Writing for Performance (Taught)

The Master of Studies (MSt) in Writing for Performance is designed for postgraduate students who wish to develop high-level theoretical skills and a vibrant and innovative creative practice within writing for a wide range of performance mediums.

Writing for performance is defined as making scripts or text for:

• theatre

• film/TV

• radio drama

• performance art podcasts

• digital platforms

• stand-up comedy

You’ll develop skills initially in all mediums and then be guided to choose a specific genre of script-making for the final project. You’ll develop the capacity to critically reflect on your own work, the work of your peer-group, and that of other professional writers.

This course is designed for people wishing to develop as dramatists to improve their professional careers in the entertainment industry as writers or directors, or to enhance their skills as dramaturgs/script editors to follow a career in literary management, publishing or agenting. You may also be interested in this course if you wish to enrich your creative writing/drama teaching practice at GCSE or on A-Level English Language or Literature courses.

Students on the MSt in Writing for Performance could include those currently working, or wishing to work, in the creative industries. This might include teachers, publishers, dramaturgs, literary managers, journalists and broadcasters.

The overall aims of the MSt in Writing for Performance are to:

• enable students to develop high levels of expertise as writers of performance through engagement with forms of ‘embodied knowledge’, and ‘learning through doing’, within both group and individual contexts

• facilitate students’ creative practice, and to encourage originality and experimentation with narrative structures and story-telling

• use theory and philosophy to develop and enhance students’ creative practice through engagement with performance theory and the critical history of performance

• identify, encourage, and consolidate the distinct and individual strengths within students’ work

• explore, both critically and creatively, the world of dramatic writing across a range of performance genres and mediums

• develop skills relevant to professional development for those working in creative, pedagogic, or industry contexts

• create a safe and empathetic teaching environment that students can trust, in order that they may produce their most innovative creative work