This is the course for those wanting to bring their own theatrical ideas and passions to a constantly changing industry.
This is the course for the innovators and the exciters.
For the rule-breakers and the experimenters.
For the players and the game-changers.
This is the course for the performance makers of the future.

Our Theatre and Performance degree, in partnership with Manchester’s renowned Contact theatre, trains the next generation of creative performers to make postmodern and metamodern theatre. Rooted in contemporary theatre, in the experimental and the avant-garde, the programme is challenging, dynamic, and highly practical, for those students who are not only exceptional performers but also artistic, imaginative, and resourceful makers. Importantly, this is not an actor training programme, rather a course designed to nurture and develop the tools to create and perform original work, as opposed to acting in somebody else’s. Each of our public performances, of which there are twelve across the year, are notoriously evocative, convention-breaking, and extraordinary.

Whilst studying on this BA (Hons) programme, you will train in four key areas: performance making, physical skills, vocal skills, and critical thinking. You will be introduced to a wide range of core performance disciplines from devising, mask, and clowning, have the option of selecting projects that include filmmaking, site-specific performance, and prison theatre, as well as perform both nationally and internationally. You will take advantage of the rich Mancunian theatre scene, engage in additional workshops led by professional companies, and benefit from the established industry-experienced team of lecturers. Throughout your studies you will develop and hone your skills and methodologies, which will ultimately result in the development and production of your very own unique performance festival, unTaPped, hosted at Contact for a public audience that includes industry professionals.

FEES, FINANCE AND FUNDING

The fees for this BA (Hons) degree in Theatre and Performance are currently £8,900 per year.

Year 1

Acting: Expand your understanding of Stanislavski’s methodology, explore scripts, and engage in a process to develop an actor’s toolkit for the creation of character.

Presentational Performance: Explore the role of the audience, the performer, and their relationship, alongside the conventions of theatre for your first public performance.

Performance Skills: Develop a range of interdisciplinary techniques and performance strategies including movement, voice, and, singing and perform your own stand-up comedy set at the annual ‘Laugh Your TaP Off’.

Contextualising Contemporary Performance: Learn about how historical and cultural movements have informed and influenced current theatre and performance.

Autobiographical Performance: Investigate your own personal narratives and memories in the creation of your own solo performance.

Devised Performance: The first year culminates in a large ensemble performance, which is performed as part of the annual mini-festival ‘unTaPped’.

Year 2

Touring Theatre: Create an ensemble performance to take on a weeklong tour across the North West before developing it into a 45-minute performance to transfer to our in-house theatre for a public audience.

Solo Practice: Select a discipline from filmmaking, durational performance, and plastiques and engage in technical and performance skills in the creation of a solo practical outcome.

Advanced Performance Skills: Develop your exploration and application of interdisciplinary techniques through the exploration of clowning, mask, movement, voice, and singing to perform at our annual cabaret night.

Researching Contemporary Performance: Extend your theoretical understanding of theatre and performance and develop your critical thinking in connection to your own work.

Locating Performance: Explore the practice of locating performance in different spaces and choose to produce and perform in an outcome for either site-specific performance or mapping through performance.

Performance Environments: Consider the participants’ or audiences’ role in performance work and choose to produce and perform in an outcome for either street theatre or prison theatre.

Year 3

Professional Collaboration: Create an ensemble performance under the direction and facilitation of a visiting professional theatre company or solo artist.

International Performance: Create work for a non-British audience with the opportunity of travelling to Eastern Europe to perform the piece and create a prologue with the students there.

Professional Performance Skills: Complete your skill-set as a contemporary performance maker through the continued exploration of voice and physicality by creating a performance video in your own artistic style.

Negotiated Research Project: Utilise your academic skills and critical thinking to develop either a written or performed dissertation, exploring subjects that you are passionate about, with support from one to one supervisory tutorials.

Restaging Performance: Revisit your devised performance from the first year module and apply all of your knowledge, skills, and development to rework and develop the piece as a professional show.

Micro Festival: Your degree culminates in the management, presentation, and performance of our annual mini-festival ‘unTaPped’, a platform to present your work to an audience of industry professionals.

Upon completion of you BA (Hons) degree in Theatre and Performance you will have the skillset and ability to form a professional theatre company or create work as a solo artist. Alternatively, the course can lead to employment in the industry, particularly in theatre administration, organisation, and programming. Training in Theatre and Performance is also ideal for you if you are interested in teaching drama or theatre as it introduces you to a wide range of performance styles and techniques. Graduates of Theatre and Performance are equipped with a set of unique skills, which make them extremely attractive to many industries and professional platforms.

Lauren Greer (2017)

Upon graduating from Theatre and Performance Lauren commenced her creative journey, pushing boundaries and experimenting with unconventional theatre spaces. Her first show was with the award-winning Royal Exchange Theatre Young Company, exploring the decriminalization of homosexuality in England against the backdrop of the theatre’s basement in We Were Told There Was Dancing. As a Royal Exchange Creative Practitioner, she regularly delivered workshops for the Children’s Company, Tameside Elders, Salford Community Leisure, and Z-Arts.

Lauren was invited to perform at The Big Community Picnic, curated by Mighty Heart Theatre and has also worked with Declared Theatre on their new-writing showcase, performing in Blousy Weather at the People’s History Museum. In 2019 Lauren performed at Manchester Art Gallery in collaboration with Contact & Young Identity in Old Tools > New Masters ≠ New Futures, a performative attempt to decolonise public space through poetry, movement, and song.

More recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lauren was commissioned to create a piece of new work as part of Greater Manchester’s creative response to the global crisis that will be permanently documented in the GMCA’s online archives.