General entry requirements

Minimum requirements

2:i undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject.

English language requirements

You can find out more about our English language requirementsLink opens in a new window. This course requires the following:

• Band B
• IELTS overall score of 7.0, minimum component scores of two at 6.0/6.5 and the rest at 7.0 or above.

International qualifications

We welcome applications from students with other internationally recognised qualifications.

For more information, please visit the international entry requirements pageLink opens in a new window.

Additional requirements

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

Our research

Areas for MA supervision

Research in the department is transnational, collaborative and interdisciplinary and is focused on the following main - but overlapping - research themes:

• Ethics, Politics, Praxis
• Cities, Places, Environments (Identities)
• Memories, Histories, Futures
• Theory, Aesthetics and the Popular
• Creative Industries and the Value of Culture

Find a supervisor

Find your supervisor using the link below and discuss with them the area you'd like to research.

You should start by checking whether your proposal fits in with our areas of expertise on our researchLink opens in a new window and peopleLink opens in a new window pages.

Then please fill in a research degree inquiry form for theatre and performance studies available on theatre and performance studies postgraduate webpage.

You can also see our general University guidance about finding a supervisor.Link opens in a new window

Tuition fees

Tuition fees are payable for each year of your course at the start of the academic year, or at the start of your course, if later. Academic fees cover the cost of tuition, examinations and registration and some student amenities.

Taught course fees  Research course fees

Fee Status Guidance

We carry out an initial fee status assessment based on the information you provide in your application. Students will be classified as Home or Overseas fee status. Your fee status determines tuition fees, and what financial support and scholarships may be available. If you receive an offer, your fee status will be clearly stated alongside the tuition fee information.

Do you need your fee classification to be reviewed?

If you believe that your fee status has been classified incorrectly, you can complete a fee status assessment questionnaire. Please follow the instructions in your offer information and provide the documents needed to reassess your status.

Find out more about how universities assess fee status

Additional course costs

As well as tuition fees and living expenses, some courses may require you to cover the cost of field trips or costs associated with travel abroad.

For departmental specific costs, please see the Modules tab on the course web page for the list of core and optional core modules with hyperlinks to our Module Catalogue (please visit the Department’s website if the Module Catalogue hyperlinks are not provided).

Associated costs can be found on the Study tab for each module listed in the Module Catalogue (please note most of the module content applies to 2022/23 year of study). Information about module department specific costs should be considered in conjunction with the more general costs below:

• Core text books
• Printer credits
• Dissertation binding
• Robe hire for your degree ceremony

Scholarships and bursaries

Theatre and Performance Studies

Explore the world through the lens of Theatre and Performance Studies with one of the top departments in the UK.

Offering academic rigour, practical skills and connections with the industry, this degree has career prospects both within the arts sector and far beyond. You’ll be taught by world-leading academics and cutting-edge theatre practitioners.

Get to know us better by exploring our departmental website.Link opens in a new window

Our courses

• Applied Theatre: Arts, Action, Change (MA)
• Theatre and Performance Studies (MA by Research)
• Theatre and Performance Studies (MPhil/PhD)

Core course team

Anna Harpin

Anna Harpin’s research explores the intersections between arts and health. In particular, her work intervenes in cultural politics and clinical practices in relation to madness, mental health, and psychiatry. Her recent monograph Madness, Art, and Society: Beyond Illness examined artistic practice and uncovered the clinical lessons of creative work. Harpin’s current project is investigating the politics of tenderness and questioning the meaning, nature, and practice of ‘care’. Her artistic practice with her theatre company, Idiot Child, is likewise engaged with questions around health and wellbeing. The company explore difficult feelings and experiences through performance and their current project, Never Gonna Give You Up, explores loneliness.

Saul Hewish

Saul Hewish is one of the country's leading practitioners in the use of drama and theatre with offenders. He was a founder member and former director of Geese Theatre (UK) (est. 1987) and since 1996 has worked in a freelance capacity developing drama-based responses to crime within youth offending teams, social services departments, and special educational settings.

In 1999 he co-founded Rideout (Creative Arts for Rehabilitation), with Chris Johnston. Over the last twenty years this company has built a strong reputation for innovative and experimental arts-based projects within the criminal justice system in the UK and across Europe. This includes theatre and digital video projects in prisons as well as the production of cross artform projects that span the divide between prison and the wider public. He is a co-author of Challenging Experience: An Experiential Approach to the Treatment of Serious Offenders and was a recipient of a 2005 Butler Trust Certificate Award, a national award which recognises exceptional work by staff in HM Prison Service.

Nadine Holdsworth

Nadine Holdsworth’s research spans questions of representation, participation, citizenship, political change and cultural value. She has worked on the creative activism of a number of leading mid-century practitioners including Joan Littlewood and John McGrath and her current project, A Divided Nation: theatre and social abjection, explores how theatre and performance can be used to illuminate pressing social issues and marginalised groups. These concerns are also central to her involvement with the ‘Homeless Monopoly’ project, with collaborators Jackie Calderwood from Coventry University and a Coventry-based charity Cyrenians, which is exploring how gamification, arts-based methodologies and collaborative play can be used to educate and build resilience amongst young people around the topic of homelessness.

Yvette Hutchison

Yvette Hutchison is a South African academic whose work focuses on Anglophone African theatre, dance and intercultural performance. She has taught on and worked in various theatre for development and community theatre projects in Africa and the UK.

Her most current research is an AHRC-funded project to create a virtual network connecting African women-identified creative practitioners with one another and other interested parties, including schools that want to widen curricula, through the African Women Playwrights Network. Her next collaborative project, with Lliane Loots of Flatfoot Dance Company, will trace the relationship between disability dance and citizenship with specific companies in various African countries.

Bobby Smith

Bobby Smith’s research and practice examines the ways in which theatre and performance offer artistic and creative approaches to activism, education and social action. He was previously a freelance practitioner with experience in settings including schools, youth centres, within the criminal justice system and internationally. He also managed and coordinated applied theatre projects – for example, a drugs education and sexual health project in West London schools. Bobby has worked as a consultant for several charities, writing resources and training staff, particularly in the area of Theatre for Development.

Bobby’s most recent work includes building a network of theatre practitioners exploring violence in Rwanda, Kenya and Northern Ireland and projects which consider the climate crisis with young people internationally.