Validated by University of East Anglia

One year (full-time)

Site-specific theatre engages with the history, atmosphere and architecture of a location to inspire performances which are unique to that specific place.

The first course of its kind in the UK, Mountview’s MA in Site-Specific Theatre is created and led by Geraldine Pilgrim, a leading practitioner in the creation of site-specific theatre.

Aimed at practitioners with a fine art or theatre and performance background, this one-year practical course encourages artists to diversify their skills and explore their creative limits.

A maximum of six students are accepted each year.

Graduate Destinations

Previous students have gone on to devise their own performances and create their own companies since graduating, and have also worked with companies and artists including Dante or Die, Dash Arts and Dream Think Speak.

Course Leader and Guest Practitioners

Geraldine Pilgrim, Head of MA Site-Specific Theatre Practice

The course is led by Geraldine Pilgrim, a leading practitioner in the creation of site-specific theatre, who has been making site-specific performances and installations for over 20 years. Her work has utilised sites including empty office blocks, schools, hotels, swimming pools, factories, hospitals, stately homes and public parks.

Students also benefit from sessions with professional practitioners from an eclectic range of theatre and performance backgrounds. In the past this has included specialists in Commedia, lighting, sound, movement in space, ASMR, animating objects, immersive game theatre, writing for performance, design, AR/VR, and creative producing.

Past guest lecturers and artists have included:

• Didi Hopkins
• Tim Spooner
• Tassos Stevens
• Athina Vahla
• Fred Defaye
• Fridthjofur Thorsteinsson
• Josephine Burton
• Felix Cross

Course Content and Delivery

The course structure includes:

• Salons, seminars and masterclasses
• Site visits
• Practical realised projects
• A UK or international site residency

With a strong emphasis on learning through practice, the training covers practical skills and creative realisation as well as theoretical and methodological investigation.

All modules are compulsory and there is continuous assessment as well as submitted essays, journals, presentations, realised exercises and performances.

Each student undertakes a work-based learning placement with an artist or company and is matched with a professional practitioner to provide mentorship on their final performance.

Performance projects and production

There are opportunities for students to develop their practice and to create and realise site-specific performances throughout the year, including:

• A collaborative project, in which students work together to create a site-specific performance.
• A directing exercise in which each student creates and directs their own site-specific work performed by fellow students.
• A week-long residency away from the course base, at the end of which students collaborate on a performance responding to the residency site.
• Practical dissertations and final show. Students are supported to conceive, direct and design a fully realised site-specific performance.

Previous locations for work have included Archway Whittington Hospital, HMP Holloway, Aylesbury Estate Adult Learning Centre, Rye Lane and Alexandra Palace

View examples of previous students’ work here.