Applied Theatre MA

This course is in clearing with spaces available

Overview

Course options

Select year

MA

  • MA Applied Theatre, home applicant, full time

    • Home Applicant
    • Full time, 1 year
    • Pound 10200 Per year
  • MA Applied Theatre, home applicant, part time

    • Home Applicant
    • Part time, 2 years
    • Pound 1700 Per 30 credit module
  • MA Applied Theatre, international applicant, full time

    • International Applicant
    • Full time, 1 year
    • Pound 15420 Per year

Course modules

Select year

Research Methods in Creative Practice

Pedagogy for Social Change

Cultural Politics and Community

Mental Wealth: Practitioners and Praxis

Project Platform

MFA Professional Platform

Creative Practice

NOTE: Modules are subject to change. For those studying part time courses the modules may vary.

Your future career

Your future career

This programme will prepare you for a variety of careers in socially engaged theatre-making. Graduates will work in the creative industries through arts outreach or in social fields where creative interventions are supported such as health, care, and shelter via charities or in local government. Graduates are also encouraged to design and fund their own partnerships with communities and to pursue PhD study. 

A student undertaking the MA Applied Theatre will work in the following areas:

  • Applied theatre practitioner
  • Arts work with subjects in crisis across migration, housing, environment and economic provision
  • Neurodiverse theatre-making
  • Arts advocacy in local government
  • LGBTQ advocacy
  • Decolonial participatory practices
  • Arts and mental health
  • Community arts
  • Learning and participation managers in professional theatres
  • Cultural producer
  • Arts policy
  • Theatre in criminal justice, health and care sectors
  • Independent theatre-making
  • Further study in research

Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.

MA Theatre Performance
This MA Applied Theatre is sector-leading; offering access to industry pathways and professional practitioners held in the utmost respect and providing its students with invaluable placements and contacts. This is an exciting time for applied theatre and it feels timely for UEL to pioneer the way in using theatre for social justice, politics and performance."
Rob Lehmann

Director of Young Lyric, Lyric Hammersmith.

How we support your career ambitions

We offer dedicated careers support, further opportunities to thrive, such as volunteering and industry networking. our courses are created in collaboration with employers and industry to ensure they accurately reflect the real-life practices of your future career and provide you with the essential skills needed. You can focus on building interpersonal skills through group work and benefit from our investment in the latest cutting edge technologies and facilities.

Career Zone

Our dedicated and award-winning team provide you with careers and employability resources, including:

  • Online jobs board for internships, placements, graduate opportunities, flexible part-time work.
  • Mentoring programmes for insight with industry experts 
  • 1-2-1 career coaching services 
  • Careers workshops and employer events 
  • Learning pathways to gain new skills and industry insight

Mental Wealth programme

Our Professional Fitness and Mental Wealth programme which issues you with a Careers Passport to track the skills you’ve mastered. Some of these are externally validated by corporations like Amazon and Microsoft.

See more details

We are careers first

Our teaching methods and geographical location put us right up top

  • Enterprise and entrepreneurship support 
  • We are ranked 6th for graduate start-ups 
  • Networking and visits to leading organisations 
  • Support in starting a new business, freelancing and self-employment 
  • London on our doorstep

What you'll learn

You will develop skills for composing and realising participatory arts projects that set-in-train dialogues in local communities; pedagogic and facilitation practices; collaborative skills in live projects; and, methods for cultural action.

In the module Community and Cultural Politics, you will examine the intersections of performance and social practices through understanding of how race, class, gender etc., are encountered and rehearsed in collective situations. You will consider your position as a cultural producer of ‘community work’ within economies of cultural production.

In Pedagogy for Social Change you will be taught to assemble, organise and facilitate socially engaged and interventionist performance practices. 

Taught with professional practitioners, you will explore pedagogical and ethical considerations in your practices.

Practitioners & Praxis is an opportunity to develop a unique practice-based methodology in a strand of social performance. Following seminars on funding, arts policy, and community/audience engagement, you will develop your digital practitioner profile and pursue self-initiated work.

Building on your knowledge in discourses of community, and the social and political dimensions of performative practices, you will work on a project in a specific community / social setting in the module.

Finally, you will draw your knowledge and skills together by producing a self-designed project in social practice. Your final project can be imagined as interdisciplinary through collaborations with peers on other MAs and/or delivered with specific communities.

How you'll learn

You will work practically with practitioners and companies through placements, reconsider definitions of performance in terms of how and where it takes place and be able to identify critical contemporary moments where the immediacy of performance can be used as a response.

You'll be taught by a range of staff including professional practitioners and by experts who disseminate through publication. You will be prepared to plan, deliver and evaluate your own projects and, to deepen your understanding of the social contexts and cultural politics of your work. 

Placements
The MA/MFA in Applied Theatre offers placements in community, organisational, institutional, or municipal contexts that are critically engaged with society.  A defining feature of your studies, placement learning enables investigation into your specific interests through practitioner-led experiences that enhance your professional practice.

Interdisciplinary collaborations
The programme shares modules with MA Acting and Directing, MA Directing for Stage and Screen and MA Contemporary Performance Practices. Through modules such as Research Methods, Practitioners and Praxis and Project Platform, you will have the choice to work across disciplines exchanging skills with theatre and film-makers interested in social practices.

Guided independent study
When not attending timetabled lectures, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This will typically involve reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking coursework assignments and presentations, and preparing for exams. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and Moodle.

Academic support
Our academic support team provides help in a range of areas - including learning and disability support.

Dedicated personal tutor
When you arrive, we'll introduce you to your personal tutor. This is the member of staff who will provide academic guidance, be a support throughout your time at UEL and who will show you how to make the best use of all the help and resources that we offer.

Your timetable
Your individualised timetable is normally available to students within 48 hours of enrolment. Whilst we make every effort to ensure timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week between 6pm-9pm, and indicatively on a Tuesday and Thursday. The course is designed for evening study to accommodate students who work. Students will take 2 modules a term over 3 terms. During Term 2, students are expected to keep one working day a week for their placement or a block of 2 weeks. Timetables for part-time students will depend on the modules selected.

How you will be assessed

Assessment methods on the MA/MFA Applied Theatre reflects an ethos of learning that nurtures original theatre-based practices and rigorous understandings of how cultural politics is encountered and practised in collective situations.

An array of assessment types evaluates and prompts your development while offering opportunities to try out and test ideas through practice, creative documentation, critical interrogation/ reflection, and project delivery. Your final independent project can be undertaken as a practical project or as a written dissertation.

  • 70% process, placements and practice
  • 30% critical and reflective writing.

Feedback is offered within 15 working days after submission of your assessment.

Campus and facilities

University Square Stratford

Who teaches this course

This course is delivered by School of Arts and Creative Industries

The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.