MA Theatre for Community and Education

This module grounds students in the knowledge and practices of theatre for community and education and its various pedagogies. Students will encounter principles and methodologies of theatre-making and rigorously explore their application. The module is taught through two complementary components: ‘Practices’ and ‘Pedagogies’.

Students will investigate practices in Applied Theatre techniques and approaches, including investigating established practitioners, theoretical and practical pedagogies, and emergent forms, all of which will challenge and develop their own thinking and practice. Throughout, students will be proactive in critically questioning and developing their own work, and in beginning to identify theatrical specialisms in fields related to their own employability and/or further study.

This module will develop an intellectual and practical understanding of The Theory and Practice of Learning through Theatre. Students will learn through two complementary components: ‘Context and Critique’ and ‘Practices and Applications’.

Context and Critique will engage students in ‘Theatre in Education’ (TIE) history, examining the socio-political circumstances in which it emerged. It will explore various models of education with critical attention being paid to configurations of power. Differences expressed by the terms teacher/facilitator/leader will be explored.

Practices and Applications will develop students’ workshop skills, covering games, exercises, techniques and approaches that practically explore workshop styles and strategies. Students will develop general workshop abilities as well as identify and develop specialist areas of knowledge and skill within the field.

Knowledge of business management, procedures, and compliance can be an important aspect of 21st century cultural practice. Frameworks of funding and administration, leadership and strategy, and operations and logistics can be vital to successful artistic endeavours. Turns towards ethical and sustainable business practice, as well as shifting landscapes of innovation, make understanding the cultural sector increasingly complex.

In this module, students will engage with an overview of normative standards in 21st century cultural organisations. Successful operational outliers will also be considered within and beyond the cultural sector, in order to facilitate students’ work in a variety of contexts. To this end, the module will intellectually and practically explore fundamentals of business and project management and administration, engaging with industry leaders, academic research, and divergent organisations.

The module will examine policies and agendas that shape the theatre and cultural sector. Intellectual explorations will include notions of multiculturalism, pluralism, and liberalism. Content will rigorously investigate notions of inclusion/exclusion, diversity and difference, and dilemmas of identifying groups as underrepresented. Practical inquiry will centre around theatre and culture as tools of social/political activism and resistance.

These modules will be underpinned by the development of a portfolio of case studies that will examine cultural policies and agendas. Special attention will be given to the study of projects that mark significant shifts in thought and practice.

Having developed a robust understanding of applied theatre practices and pedagogies in year one, this module will deepen and develop students knowledges in contemporary praxes and arenas of applied theatre. Students will encounter divergent spaces of activity including Education, Rehabilitation, Crisis, Health and Wellbeing, Corporate and Professional Development, and rigorously explore their concomitant praxes including the educative, transformative, therapeutic, rehabilitative possibilities and difficulties of applied theatre.

The module is taught through two complementary components: Contemporary Arenas and Contemporary Praxes. Part of the work for students in this module will be to learn and identify specialist skills and techniques relevant to specific groups and environments. It is expected that this will also engage students in developing an area specialism.

This innovative module aims at challenging students with modes and practices often found outside the applied theatre sector in order to enrich and enliven their own creative work with diverse approaches.

Creative Learning will engage with divergent approaches including: design thinking, ideation, microlearning, gamification, Adaptive learning and divergent thinking amongst others.

Cultural Learning​ will explore various arts and heritage approaches, including the work of museums, libraries, archives, archaeological sites, historic houses and other built environments, and the mediums of literature, storytelling, music, craft, film, spoken word, digital media, and photography amongst others. As with previous modules, the learning will be robust in its research and exploration and seek to identity where/if/how the creative and the cultural converge.

This 60 credit module will give students the opportunity to create a substantive piece of work. Running throughout the second year it will intensively develop knowledge and understanding of research ethics and methodologies introduced in previous modules. Running across three terms of the programme it ensures students get plenty of time for planning, creative exploration and rehearsal/research time relevant to their specific dissertation project.

The dissertation is the culmination of learning across all modules, and it will challenge students to further develop their practice. This module will support students to graduate as practitioners equipped to work in the field of theatre for community and education in a variety of roles and settings.