Theatre and Performance modules at Warwick

Modules involve seminars and lectures on a set topic. You will take them at every stage of your degree and complete assignments for assessment. Look at your course page to see which modules are compulsory or optional for your course.

At Warwick, your teachers will be experts who are passionate about their work. Everything you learn will be inspired by research and practice. You will develop a broad understanding of the discipline and the relationship between theory and practice. You will also discover a world of performance-making possibilities

What's it like Studying Theatre and Performance at Warwick?

Hear from our students

Tell me more about seminars, lectures and assignments

Seminar

A seminar is a group discussion where you'll take part and share your views. They are often led by postgraduates who have already completed their first degree and specialise in a similar topic. Your seminar leader will help you to explore and understand the material together.

Lecture

A lecture is usually one person talking to a large group of students. Lecturers are usually research specialists in the topic they're talking about. They will inspire you with new ideas and insights on your topic

Assignments

Assignments in the department consist of practical and written coursework. Assignments will spread out across the year, the timing of which will depend on the optional modules you decide to take

First year

Core modules

Contemporary Performance Practices

This module will introduce you to the concept of studying 'performance'.

You will explore an array of contemporary performance practices, and your tutor-led workshops will dig deep into topics including:

• devising
• clowning
• improvisation
• performance art
• physical theatre
• site-specific performance
• various forms of multimedia performance

You will explore these through the study of a range of leading practitioners and theatre companies. In the past, these have included: Spymonkey, Jacques Lecoq, Pina Bausch, Frantic Assembly, Mark Ravenhill, Akram Khan and Gob Squad.

At the end of the module, you will present your own work, which will show the influences of the topics you have covered

From Text to Performance

In this module, you will explore selected plays and texts, and see how they are transformed from the page to stage or performance. You will also have the opportunity to experiment practically with texts in performance.

You will discover the relationship between theory and practice, looking at a wide range of topics such as:

• staging
• genre
• narrative structure
• performance strategies
• dramaturgical thinking
• directorial conceptualization
• the changing role and function of the audience

Ways of Seeing

This module has two primary aims. The first is to introduce and train you in some core skills necessary for undertaking undergraduate study in theatre and performance studies: critical, interpersonal, embodied. The second aim is to introduce you to the practice of critical analysis.

Together we will explore how and why one might read cultural works and everyday life. In this sense we will ask how meaning is made, shared, and distributed. What do things mean? How do we know what they mean? And how do I know that you mean what I mean when we talk together about what something means? In short, we will reflect on acts of interpretation and what is at stake when we talk about art

Theatre and Performance in Context

You will explore key concepts in theatre and performance studies in this module.

You will investigate what theatre and performance can tell us about our cultures, societies and identities and how this has changed through time. You will think about how theatre and performance not only reflects, but also seeks to change and shape society.

The module will help you to hone your research skills, academic writing and presentation skills in relation to the contexts of theatre and performance which will serve you throughout your degree

Second year

Core modules

Ways of Doing

Ways of Doing aims to develop your critically creative thinking, writing, and practice, in dialogue with real-world issues. Throughout the module you’ll engage with different world issues and different types of performance, alongside the different methods which draw them together.

The module seeks to show you new ways of doing research and practice to help you think about the real-world applicability of your work. It will ask you how you want to intervene in the world. You’ll be invited to share your ideas, in response to the module material, and to experiment with them in guided workshops.

Ways of Doing will also prepare you for your third-year independent research project which will take the form of either a practice-based or a written dissertation. The assessments will challenge you as research-practitioners to think critically about how you want to work. What do you want to say? What forms and methods will help you do this? And, critically, why?

