A group of students taking part in a drama performance

Course Summary

If you are seeking the opportunity to focus on the stage or screen as an actor, director, creator, or script writer and want to step into new and exciting creative territories, then this is the course for you. It is carefully designed for you to navigate and develop your practice and knowledge at a professional level. Offering expert tuition, and exploration of practices, research methods and critical frameworks, you will receive support to realise your creative ambitions, developing your performance and creative skills, theoretical understanding, and research interests. Our modules cover advanced level teaching in essential theories and practices, performance and creative approaches, technological platforms, areas of research strategy, analysis, documentation, and essay writing. During your MA studies you will undertake either a written research dissertation, or a practical project, leading to the production of a substantial piece of creative work (for example a substantive performance, workshop, lecture, or event). The foundation of this course is our belief in artistic development through active self-discovery; arming you to be able to execute your own highly engaging and creative work. 

Teaching takes place in our Creative Campus, Kingsway, which offers 6,920 square metres of floor space, including a 200-seat lecture theatre, rehearsal and performance studios, a learning resource centre, subject-specific IT labs housing 200 Macs and PCs, and two catering outlets.

Why you'll Love it


What you'llStudy

Our modules cover drama theories and practices, performance and creative practices, areas of research strategy, analysis, documentation, and essay writing which require you to engage with and develop your knowledge and skills to an advanced level. In the final phase of the MA, you will undertake either a written research dissertation, or a practical project.

Module content:

This module looks at a range of research methodologies appropriate to the development of analytical and critical research skills.

The module will cover topics including, fieldwork methods, ethnography, practice based research, retrieval skills, referencing and academic writing. 


Module aims:

The aims of the module are as follows: 

  • To enable students to understand the purposes of appropriate research methodologies
  • To enable students to use appropriate research methodologies
  • To ensure students are equipped to reference contemporary academic theory and practice appropriately

Module content:

This module provides an opportunity for the student to give their artistic expression increased breadth and depth. This will take the form of a substantial project. The student will undertake extensive research to underpin this project. Students can work individually or may work with their peers, with undergraduate students of the department or with external contacts and agencies.


Module aims:

The aims of the module are as follows: 

  • To facilitate the development of a large scale research-led project
  • To enable the student to interrogate their own creative practice
  • To encourage the documentation of methods and processes in order to engender a thorough understanding of themselves as a practitioner within their chosen discipline

Module content:

This module facilitates the opportunity for students to produce an academically informed piece of research, subject to tutor-approval. Students are required to identify and justify a viable area for research, frame an appropriate question, exhibit extensive knowledge of previous research in the field, and make informed decisions about the appropriate methodology for the research, which should ideally involve some primary research. 

Topics can be wide-ranging; students may wish to examine the working practices of professional individuals or companies, a genre or trend in current practice or the manifestation of a body of theoretical concern. The subject matter of the inquiry may be the candidates’ own practice but would need to include reference to other contemporary practice to contextualise their work with that which is at the forefront of the discipline. 


Module aims:

The aims of the module are as follows: 

  • To enable students to demonstrate advanced knowledge and sophisticated understanding of a particular aspect of their discipline.
  • To facilitate opportunities for the student to apply various research methods and approaches to test a hypothesis and or offer original interpretation.
  • To allow the student to demonstrate complex and systematic critical analysis skills and an ability to apply and critique theoretical ideas and concepts.

Module content:

This module will provide students with the opportunity to investigate and explore a personal research agenda from which the production and presentation of new performance work will emerge and be shared. 

Seminars and a series of intensive workshops will encourage students to connect with current debates in relation to drama and theatre performance production, perception and reception. From this students will develop a practice-led research proposal through which they will engage with all strategies and methodologies that translate their proposed work from intention through to realisation either live or online. This will allow students to evaluate the making and witnessing of work within critical and evaluative frameworks.

 


Module aims:

The aims of the module are to: 

  • Enable the implementation of a practical research strategy developing critical foundations in realising new performance work. 
  • Enable the students to produce work that engages with solo and/or collaborative authorship
  • Interrogate new working methodologies
  • Examine the process of critical appraisal and feedback mechanisms within the context of praxis; to witness and read work in progress
  • Facilitate the investigation in methods of documenting, recording, and evaluating performance processes

Module content:

This module provides an opportunity to investigate, construct and present a performance. It is envisaged that the student will extend and develop their current knowledge or to investigate a different role/practice as research experience.

Additionally, the development of students’ ability to document work with greater rigour using a variety of formats, particularly the use of online and digital platforms will be explored and developed.

Furthermore, students will be able to investigate and align theoretical frameworks to their own performance project and at the same time increase their critical reflective abilities in performance documentation. 

 


Module aims:

The aims of the module are as follows: 

  • To further develop the students' skills and knowledge in the planning, managing and execution of a performance project.
  • To enable students to use theory as a creative tool in performance making.
  • To develop the students' research methods applicable from intention to reception and the evaluation of the inquiry.
  • To give student guidance in further developing strategies of documentation.

