MA/MFA in Collaborative Theatre Making
Sidcup, United Kingdom
DURATION
13 up to 24 Months
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Oct 2024
TUITION FEES
GBP 30,200 *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* MFA international students (240 credits) | MFA UK & republic of Ireland students (240 credits): £28350 | MA international students (180 credits): £24150 | MA UK & republic of Ireland students (180 credits): £18100
Introduction
This program focuses on creating an ensemble, performer training, theatre-making, and performative writing.
Informed by critical reflection and practice research, the uniqueness of this program lies in the opportunity to develop and present original work.
In a collaborative context, students move creatively between different roles to develop skills in performance and independent-making practice.
We welcome students with a background in performance as well as theatre making, dance, writing, music, film, and live art with an interest in developing their practice as collaborative and independent theatre artists.
Why choose this course?
Expert training
You will be taught, guided, and mentored by experienced staff and world-leading theatre practitioners as you explore different processes and develop new skills
Explore different creative roles
You will deepen your practice as performers, devisers, writers, directors, and dramaturges, ready to enter the industry as confident independent and collaborative theatre makers
Ensemble
Within a creative and supportive ensemble environment, you will be encouraged to take creative risks, make discoveries, and expand your collaborative theatre-making practice as you develop original work.
You will learn how to embed core ensemble values and create an inspiring environment for collaborative play and discovery. By taking a physical approach to making theatre and working with text, you will experiment, with a focus on original approaches to making performance
Experimentation and innovation
As well as core workshops in performance, movement, voice, and devising, you will learn from and collaborate with professional artists working with sound, light, scenography, film, new technologies, and music. This creative exchange will equip you to develop fruitful collaborative dialogue with artists working across different disciplines
Create new work
You will focus on creating original work, with regular opportunities to collaborate with peers across the post-graduate school. You will build meaningful creative relationships and share work in progress. The course is highly responsive to the individuals within the cohort and to the work they want to develop
Sharing work
You will be encouraged to share work with audiences beyond Rose Bruford, for instance at scratch nights and new work festivals. In 2022, students shared new work with audiences at ‘Calm Down Dear’ Festival (Camden People’s Theatre) and had work accepted to the scratch night for Voila European Theatre Festival for Autumn ’22 (Cockpit Theatre)
Final project
You will share your original work in a London theatre venue at the end of the year. In 2022 students shared an original, collaboratively created play at the Vaults Theatre, in London
Duration
- MA 13 Months
- MFA 24 Months
Gallery
Admissions
Curriculum
MA Module Breakdown
Module One: Performance Skills
This module is focused on the training of the individual within the ensemble and includes skills in movement, voice, devising, play, comedy, and improvisation which are taught through a series of practical workshops, projects, performances, laboratory-based activities, projects, lectures, and seminars.
The module takes a physical approach to making theatre and working with text.
This module aims to systemically develop, deepen, and challenge your practice, knowledge, and understanding of performance and making theatre, through exposure to inter-disciplinary and hybrid forms of performance training and creation.
Module Two: Performative Writing/Vade Mecum
This module provides the theoretical and academic underpinning for the developing practice explored across all modules.
The module offers a particular lens through which to enhance, deepen, and inform your understanding of theatre as an historical, and contemporary cultural and social phenomenon.
In particular, you will explore different modes of research and reflection through; practice as research, the study of subject-specific literature and performance, verbal discourse, and developmental and critical modes of writing.
Active research is a fundamental principle engendering the evolution of one’s own practice and professional aesthetic. London offers not only a wealth of international theatre work, but also opportunities to work with and participate in workshops, events, performances, seminars, and symposiums in related fields.
Module Three: Director, Writer, Performer as Theatre Maker
The first half of this module will focus on performance-making through three different lenses; that of the director, the writer, and the performer.
Collaborative work in the second half of the module begins with a process of devising a performance focussing on telling stories through performance, visual image, physical theatre, writing, sound, and music. The module culminates in a production devised by the ensemble working with a range of skills and theatre disciplines and so there is collaboration across forms as well as between individuals.
Module Four: Final Independent Project
The final module facilitates the creation of your original creative work. This may be a performance; a conceptual paper; or a multi-dimensional proposition of a project that you have developed and will pitch to professional organizations; it may be the practical articulation of your own practice or a model and vision for your future organization.
MFA Module Breakdown
Year 1
Module One: Performance Skills
This module is focused on the training of the individual within the ensemble and includes skills in movement, voice, devising, play, comedy, and improvisation which are taught through a series of practical workshops, projects, performances, laboratory-based activities, projects, lectures and seminars.
The module takes a physical approach to making theatre and working with text.
This module aims to systemically develop, deepen, and challenge your practice, knowledge, and understanding of performance and making theatre, through exposure to inter-disciplinary and hybrid forms of performance training and creation.
Module Two: Performative Writing/Vade Mecum
This module provides the theoretical and academic underpinning for the developing practice explored across all modules.
The module offers a particular lens through which to enhance, deepen, and inform your understanding of theatre as a historical, and contemporary cultural and social phenomenon.
In particular, you will explore different modes of research and reflection through; practice as research, the study of subject-specific literature and performance, verbal discourse, and developmental and critical modes of writing.
Active research is a fundamental principle engendering the evolution of one’s own practice and professional aesthetic. London offers not only a wealth of international theatre work, but also opportunities to work with and participate in workshops, events, performances, seminars, and symposiums in related fields.
Module Three: Director, Writer, Performer as Theatre Maker
The first half of this module will focus on performance-making through three different lenses; that of the director, the writer, and the performer.
Collaborative work in the second half of the module begins with a process of devising a performance focussing on telling stories through performance, visual image, physical theatre, writing, sound, and music. The module culminates in a production devised by the ensemble working with a range of skills and theatre disciplines and so there is collaboration across forms as well as between individuals.
Year 2
Module Four: The Widening Field
This module focuses on processes of research and development aimed at realizing individualized specialist practice with the view that it ultimately achieves professional validity and viability. The module is deliberately open and flexible as each student’s journey will develop its own pathway.
The module is based on self-directed study, research into the industry, and work-based learning through talks/presentations/ seminars throughout the year prior to the attachment. Students are supported in seeking appropriate work-based learning opportunities either with the College’s creative partners, their own contacts, new initiatives with appropriate organizations or ensemble companies, or working within appropriate internal placement opportunities.
There will be four taught weekends that offer the opportunity to test and trial the state of your practice with tutor/mentor/peer feedback and input. These weekends will be focused on supporting the progressive development of each student’s emerging project.
Module Five: Final Independent Project
The final module facilitates the creation of your original creative work. This may be a performance, a conceptual paper, or a multi-dimensional proposition of a project that you have developed, and pitched to professional organizations; it may be the practical articulation of your own practice or a model and vision for your future organization.