors at work – both at the College and at the Welsh National Opera – to gain a better understanding of the industry in practice and build your network of contacts.
Your course culminates with a fully negotiated industry placement in a professional UK opera company, focusing on the role of staff director and associated areas of expertise.
This dynamic and intensive course takes place across four terms in a full calendar year. It is designed for those aged 21 and over who can discover and realise their potential as a creative artist over a year of training. You will be taught in group classes, developing your professionalism, collaboration and technical skill through ensemble learning and individual tutorials.
We expect you to be bold and fearless in your willingness to understand yourself and be prepared to be open and curious whilst experimenting with new methods of working. Throughout your training you will have opportunities to collaborate with leading directors, writers and producers.
The year culminates in London where you will perform in London venues to the public and to an invited industry audience. On completion of the course, you will be awarded Equity membership.
Graduates of this course include Tanya Reynolds, Babou Ceesay, Jude Owusu, Claire Foy and Richard Gadd.
Are you committed to a career in an art practice that creatively engages with your community? If so, the MA Art and Social Practice is ideal.
Artists in the 21st century increasingly find themselves working in participatory settings where skills in creative and social engagement are essential. This programme addresses these changing needs and facilitates a shift in thinking away from conventional ideas about where art practices are located and how work is disseminated.
The course offers focused provision enabling you to develop an appropriate level of knowledge and research to inform practical work, together with the critical and analytical processes and technical skills required to effectively deliver a project in the public domain.
Special features
- Taught by an inter-disciplinary team of artists and specialists from social anthropology, social and collaborative art practices and sculpture, who work across a range of local, national and international contexts, from urban centres to remote and small communities
- You will have the option to meet in real life during the annual Winter School located in rotating locations in the Highlands and Islands
In the final stage of the module you will choose your own mentor from local, national or international specialists
- You will meet leading figures in the field, from Scotland, the rest of the UK and internationally, through the annual Virtual Symposium, visiting Lecturers and guest speakers
The ArtsEd MA Acting course offers rigorous and intensive vocational actor training that enables you to harness your potential as a highly skilled, creative and autonomous actor.
You will be immersed in a dynamic and rigorous acting programme that is challenging and robust. Our team of experienced industry professionals will work with you to hone and develop your actor’s craft, enabling you to be prepared and resilient for the demands of the contemporary industry.
Inclusive and questioning, the course gives you techniques to work with classical and contemporary texts with imagination, truth and specificity. The course is vocational and highly practical where techniques are acquired through the year in classes, workshops and performances. Both theatre and screen acting is explored. The MA in Acting enables its graduates to have an autonomous, responsive process that is alive to the world around it, flexible to the needs of the industry, and full of the actor’s imagination and creative potential.
East 15 Acting School’s MA Acting is a challenging course that encourages the development of a personal methodology based upon East 15’s unique practices.
On one level, it is a thoroughly practical, highly intensive, vocational course. On another level, it is a thought-provoking, life-changing reflection on the function and art of the actor – exploring techniques from some of Europe’s most influential practitioners as well as innovative professional practice from the UK and internationally.
MA Acting is a specialist course of one academic year with additional work on marketing students to the industry with a showcase. You will need discipline and motivation to work at an advanced level. Beyond these, the requirements are abundant energy, insatiable curiosity and a robust sense of humour.
Some students may already possess a university degree (not necessarily in a related discipline) whilst others will have established themselves in other career paths and now seek to change the direction of their lives towards that of a professional actor.
This course also attracts professional actors who feel the need to reflect on their practice, extend their range and skills, refresh their creativity, increase their professional contacts and gain academic recognition.
This course is taught at our picturesque Loughton Campus.
GSA is one of the UK’s leading drama schools. This, part-time, two-year online learning programme provides the opportunity to gain an academic qualification from a leading drama school within a top-ten university from the convenience of your own home. GSA has enjoyed nearly twenty years of distance learning provision to a global community of students.
Uncover more about who you are – discover who you could become.
Ideal for those in full-time employment, our MA Theatre course from the Guildford School of Acting (GSA) provides a gateway to an exciting future without the need for regular attendance on campus. Our course allows you to study at your own pace through online learning, so you can pursue your passion for theatre and develop industry connections around your existing commitments. GSA is accredited by the Federation of Drama Schools (FDS). You’ll have unlimited access to our virtual learning environment which will be supported by industry-leading professionals and passionate academics.