Years Two and Three Option Modules

“Having a variety of theoretical and practical modules has hugely expanded my understanding of theatre and performance. The optionality is helpful as you get to hone in on different areas of the course that really interest you. You’re able to tailor your degree to suit you, your interests and how you like to study and be assessed” - Caitlin, 2nd year student

Applied Theatre

This module explores the histories of applied theatre across varied geographical contexts. You will discover how theatre helps in global development, education, health and wellbeing, and more. You will interrogate the emergent debates that are shaping research and practice in applied theatre today, including:

• the ethics of intervention
• sustainability
• instrumentalising theatre to achieve social and educative outcomes

Acting in Character

This module explores a range of considerations to do with creating and presenting characters in dramatic performance. You will study selected approaches to understanding and developing character in performance; explore and apply these in a workshop setting; prepare your own character-based performances for presentation; and develop your own actor's handbook of key findings, techniques and tasks geared to your own interests and development as a performer. The module will help you to gain the confidence and skills to be able to approach auditions and acting projects in the future, and will have wider benefits in terms of your understanding of dramatic texts, the construction of character, and approaches to performance

Adapting Shakespeare for Performance

Why do the plays of Shakespeare continue to be recontextualised, reduced and remixed? The playwright himself was a consummate adapter, drawing on pre-existing materials and re-working these for his audiences, for whom his plays were a form of popular entertainment. This module will challenge your perception of what can be perceived as an adaptation of Shakespeare and each workshop will involve practical exploration of diverse artists, including comedians, filmmakers, physical theatre companies and rappers. You’ll engage in the adaptation process and produce your own creative responses to Shakespeare’s work

Audience Development and Marketing

This module emphasises practical skills and is taught by an industry professional. It will give you an insight into the theory and practice of strategic marketing and audience development for the arts.

You will consider the special challenges of marketing creative products. You will create marketing materials, use social media, budget and evaluate marketing activities. And you will explore live case-studies, with presentations from specialists in the creative sector.

"This was the most interesting one for me. It gave me the opportunity to work alongside different theatre companies in the local area as part of a placement. It is a module that sparked an interest in me that I did not know I had!" - Alice, 3rd year student

European Theatre and Performance Landscapes

This module sets out to explore a broad constellation of recent European plays, performances, and films originating from different parts of Europe, which address the changing historical, political and cultural realities of Europe, from the fall of communism in 1989 to the present day, when we are witnessing the advent of “Europe’s new Iron Curtain” and a return to Cold War-era tensions.

Specifically, the module aims to engage with the following pressing issues and concerns: How does theatre articulate Europe’s new sociocultural space, shaped and negotiated by the experiences of war, exile, climate breakdown, and the shifting contours of Europe’s borders and territories? How do European artists witness and respond to the current refugee crises across Europe (the Mediterranean and English Channel crossings; the Balkan Corridor; Ukraine)? How does performance address the complex issues of right-wing nationalism, the ongoing energy and financial crisis, and social justice now that the EU faces the biggest crisis since its foundation? How does theatre engage with difficult historical legacies of the Holocaust, the Stalinist Gulags, colonialism and imperialism, and current preoccupations with the politics of memory in Europe?

We shall also explore aspects of European cultural policy, cosmopolitan stages of European theatre festivals as well as some popular expressions of “Europeannes” such as the Eurovision Song Contest as a site where cultural struggles over the meaning, frontiers, and limits of Europe are enacted

Immersive Practices

This module will let you explore immersive practices in theatres - for example, environmental theatre, immersive theatre, immersive cinema and surround sound. You will then be introduced to a range of technologies which draw in the participants. These include virtual reality, 360-degree video, motion tracking, proxemics and binaural sound.

"This year I produced an immersive piece with two other women in the department about the experiences of black women; their culture, heritage and hair. This was a really exciting project; it brought us closer together, we were happy with the end result and lots of people were talking about the piece" - Shaquira, 3rd year student

Intercultural Performance Practices

This module explores the implications of contemporary intercultural performance. We will look at how traditions are used from different cultures in contemporary theatre and performance.

You will examine the work of artists and organisations such as Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine and Disney. You will investigate forms such as Japanese Takarazuka, Australian musicals and African exhibitions.

You will take part in discussions and group tasks, exploring subjects like these:

• aesthetic issues
• ethical issues
• the effect of cultural imperialism and globalisation on production

Love: Performance, Theory and Criticism

Love remains an ever intriguing and complex emotion. Representations of love have been idealised, romanticised and formalised as part of theatre and performance tradition over centuries. In recent years love has also become visible (again) as a contested theoretical problem and political issue.

The module addresses the “love question” as an open and exciting interdisciplinary field – one that traverses the arts, the humanities and the sciences.

