Develop your acting skills to a professional standard, while exploring English literature, and gain a deep understanding of the relationship between text and performance.
We offer the only combined actor-training and English degree in the UK, allowing you to develop your acting skills while studying English literature, giving you a firm knowledge base from which to work in either field.
Acting is the practical realisation of text and is closely linked to the discipline of English. This unique combination of study will open up many options for work or further academic study. You’ll have a range of options, which will allow you to tailor the course to fit your particular interests, and have the chance to develop allied skills such as theatre directing.
Acting classes cover acting for both stage and screen, and will include substantial workshop performances as well as public productions in the final year, including the opportunity to present your own fully supported show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
When you leave the course you’ll be armed with a career action plan, a show reel and significant experience in both acting and English.
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.
