Performance and Theatre Making MA

Entry requirements

A first or second class honours degree in a relevant subject or equivalent.

All applicants are considered on an individual basis and additional qualifications, professional qualifications and relevant experience may also be taken into account when considering applications.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Create innovative new theatre by cultivating your dramaturgical skills, performance training and critical thinking. Gain confidence in facilitation and community engagement to reach your audiences. Build your networks and industry knowledge through placement study. Emerge with a well-rounded skillset that prepares you to make, perform and facilitate creative work for the contemporary cultural environment.

Take time and space to develop your artistic voice by joining our MA Performance and Theatre Making. Firmly embedded in Kent’s thriving creative landscape, this course is aimed at graduates from theatre and performing arts degrees and other related subjects, as well as artists in theatre/performance who wish to take some time to develop or re-connect with their practice.

Whether you plan to work as a freelance artist, start a theatre company, or harness the power of the arts in other fields through your creative skillset, this intensive Masters’ prepares you through a holistic curriculum.

You will undertake performance training and develop your individual approach to dramaturgical practice in a range of forms, experimenting with elements of devising, writing, adaptation, or directorial/choreographic decision-making. To support your work as a ‘thinking practitioner’ you will also study the wider political, social and intellectual contexts of the field in Britain, Europe and beyond.

As the course progresses, you will conceive and realise more complex public-facing creative projects in your area of interest, and acquire best-practice skills in facilitation and inclusive audience/community engagement, in line with funders’ expectations. You will further apply and deepen your learning through placements or fieldwork study, alongside

building your professional network and acquiring key skills in managing a creative career, such as marketing, branding, and developing funding applications. The course culminates in a theoretical or practical dissertation project, supported by supervision and completed through independent study and/or practice.

Why study Performance and Theatre Making at Kent?

A wide range of expertise

You will benefit from studying with a staff team of leading specialists in the field of theatre and performance, whose teaching is informed by their own creative practice and world-leading research across subjects such as contemporary performance practice, psychophysical performance training, adaptation and translation, community/participatory performance, arts and health, comedy and popular performance, physical acting, Shakespeare, and European theatre.

Students regularly connect with our staffs’ exciting activities in a range of areas, including participatory dance theatre (Moving Memory); autism, identities and creativity (Playing A/Part); Chekhov technique in and beyond theatre (The Chekhov Collective UK); performances and special projects led by staff in partnership with professional companies (such as Good Chance’s Walk with Amal, and Projekt Europa’s Project Encounter); our Funny Rabbit Comedy Club; performance opportunities offered by the Gulbenkian Theatre; and much more.

Fees and funding

For current information on fees and funding please see our webpages.