Studying closely a number of contemporary plays, performances and films from Europe and beyond we will ask questions such as: What is love? Why/how is love interesting now? Can we study love historically? What does it mean about love that its expressions tend to be so conventional, so bound up in institutions like marriage and family, property relations, and stock phrases and plots? How can we re-envision love so that it creates different kinds of intimately social (rather than intimate vs. social) bonds that embrace difference (vs. sameness) and are transformative of the self?

Finally, what does love bring to the study of theatre and performance? How do performances of love in theatre or cinema deconstruct or confirm its social and political coding? How do theatre and performance recreate and subvert social scenarios of love? The topics to be covered will range from ethics and politics of love, gendered interests in love, to love as a force in radical transformations of society

Mad, Bad, and Sad: Madness and Cultural Representation

On this module you will consider the cultural history of madness.

You will explore 20th and 21st century examples of theatre, film, and literature which represent mental ill health. You will examine theoretical, philosophical, historical, sociological and medical texts.

Together we will explore not only what is 'madness', but how and why one might choose to represent it.

"This module really opened my mind to new ideas, improved my ability to engage with alternative views to my own and helped me understand how to approach sensitive themes." - Beth, 2nd year student

Performing Gender and Sexuality

Performing Gender and Sexuality examines the role of gender and sexuality in contemporary society and in art, performance, and literature. As such, this module analyses how performance and artistic practices engage with, reveal, challenge, deconstruct, and resist dominant norms of gender and sexuality. Through practical exploration and seminar discussion, students will become familiar with important scholarship in feminist theory, women of colour feminism, and queer and trans theory. Students will develop a stronger critical analytic of how gender, sexuality, as well as race and class, informs and is informed by our current political climate. As such, we will take an intersectional approach to these subjects and interrogate how gender and sexuality are conceived, performed, and policed.

In Term One, we will focus predominantly on grounding ourselves in the way that key terms such as gender, sexuality and feminism have evolved and are being continuously redefined. Rather than organising the module through key feminist movements, we will begin the module by considering how such periodisation and narrativization obfuscate wider feminist struggles. Instead, we will look to thinkers, theorists, artists, and activists who start from the basis that the unequal balance of power in relation to gender always exists at the intersection of other forms of oppression such as class, sexuality, race, and disability. As such, we will look to feminist and queer methodologies, the relationship between gender, sexuality and colonialism, and will spend the final weeks of term considering feminism, gender, and sexuality as they intersect with questions of work, capital and reproduction.

In Term Two, we will animate key questions at the heart of queer of colour critique, queer theory, and trans studies through more thematic topics and ideas, for example, love, pleasure, desire, affect, loss, porn, the archive, and futurity. We will think about the AIDs crisis, questions of embodiment and how bodies come to make meaning in the world. As such, we will think about the historical violences that occur in the gendering and racialisation of the body, especially as this intersects with questions of nation and citizenship, medicine and psychiatry, archive and record, and disability and capacity

Placement: Creative Arts and the Cultural Industries

As part of your degree you can opt to undertake a structured placement at an arts or cultural organisation.

This will help you to understand their pressures, requirements, workflow and practices.

You will gain an understanding of the wider operation and activity of the artist/company/organisation in question. This opportunity also gives you valuable hands-on experience which could influence your future career choices.

"The module offered such a unique opportunity of seeing the inner workings of a professional theatre company. I observed the adaptation of the classic Kafka story, and watched how professional creatives crafted a performance from page to stage." - Emma, 2nd year student

Read Emma's blog post

Politics and Performance

This module investigates the relationship between performance and contemporary politics, both institutional and oppositional. You will be introduced to the interdisciplinary field of politics and performance research and prepared to engage critically and analytically from different conceptual perspectives in the analysis of contemporary performances in and of politics. We will explore performances of parliaments, politicians, pressure groups, and protestors. In doing so, we will be thinking through the significance and applicability of concepts like performance, performativity, theatricality, ritual, and embodiment beyond theatre settings and gain a deeper understanding of key concepts in Theatre and Performance Studies

Post-War British Theatre and Social Abjection

This module is about the here and now, looking at subjects of widespread public debate in the 21st century such as migration, the North/South divide and homelessness.

