Drama

BA (Hons)

Intermediate award(s): CertHE, DipHE
Full-Time

This course is available in Clearing, call us on 0845 271 3333 for more information

In the most recent National Student Survey (2012), our BA (Hons) Drama course achieved a score of 92% for 'academic support'.
We offer a number of internships with local theatre companies, including award-winning theatre company NIE, to experience the production side of running a professional, touring theatre company.

Christopher Dungar

BA (Hons) Drama (Full-time)

“I chose to study BA (Hons) Drama at Anglia Ruskin University as this course appeared to be the most diverse and interesting in drama and I have really enjoyed modules such as Performance Practitioners and Special Subject, which require a high level of independent study. I would recommend this course to others as you don't only develop practical sills but you are also able to support your work theoretically through your writing.

The BA (Hons) Drama course has links with The Junction in Cambridge and performance artists all over the country. The Mumford Theatre is a professional theatre on the University campus and you get the opportunity to perform on stage in Year 2, which is a great experience. The Drama studios at Anglia Ruskin are all brilliant facilities.

My course involved a work placement module in the third year, which helps you gain experience in the workplace. I believe that this gave me extensive understanding of my job and the confidence to use the skills I have in the workplace. I hope to study for a PGCE in Drama in the future and I hope this will lead into teaching. This course has already given me the opportunity to work in a couple of schools to help me gain experience.
”

Course overview

BA (Hons) Drama provides you with an understanding of the histories, practices, contexts and theories of drama, theatre and performance. This is balanced and supported by practical explorations, the acquisition of a range of performance techniques and the creation of live performance events. An engagement with the processes and practices of theatre-making is an important and integral part of our curriculum, and develops you as confident, versatile and exciting practitioners.

To support this, we offer a stimulating environment for Drama students. Our outstanding facilities include two dedicated drama studios, complete with a flexible black-box performance space, an additional rehearsal space, and our Mumford Theatre, a full-size receiving house for professional touring companies.

A proportion of our course is aimed at facilitating your creative development and integrates practice and theory. Experiential learning or 'learning through doing' is fostered through workshop and laboratory-based practical exploration, where you can actively participate in the processes of theatre making.

You will have the opportunity to develop technical and production skills, with specialist staff training you and supporting this work. This practical exploration is balanced with screenings, seminars and tutorials that encourage critical engagement with experiential learning. Our department regularly stages theatrical works, involving you in both on and off-stage roles. In recent years these have included staging works by a wide range of playwrights, from William Shakespeare to Caryl Churchill, Howard Barker and Sarah Kane. You will engage with devising performance works and these have been staged at The Junction and Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge, both professional performance venues.

Additional course information

The majority of modules on our Drama course have a particular emphasis on 20th century and contemporary theatre practice, although you can opt to study Shakespeare in your second year. Courses may include, for example, modules such as Performance Practitioners, Contemporary Texts and Devising Performance, in which we explore texts and practices from the 20th century onwards, through both theoretical study and practical workshops.

Our course employs a wide variety of learning and teaching methods and strategies in order to accommodate the wide range of activities undertaken. Modules are taught through group seminars and workshops, which involve you in detailed textual and critical analysis and practical explorations. This work is balanced between tutor-led, student-led and self-directed study, and complemented by resource-based learning, including library study and attendance at performances, galleries and installations.

Module guide

Year one core modules
  • Performance Processes

    This module aims to provide you with an introductory understanding of the development of Western performance, engaging in an examination of both practice and critical material. Through a consideration of significant moments, key movements and practitioners in the history of Western performance, you will be encouraged to question the nature and function of performance, theatre and music and consider their interdisciplinarity. Within this context, you will be introduced to a range of performance texts as examples for a practical exploration. The historical investigation of key movements and practitioners will be approached with an emphasis on performance processes rather than end product. You will be introduced to a variety of working methodologies and practices from the historical trajectory of Western performance, addressing their political, cultural and socioeconomic significance. Through relating theoretical and practical approaches, the module will seek to examine changes in form and conventions in performance practices.

  • Performance Analysis

  • Performance Skills - Introduction

  • Digital Performance

    Digital Performance will introduce you to the creative use of technology in performance. You will engage with multidisciplinary performance and explore the distinctions between making live and recorded performance. This will involve the acquisition of skills in relation to a number of the traditional technical aspects of theatre (lighting, sound, stage management) as well as newer technologies (video making, use of live feeds, internet performance, using software packages). You will work in groups on small creative projects, developing a short performance using a mixture of live and recorded effects. You will be encouraged to draw on their own experience as spectators to inform the creative decisions made on this module.

