T +44 (0)1206 873666 | E admit@essex.ac.uk | www.essex.ac.uk/lifts | Drama Course modules


BA Drama First year


Introduction to Drama Introduction to Theatre Making


Introduction to Literature Close Reading (half-module)


Writing Skills (half-module)


Second year Three drama options Plus one humanities option


Third year Three drama options One literature, film, or theatre studies option


BA Drama and Literature


First year


Introduction to Drama Introduction to Literature Introduction to Rhetoric The Enlightenment Plus one half-module from: Writing Skills Introduction to US Literature


Introduction to European Literature


Second year Two drama options Two literature options


Third year Two drama options Two literature options


Details of options from the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, can be found in their individual prospectus entries.


This information is a guide to course content and is subject to review on an annual basis.


Models of Misrule (second year) Using The Bacchae as a starting point, this module investigates theatre as an arena for anarchy, disorder and rebellion, exploring its innate power to de-stabilise both social conformity and dramatic convention. Key points of contact between plays, selected for their subversive energy, are deliberately juxtaposed across time-scales, genres and origin. Using plays drawn from Britain, the USA and Ireland, the module will explore how playwrights revisit canonical texts in order to challenge and deconstruct notions of national identity.


Gender in Performance (second year) From Aphra Behn to Sarah Kane, the comedy and tragedy of relations between the sexes has been a dynamic and inspiring force throughout theatre’s history. This module focuses on theatre as a forum for examining, challenging and subverting notions of gender. Drawing on a wide range of texts, old and new, classical and modern, it will look at the way the stage has been used to explore gender roles and sexual identities, and to debate issues of power, sexuality and sexual politics.


Twentieth-Century Political Theatre (third year) The aim of this module is two-fold. It provides an introduction to the diverse transformation to modern drama brought about by twentieth- and twenty-first century dramatists attempting to engage with their social and political contexts. In this way, it examines not only the various ways in which political themes are portrayed in theme and plot, but also the striking innovations made to set, sound and costume. In the second term, the module focuses in more detail on dominant themes in the plays, notably the individual in society, alternative societies, national identity and nation-building, power, colonial rule and the representation of history.


Writing for the Theatre (third year) This is a practical module which aims to introduce you to some of the tools and techniques involved in writing successfully for the theatre. The module examines the flexibility and variety of theatre as a story-telling medium and looks at some of the many different approaches available to the playwright.


European Naturalism and After (third year) This module examines some of the major figures in European drama from Henrik Ibsen in the 1880s to Samuel Beckett in the 1950s. As well as tracing major changes in theatrical style, the module examines a number of recurrent themes, including the representation of women, social power, and the criticism of bourgeois values.


Contemporary Theatre Texts: 1990 to the present (third year) This module examines the developments that have been made (and are continuing to be made) in the theatres since 1990, looking at how playwrights investigate particular issues and use different ways to structure their texts. You will examine variations and developments in story, narrative, theme, character and actor/audience relationship.


Devised Performance: Between Art and Life (third year) This module will introduce you to a range of methods used in creating devised performance and to a number of influential practitioners whose work has been challenging ‘traditional’ theatre practice since the 1960s. The development of devised performance as a strand of mainstream theatre has been in response to constraints of theatre traditions dominated by the play text and stage set. Artists have sought to explore new ways to create text, to seek out alternative locations and to experiment with art forms and styles. A critical language describing the devised range of this work has emerged under the umbrella of performance theory and includes live-art/performance-art, site-specific, installation art, actionism, interventionism and visual, physical, digital and multimedia performance.


Restoring the Repertoire (third year) The aim of this module is to read, explore, and evaluate neglected plays from the eighteenth century (1688-1832) in conjunction with the ‘Restoring the Repertoire’ research project at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds. As the only working restored Regency theatre in Britain, the Theatre Royal’s mission is to discover, evaluate, and produce plays from this period in much the same way that the Globe Theatre in London has undertaken


Undergraduate Prospectus 2012 | 103


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