You will address the theatrical treatment of issues, looking at a range of different theatrical contexts and forms. These range from large-scale plays for major theatres, to smaller-scale community pieces.

You will explore how theatre and performance has the capacity to contribute to new understandings of groups that have been marginalised and stigmatised in society

Theatre and Colonialism

What are the links between theatre and colonialism? How have theatrical ways of seeing, knowing, and performing shaped colonialism and how has performance been imbricated in colonial logics ? Concurrently, how has theatre and performance resisted imperialist expansionism?

This module explores these questions while avoiding any claims to providing a comprehensive survey of theatre and colonialism. It invites students to analyse the relationship between theatre, performance and colonialism in diverse political, economic and socio-cultural forms through specific case studies from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries—Shakespeare and the British Raj, neoliberalization and Disney, development and applied theatre, the modern university and decolonization.

Activities in class will take a number of formats. Through seminar discussions, lectures, workshops, play readings, and performance analyses, the module will introduce students to a range of research topics, critical concepts, and socio-political debates stemming from diverse geographic contexts

Theatre and National Identities

This module’s overarching question relates to how English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish theatre institutions, playwrights, theatre-makers and performance artists have engaged with conceptions of the nation, nationalism and national identity during the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries.

You'll investigate different manifestations of 'national theatres' and will study plays and performances hailed as seminal 'state of the nation' works, as well as those that challenge understandings of national identity in the contemporary moment

Theatre and the Creative Industries

This module is delivered by Theatre and Performance Studies, in partnership with Warwick Arts CentreLink opens in a new window. It aims to give you a broad understanding of the theatre industry in the UK today, occasionally looking beyond to the wider eco-system of international theatre and performance festivals and international touring.

The module aims to introduce you to principles, practices and practicalities in running arts venues; conceiving programmes of work for venues or festivals; ‘making it’ as a new company or artist; marketing and audience development; commissioning and producing new work; funding the arts, the Arts Council and its priorities; and creative learning, education and outreach

Theatre in the African Context

This module traces the diversity of theme and form in the theatre of Africa in the post-colonial context.

It focuses on the social, political and economic changes that have influenced the development of theatre there.

You will work with texts in translation, and discuss topics like these in seminars:

• role of story-telling
• enactment and ritual theatre
• theatrical responses to colonialism
• issues related to gender

"Taking this module really broadened my understanding of how theatre can be used to explore and challenge ideas of identity and different interpretations of history, and I’m excited to develop my knowledge of African theatre in the future." - Beth, 2nd year student

Keep reading Beth's blogLink opens in a new window

Theatre in the Community

Led by one of Britain’s leading theatre practitioners working in the criminal justice system, Theatre in the Community is one of our most popular modules.

You’ll be given a grounding in the contexts, objectives and strategies of drama and theatre in community settings. You’ll develop skills in workshop planning, facilitation, behaviour management, and devising for specific contexts.

For your final assessment you’ll work in a small group to plan, devise and present a performance and workshop to a prison audience

You, the Performer: Presence and Affect

This module is intended for those who want to explore live contemporary performance from the inside, examining specific techniques and aspects of performance through embodied practice.

The module addresses what it is to be (and prepare to be) a performer in diverse settings. It has two main through-lines:

1) an examination of ‘presence’, and the particular work of the performer to inhabit and animate the moment; and

2) an examination of ways in which performers relate to audience members and spectators, especially in an environment where this relationship is increasingly fluid

Wildwork: Theatre, Performance and the Natural World

This module enables students to harness their creative skills towards supporting nature as well as tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. Through seminar-based discussion and hands-on activities, students will critically engage with a range of scholarly, scientific and practical approaches that seek to understand our place in the natural world and to mitigate ecological collapse. Blending theoretical study with real-world application, Wildwork encourages students to explore how their artistic abilities can be used to communicate, support and enact efforts to restore natural habitats, protect species, and effect climate justice. It will also enable students to consider how their own theatrical practices can incorporate sustainable processes.

