Lancaster's degree in Theatre and Creative Writing is taught jointly by the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) and the Department of English and Creative Writing. It combines the study of Theatre with the writing of original and imaginative fiction, poetry or plays. These two different focuses reinforce and complement each other.

Studying Theatre at Lancaster gives you the opportunity to learn about innovative twentieth and twenty-first century theatre and performance through an exciting and varied mix of practical and academic approaches. You will be taught by internationally esteemed, award winning theatre practitioners and scholars and will gain critical and creative skills that open up possibilities for working in theatre, while making you attractive to a wide range of other employers.

Your Creative Writing courses are taught by a team of widely published authors through a combination of lectures, readings, practice and discussion in regular tutor-led workshops. Your degree includes an Introduction to Creative Writing in your first year, and in your second and third years of study you will choose additional genre-specific units such as Short Fiction, Poetry Writing or Creative Non-fiction.

You will begin your degree with core courses including, an Introduction to Theatre Studies and Creative Writing. In your second year you’ll move on to subjects such as Theatre Techniques, Performance Composition, Work Placement, Intermediate Creative Writing and Critical Reflections. You will then complete your degree by choosing from a selection of Theatre and Creative Writing modules on offer including a final year theatre production module.

The MA Theatre Directing course takes a practice-based approach as it explores different directing methodologies - naturalism, realism, intercultural performance and contemporary devising practices.

You will gain the skills needed to create innovative and exciting performance work and to be able to operate as a professional theatre director and independent creative producer.

Your modules will feature Director Training, which looks at the key building blocks of working with an actor on voice, body and offers an in-depth Stanislavskian approach for the director working with text.

The Staging Performance module develops your skills as an independent producer and builds up to your performance, for which you'll be mentored by a professional theatre company.

You will study a range of contemporary performance practices as well as honing advanced research skills as you prepare for your dissertation piece - a final directorial showcase performance to be enacted in a professional venue.