This unique degree unites UEA’s strengths in creative writing and in drama to give you an exhilarating immersion in writing and performance. 

You will have the opportunity to study all kinds of creative writing, with a particular focus on writing for theatre, cinema, television, and radio. Alongside this, you'll be exploring the contemporary practice, criticism, and history of dramatic writing and performance. Your writing will be enriched by an awareness of theatrical and literary traditions from around the globe. 

You’ll take practical drama modules, and you’ll have full access to our professionally equipped 200-seat Drama Studio. This comprehensive grounding in acting, directing, and all other aspects of stagecraft will enable you to graduate from this drama and creative writing degree as a writer with an instinctive feel for the world of theatre and performing arts.  

Offering an exhilarating immersion in all aspects of theatre, this drama course combines a comprehensive grounding in acting, directing, theatre-making, and practical stagecraft with the thoughtful and inventive study of plays and performances.

You’ll explore a range of theatre and performance practices from around the world, combining theoretical and historical knowledge with practical exploration and skills in all elements of theatre-making. Throughout your drama degree, you’ll learn from practising directors, scriptwriters, and theatre-makers, alongside academic experts in theatre and performance.

Once you graduate, your BA Drama degree will open the doors of the theatre world to you – or you might choose to take all the skills you've learnt to any number of careers across the creative industries and beyond. 

This distinctive, flexible and varied degree combines the study of English literature with workshop-based practical theatre work, allowing you to explore performance from both creative and critical perspectives.

You’ll study literatures in English from the medieval to the contemporary period, exploring richly diverse literary texts across different genres, including fiction, poetry and drama. You’ll be equipped with the knowledge and skills to understand literature in the context of a variety of historical periods, places and cultures. Reading and understanding literature can help us to find out about ourselves and see the world from other perspectives. Through engaging with different kinds of texts from across the globe and from different periods of history, you can learn how language reflects and shapes human experience.  Literature modules explore themes relevant to how we live today, including race and ethnicity, gender, climate change and nature, social class, disability, and wellbeing. 

You will also develop your skills as an artist-researcher through practical workshops led by our own theatre specialists. With compulsory and specialist optional modules spanning theatre, performance, applied theatre, design, digital performance, directing, musical theatre, event management, acting and collaborative practice, you’ll be able to follow a broad range of interests suited to your own academic and professional development.

Throughout your degree, you’ll learn through a combination of seminars, lectures, workshops, practical experimentation and working with both specialist and readily available digital technologies. This degree encourages you to integrate your literary and theatrical interests through a wide range of literature, theatre, and performance options. It provides you with a challenging and rewarding opportunity to combine ambitious, collaborative practical projects with rigorous critical thinking. You’ll develop your skills as a critical reader and a persuasive writer, while reflecting upon the impact that performance has on cultures and societies across the world. You'll become an advocate of the creative arts, developing collaborative, creative, critical thinking and project management skills that will benefit you in a wide range of careers.

Graduates in English and Theatre & Performance have progressed to a wide variety of career destinations, including professional theatre and media, publishing, writing, events management, marketing and business, as well as further academic study.

Explore drama, literature, performance and theatre history
Our English and Drama MA offers an exciting opportunity to specialise in the study of drama, theatre and literary studies.

In this course, you will primarily study dramatic texts and the history of theatre, working with leading experts in Shakespeare and early modern drama, theatre history, and modern performance theory and practice. You can also choose from a wide range of optional modules across the field of literary studies, combining your interest in drama with topics including postcolonial and world literature, and critical and cultural theory.

You have the choice of completing a research dissertation on a topic of your choice, or alternatively, taking up a professional placement or an extended practical project. These can help you develop your professional network and practical skills for the future career you have in mind.

You will enjoy easy access to the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford, and major theatres in Coventry, Leicester and Birmingham. On campus, Warwick Arts CentreLink opens in a new window, the largest of its kind outside London, is visited by companies of international standing specialising in both the established repertoire and new work.

Our warm and vibrant research community is one of the largest in the UK, with around 110 postgraduates every year. We also offer funding for postgraduate study, and career development support during your time here.

By the end of the course, you'll be well-positioned for further study or employment with the transferable skills you will develop.