In seminars throughout the Autumn term, students will be introduced to an array of theoretical concepts related to nature, climate change and biodiversity loss, including the Anthropocene (as well as Capitalocene and Chthulucene), food production, land management, net zero emissions, rewilding, indigenous knowledge, and sustainability. They will also interrogate the work of theatre practitioners and other artists who have engaged in ecological debate, through which students will examine the role of theatre and culture in drawing critical attention towards climate breakdown. These discussions will be supplemented from talks by colleagues in Global Sustainable Development, Warwick Food & Drink, and other cognisant groups.

In the Spring term, students will continue these seminar-based discussions, but will also enhance their scholarly investigation of the climate crisis by gaining practical knowledge of working in, with and for nature. Collaborating with local wildlife organisations and other groups, students will be
given the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities designed to support the natural world.
By drawing links between theoretical knowledge, cultural representation and practical action, students will utilise their agency as artists and scholars to intervene upon and contribute towards solutions pertaining to climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. Capitalising on their creative talents, they will generate imaginative and innovative responses which highlight, disseminate and encourage positive action on behalf of nature. Such responses may include dramatic stagings, performance art, public awareness campaigns, filmed projects, podcasts, interviews, educational resources, and other forms appropriate for their learning. To illustrate their learning, students’ creative work will be shared in the Summer term in a festival of environmentally conscious practices

Wired: Video-Making

Engage creatively with the moving image, develop your practical skills, and learn how to create high-quality productions.

In this module, you will work in groups to create two videos for assessment: one on a set text, and one on a topic of your choosing. We will train you with the specialist equipment in our edit suite including video and audio editing on Adobe Premiere Pro; colour grading using Speedgrade; and incorporating motion graphics and compositing with After Effects.

The only limits are your imagination; former students have created films, stop-frame animations, multimedia installations and more.

By the end of this module, you will have learned how to bring an idea to life for film. You will be able to operate cameras and associated kit, and edit and finalise your footage

Writing for Theatre and Performance

Year Three optional core modules

You will choose between these two options in your third year

Research Dissertation

Dissertations don’t happen in vacuums. This module invites you to become part of a supportive research group as you work on your individual dissertations.

This module is structured to move from more supported thematic sessions, covering the basics of the dissertation research and writing process, towards bespoke sessions which respond to your work, questions, and research needs.

The module aims to support your dissertation journey and you will be given tasks each week to keep you on track – with a real emphasis on writing as a thinking process and being unafraid to draft and re-draft.

As the year progresses you will also take part in a Conference and the practical ‘Write Here, Write Now’ sessions which will give you time for focussed writing and reflection during the seminar

Practice as Research Project

You will develop practical work that is grounded in research. This may take a range of forms, including (but not limited to):

• live theatre
• participatory workshops
• an installation
• a video
• a written play
• a space
• a costume design

You will be supported through in-class workshops, supervision meetings, and work-in-progress showings.

Your final work will be showcased in our state-of-the-art studios at the end of the year

Further options: Study Abroad and external modules

Study Abroad

Every student has the opportunity to spend a year abroad studying at one of our partner institutions.

You can extend your period of study from three to four years, with the intercalated year taking place between your second and final year. The third year is spent at one of our partner institutions, with students returning for a fourth year to complete their degree.

All study abroad opportunities are subject to availability and the location of these places changes regularly but in the past have included institutions in Australia, China, Denmark, Netherlands and North and Latin America.

Your year abroad will be transformational in developing your understanding of other cultures. Warwick students have benefited hugely from engaging fully in the cultural and social life of their host country. An intercalated year, coupled with Warwick’s reputation for employability, will help give you an edge when it comes to taking your first steps beyond university.

Find out more about Study AbroadLink opens in a new window.

External Modules

Do you have a second passion that you don’t want to lose completely at university?

In second- and third-year you are able to select modules outside of your home department. Each year a number of our students will take modules in subjects such as:

• Creative Writing
• English
• Film and Television Studies
• History
• Languages
• Politics
• Psychology

The Centre for Professional Education also run an Introduction to Secondary Teaching in Drama and Theatre Studies module. This includes a school placement, and proves especially popular with our students

Please note: We update our modules every year based on availability and demand, and we update our course content too. The content on this page gives you a really strong indication of what your course will offer, but given the interval between the publication of courses and enrolment, some of the information may change. Read our terms and conditionsto find out mor