  • Studio Performance

    In this module, you will be part of a studio-based collaborative live performance, based on a selected text or combination of texts, which often involves our active deconstruction or reinvention of the piece to be performed. The notion of 'text' might include play-text, music theatre text, other devised performance works and live or recorded music too. We will analyse our text's significant actions and meanings, and explore the variety of ways in which these could be made manifest in performance. Lighting and sound designs will be developed for the performance and documented for use by back-stage technicians. You will be encouraged to explore the possibilities for effective set design in the studio and to make use of available resources for costume design. Throughout rehearsals, we will investigate ideas of postmodern performance in practice and consider how the production of such work might differ from traditional techniques in theatre-making.

Year two core modules
  • Twentieth-Century Drama
  • Making Performance
  • Performance Practitioners
  • Politics and Performance
Year three core modules
  • Devising Performance
  • Major Project

Assessment

Assessment is carried out via a very broad mix of methods, including essays, reports, critical reflections, presentations, studio and public performances, and a major project, which may include practical work.

The integration of practice and theory extends to the forms of assessment that our students encounter. Practice-based research includes exploring a range of rehearsal techniques and strategies for making performance, training workshops, text-based performances, devising, the interrogation of techniques in directing, dramaturgy and performance skills, and the use of interdisciplinary techniques and vocabularies.


Facilities

Libraries

Our campus libraries offer a wide range of publications and a variety of study facilities, including open-access computers, areas for quiet or group study and bookable rooms. We also have an extensive Digital Library providing on and off-site access to e-books, e-journals and databases.

We endeavour to make our libraries as accessible as possible for all our students. During Semester time, they open 24 hours a day from Monday to Thursday, until midnight on Friday and Saturday and for 12 hours on Sunday.


IT Resources

Our open access computer facilities provide free access to the internet, email, messaging services and the full Microsoft Office suite. A high speed wireless service is also available in all key areas on campus. If you are away from campus or a distant learner, our student desktop and its many applications can be accessed remotely using the internet. Your personal student email account provides free document storage, calendar facilities and social networking opportunities.

Throughout your studies you will have access to our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), providing course notes, reading materials and multi-media content to support your learning, while our e-vision system gives you instant access to your academic record and your timetable.


Special features

Our Drama degree offers a distinctive and creative integration of practice and theory, as well as vocational experience. Teaching is provided by first-class, research-active staff who are recognised, nationally and internationally, as experts in their field and who are often professional practitioners.

In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, set up to monitor the quality of research in UK universities, 80% of our department's work was judged to be of international standard, with 20% judged to be either 'internationally excellent' or 'world leading'.



Course Leader

Dr Sue Wilson

Links with industry and professional recognition

We have fostered close links with The Junction, an arts venue in Cambridge, where you can see a variety of theatre and music performance works. Visiting artists and performers are invited to give master-classes and workshops across our courses. We also offer a number of internships with local theatre companies, which all students can apply for in order to gain direct experience of running a professional company.

Work placements

Work placement opportunities are available via the third-year Enterprise in the Creative Arts module, which encompasses such areas as education, artist management, marketing, and events management.

Associated careers

It is widely recognised that the varied disciplines of drama - analysis, performance, devising/composing, collaborative work, presentation - as well as its opportunities for nurturing artistic expression, provides a strong platform of employable skills for many walks of life. The versatility that our Drama degree fosters, makes our students attractive to employers, and our former students currently enjoy highly successful careers as performers, theatre technicians, directors, drama teachers and arts administrators.

Modules with a strong vocational focus are an important feature of our curriculum. In particular, Enterprise in the Creative Arts encourages you to acquire and reflect on vocational experience gained through self-organised work placement projects.

Research shows that the study of the creative and performing arts to an enhanced level provides the ideal training for any position requiring quick thinking, self-reliance, imagination, teamwork and the ability to organise both yourself and others.

UCAS Tariff points: 220 - 260
Additional Requirements: Required subject(s): A-level (or equivalent) Drama, Theatre Studies or related subject area at grade B
Entry requirements listed are for September 2013 entry. Entry requirements for other intakes may differ.

Please note AS levels are acceptable only when combined with other qualifications.

Our published entry requirements are a guide only and our decision will be based on your overall suitability for the course as well as whether you meet the minimum entry requirements.

We welcome applications from International and EU students. Please select one of the links below for English language and country-specific entry requirement information.

If we have confirmed you do not meet our entry requirements, you might want to consider a preparatory course at Cambridge Ruskin International College (CRIC), our partner college, based on our Cambridge campus, before coming to study with us.

How to apply

UCAS code

W490

Location

Duration

3 Years

Available starts

September, January

Student finance

Open Day

Saturday 22 June
Undergraduate Open Day

Advice & support

Employability

Faculty

Arts, Law & Social Sciences

Department

Music and Performing Arts

Contact us

UK and EU applicants:International applicants:
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