Module content:

This module will provide students with the opportunity to interrogate drama and theatre practices within various contexts, mapping out emerging territories of current discourse, theoretical frameworks, and practice-based research. 

The module will act as a springboard from which students are encouraged to establish authorial engagement and ownership of discursive language, used to frame and navigate personal research, theory and practice.

Rather than working through a conventional syllabus, the module will work through a series of investigations into specific topics and frameworks that are of particular relevance to current activity in the fields of drama and theatre, e.g. conceptions of practice and theory, devising and creation, participation and democracy, empirical and practice-based research, and performance practice.


Module aims:

The aims of the module are as follows: 

  • To enable students to identify and map out the territory of current drama and theatre practitioners, practices, and associated theoretical frameworks
  • To examine the relationships between intention(s), context(s) and reception(s)
  • To facilitate the emergence of a personal methodology of practice supported by scholarly research
Drama MA

Drama MA

Who you'll Learn from

Dr Evelyn Jamieson

Associate Professor, Programme Leader for MA Dance and MA Drama
Dr  Evelyn Jamieson

Dr Stef Kerrigan

Lecturer
Dr Stef Kerrigan

Caroline Ford

Senior Lecturer - Division of Communication, Screen & Performance
Caroline Ford

Dr Shelley Piasecka

Associate Professor of Theatre and Applied Drama and Programme Leader MRes Arts & Media.
Dr Shelley Piasecka

Kristian Rozells

Programme Leader in MA Popular Music
Kristian Rozells

Dr Pamela Barnes

Programme Leader for BA Acting
Pamela Barnes

How you'll Learn

Teaching includes lectures, practical workshops, presentations, seminars, performances, small group and one-to-one tutorials. Assessment can take the form of performances, lecture demonstrations, practical presentations, workshops, oral examinations, essays, and through forms of documentation.

Entry Requirements

2:2 honours degree

The standard requirement is a 2:2 honours degree, or an equivalent qualification is required in any relevant discipline such as theatre, drama, dance, performing arts, media performance, theatre studies, arts management or other cognate fields. Admission is by written application and interview.

2:2 honours degree

The standard requirement is a 2:2 honours degree, or an equivalent qualification is required in any relevant discipline such as theatre, drama, dance, performing arts, media performance, theatre studies, arts management or other cognate fields. Admission is by written application and interview.

See below for your country specific requirements. Please note, some programmes have special entry requirements and if applicable, these are listed below.

English Language Requirements

For more information on our English Language requirements, please visit International Entry Requirements.

Where you'll Study Creative Campus, Kingsway, Chester

Fees and Funding

£9,630for the full course (2025/26)

Guides to the fees for students who wish to commence postgraduate courses in the academic year 2025/26 are available to view on our Postgraduate Taught Programmes Fees page.

£15,000for a full-time course (2025/26)

The tuition fees for international students studying Postgraduate programmes in 2025/26 are £15,000.

Please note: For MSc programmes where a placement or project year is undertaken there will be an additional charge of £2,650 in 2024/25 and in 2025/26 the additional charge will be £2,750 for the placement/project in the second year.

The University of Chester offers generous international and merit-based scholarships for postgraduate study, providing a significant reduction to the published headline tuition fee. You will automatically be considered for these scholarships when your application is reviewed, and any award given will be stated on your offer letter.

For more information, go to our International Fees, Scholarship and Finance section.

Irish Nationals living in the UK or ROI are treated as Home students for Tuition Fee Purposes.

Your course will involve additional costs not covered by your tuition fees. This may include books, printing, photocopying, educational stationery and related materials, specialist clothing, travel to placements, optional field trips and software. Compulsory field trips are covered by your tuition fees. 

The University of Chester supports fair access for students who may need additional support through a range of bursaries and scholarships. 

Full details, as well as terms and conditions for all bursaries and scholarships can be found on the Fees and Finance section of our website.

Your Future Career

Job Prospects 

Graduates from this course have become actors, directors, producers, formed their own companies, initiated portfolio careers as performers or workshop leaders, undertaken PGCEs, taught in schools and higher education, entered management or training posts, and gone onto further study at PhD level. Students hone their professional performance and creative practice abilities, and demonstrate exceptional transferable skills of communication, self-confidence, energy, and drive. 

Careers service

The University has an award-winning Careers and Employability service which provides a variety of employability-enhancing experiences; through the curriculum, through employer contact, tailored group sessions, individual information, advice and guidance.

Careers and Employability aims to deliver a service which is inclusive, impartial, welcoming, informed and tailored to your personal goals and aspirations, to enable you to develop as an individual and contribute to the business and community in which you will live and work.

We are here to help you plan your future, make the most of your time at University and to enhance your employability. We provide access to part-time jobs, extra-curricular employability-enhancing workshops and offer practical one-to-one help with career planning, including help with CVs, applications and mock interviews. We also deliver group sessions on career planning within each course and we have a wide range of extensive information covering graduate jobs and postgraduate study.